Namibian passport holders must have an ETA approved before they leave Windhoek. With no Sri Lankan mission in Namibia, applying online is the practical route to a 30-day stay with two entries on the island.
30 days
Stay on a tourist ETA
Double
Entries permitted
6 months
Passport validity needed
3 options
Tourist, Business, Transit
100% online
No embassy visit
Overview
Few Namibians have Sri Lanka on their list, and those who go tend to come back surprised by how different it is from home. Namibia is one of the driest and emptiest countries on earth; Sri Lanka is small, green, wet and crowded, with rainforest, tea terraces and a warm sea you can swim in without a wetsuit.
The journey is long and involves at least two connections, so the last thing you want is a paperwork problem discovered at Hosea Kutako. Sri Lanka asks every foreign visitor, Namibians included, to obtain an Electronic Travel Authorisation before travelling. It is applied for online, and because Sri Lanka has no embassy or consulate in Windhoek, online is in practice the only sensible way to arrange it.
Below you will find what the authorisation allows a Namibian passport holder to do, where Namibian names most often go wrong on the form, and how to route through Johannesburg and the Gulf.
At a glance
Eligibility
Namibian citizens do need an ETA for Sri Lanka, whatever the length of the visit. No bilateral exemption exists between Windhoek and Colombo. You may see the same document described online as a Sri Lanka visa or an e-visa; the official name is Electronic Travel Authorisation, and it exists only as a record tied to your passport number.
Namibia falls outside the list of countries whose citizens have the government charge removed, which means the standard rate is what a Namibian passport attracts. One relief applies to families: no government fee is taken for a child under 12 on a tourist ETA. The child still appears on the application.
A good number of Namibians hold German citizenship by descent alongside their Namibian one. If that describes you, the application is judged on whichever passport you enter, so settle which document you will travel on before you start and use it for the flight booking too.
The tourist option is for leisure: sightseeing, beaches, seeing friends, a yoga or Ayurveda retreat, a sporting or cultural event. Namibians travelling for a mining, fisheries or tourism trade meeting, or to attend a seminar, are making a business visit and should select the business option. Employment of any kind is outside both.
Stay & validity
On a Namibian passport the tourist ETA grants 30 days, and the count begins on the day of your first arrival, not the day the approval is issued. Since the journey from Windhoek consumes the better part of two days each way, most Namibian visitors plan two to three weeks, which fits with room to spare.
You may enter twice. That is useful if you want to break the trip with a few days in the Maldives or southern India and then fly home from Colombo. Both arrivals have to fall within the original 30 days, and on the second you receive the unused remainder only. A traveller who leaves on day twelve comes back to eighteen days.
The approval can be used for travel during the six months after it is issued, so it can be arranged well before a holiday planned around the December break. Your passport, though, must have six months of validity remaining on the day you land. If the expiry date is close, renew first, because a new passport means a new ETA.
Pricing
Live fees for Namibian passport holders, shown all-in — any government charge that applies to your passport and our service fee together, with nothing added later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Namibia
Requirements
Everything Namibian passport holders need before starting an application. The first five items apply to every applicant; the rest are specific to your nationality.
Passport valid for at least six months from the date you arrive in Sri Lanka — the same passport you will travel on
A clear image of the passport bio-data page, with every corner visible and no glare over the photograph
A working email address, which is where the approval is sent and which you should be able to open while travelling
A credit or debit card for online payment
Your intended arrival date and an address in Sri Lanka, such as your first hotel
Simple process
Four steps, entirely online, with one form per traveller and a full review before you pay.
Pick the Tourist, Business or Transit option that matches the real purpose of your trip, and add every traveller in your party to the same application.
Give each traveller's details exactly as printed on the passport, plus the intended arrival date and an address in Sri Lanka. Entries are made in English.
Check every name, date and passport number on the review screen before paying. Corrections are simple at this stage and difficult afterwards.
The approval is linked electronically to your passport number. Keep a copy on your phone and a printout with your travel documents for check-in and arrival.
Approvals for Namibian applicants generally come through within a day or two. Our advice is to apply no later than three to five days before you leave Windhoek, and earlier if you can. A journey of three flight segments on separate tickets is expensive to rebook, so an approval in your inbox a fortnight ahead removes a risk.
If you are travelling over the December and January school holidays, treat late November as your deadline. That is high season on Sri Lanka's south coast and the busiest period for applications from everywhere.
Namibia now keeps the same time all year, which puts Colombo a constant three and a half hours ahead of Windhoek. By the time offices open in Namibia it is already late morning in Sri Lanka. Factor in the monthly Poya public holiday there, and you can see why a same-week application leaves little slack.
On arrival
An approved ETA gets you on the plane. This is what happens once you land, and how to make the arrival as quick as possible.
Bandaranaike International Airport at Katunayake, about 30 kilometres north of Colombo, handles nearly all international arrivals. Follow the signs to immigration and join the foreign passport queue.
The officer retrieves your ETA from the passport number. Have the approval email to hand as a backup, on paper or saved offline, since airport connectivity is not guaranteed.
You may be asked where you are staying, how long for and when you leave. A hotel confirmation and your return ticket answer all three in a few seconds.
Your passport is endorsed with the date you must leave by. Read it at the counter — that date, not the length of your booking, is what counts if your plans change.
Getting there
No airline flies from Namibia to Sri Lanka, and none of the Gulf carriers that serve Colombo currently makes Windhoek an easy single connection. The dependable pattern is a short Airlink flight from Hosea Kutako to Johannesburg or Cape Town, then Emirates through Dubai or Qatar Airways through Doha to Bandaranaike. Travellers from the coast can start at Walvis Bay.
Best time to go
Namibia's long school holiday in December and January coincides with the dry season on Sri Lanka's south and west coasts. Galle Fort, Unawatuna, Mirissa and the beaches south of Colombo are at their best, and the tea estates around Nuwara Eliya and Ella are clear and cool.
The shorter break around late April and May is a shoulder period. Rain is arriving on the south-west side, but the east coast is opening up, and the Vesak full moon in May fills towns with lanterns and free food stalls.
The August holiday is the one to use for the east. Trincomalee, Nilaveli and Pasikudah have calm, clear water, Arugam Bay has its surf, and in Kandy the Esala Perahera procession usually falls in late July or August.
Namibians know wildlife, and it helps to set expectations. Yala and Wilpattu are dense, bushy parks where the prize is a leopard at close range, nothing like the open pans of Etosha. Minneriya's gathering of Asian elephants in the dry months from July to September is the sight most likely to impress someone raised on desert-adapted herds.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Namibia — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
German-Namibian surnames with ä, ö or ü are converted in the machine-readable zone of the passport, usually to AE, OE and UE. The application should follow those two lines of capital letters at the foot of the photo page.
Many Namibians have a Christian or European first name and one or more names in Oshiwambo, Otjiherero or Khoekhoegowab that appear on the passport but not on bank cards or tickets. The ETA needs every given name the passport lists, in the same order, even if your boarding pass shows only one.
With a connection in Johannesburg and another in Dubai or Doha, you can leave Namibia on a Friday and reach Colombo on a Sunday morning. Putting your departure date in the arrival field is a common slip. Work out the landing date of the last leg and enter that.
There is no Sri Lankan embassy in Namibia to visit if something goes wrong the day before you fly. An error spotted after payment means a fresh application online, so read the review screen slowly against the passport.
Passport number mistyped
The authorisation attaches to the number you enter. One wrong character produces an ETA that does not match the passport handed over at the counter, and a paid application cannot be edited afterwards.
Passport with under six months left
Sri Lanka expects six months of validity counted from the day you arrive, not the day you apply. A passport that falls short is refused at check-in regardless of the ETA.
The wrong ETA type
Attending meetings or a conference on a tourist ETA is outside its conditions. Choose the option that matches what you will actually do in the country.
Conditions
These conditions are set by Sri Lanka's Department of Immigration and Emigration and do not vary by nationality.
Sri Lanka requires an Electronic Travel Authorisation for short visits by all foreign nationals, and it should be approved before you travel. Even where the government charge is waived, the authorisation itself is still required.
The authorisation is recorded against the passport number you enter. If that passport is lost, replaced or renewed before you travel, the ETA does not move across and a new application is needed.
A tourist ETA allows two entries. The stay period runs from your first arrival, so a second entry is granted only the balance of that period rather than a fresh allowance.
A tourist ETA covers holidays, family visits, medical treatment and cultural or sporting events. Business meetings, conferences and short training need the business option, and a stopover of up to two days uses the transit option.
Immigration officers at the port of entry may ask for a confirmed return or onward ticket and evidence that you can support yourself for the length of your stay.
An approved ETA lets you travel to Sri Lanka. The decision to admit you is made by an immigration officer on arrival, and the conditions printed on your approval govern your stay.
Consular services
Sri Lanka has no resident mission in Windhoek; Namibia is covered by the High Commission in Pretoria. Namibian holidaymakers have no reason to travel there or post documents, as the ETA is requested and delivered electronically. Pretoria is relevant only for purposes outside the online system, such as media work that needs government clearance in advance.
FAQs
The questions Namibian passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes. Namibian citizens need an Electronic Travel Authorisation, the document most people mean when they say Sri Lanka visa, and it should be approved before departure. The tourist version permits a stay of 30 days and two entries.
Online. Sri Lanka has no embassy in Namibia, and the mission responsible for the country is in Pretoria. You can complete the application on this page and receive the result by email.
Usually a day or two, though no fixed time is promised. Because the trip from Windhoek involves several flights, we recommend applying at least three to five days ahead, and before the end of November for a December holiday.
Yes, Namibian adults are charged the standard government rate, in addition to our service fee. The government part is not charged for children under 12 travelling as tourists. See the live prices shown on this page for current figures.
It does, because the ETA belongs to one passport number and the charge depends on the nationality of that passport. Choose the one you will travel on throughout, enter it on the form, and present the same passport on arrival in Colombo.
Most travellers fly Airlink to Johannesburg and connect there to Emirates through Dubai or Qatar Airways through Doha. Allow a generous layover in Johannesburg if the tickets are separate.
An extension can be requested from the Department of Immigration and Emigration, whose head office is in Battaramulla near Colombo. You need to apply before your permitted stay ends.
Yes. The six months are measured from the day you arrive in Sri Lanka. If your Namibian passport is close to that limit, renew it before applying, because an ETA issued on the old passport number cannot be carried over to the new one.
Your nationality is already set to Namibia. Complete the form in around ten minutes, review every detail, and receive your ETA by email.
Other nationalities
Charges, routes and the practical details differ by passport. Here are the guides for other nationalities.
