Nauruan passport holders need an ETA approved before boarding for Colombo, usually after a first leg to Brisbane. It allows a 30-day visit with two entries and is requested entirely online.
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
Nauru is a single raised coral island of barely twenty square kilometres, and its people are used to the idea that going anywhere at all means a flight to Brisbane first. Sri Lanka is not a common onward choice, but it does draw Nauruans: for a holiday with more variety than a beach, for Ayurvedic treatment, and for sporting or Commonwealth events.
Before any of that, Sri Lanka wants an Electronic Travel Authorisation in place. The term confuses people who search for a Sri Lanka visa for Nauruan citizens, yet the two phrases describe one online permission for short visits. A Nauruan passport holder should not expect to board for Colombo without it.
What follows sets out the position for Nauruans specifically: the charge category, the 30-day limit, the documents, and the practicalities of a trip that starts on Nauru Airlines and ends at Bandaranaike International a day or two later.
At a glance
Eligibility
Nauruan citizens do need an ETA, with no carve-out for small states or Commonwealth members. It has to be approved in advance and it is tied to the number of the passport you enter, which is why the document you apply with must be the one you carry.
Sri Lanka has lifted its government charge on tourist ETAs for forty named nationalities, and Nauru's neighbours Australia and New Zealand are among them. Nauru itself is not. The standard government rate therefore applies to a Nauruan passport, and our service fee is added for preparing and submitting the application; current totals are in the live prices shown on this page.
Children are treated slightly differently. For a Nauruan child younger than 12, the government fee is not charged on a tourist visit lasting up to 30 days. The child still needs to appear on an application with a valid passport of their own.
Be accurate about why you are going. A weightlifter or footballer entering a competition, a family on holiday and a patient booked into a wellness retreat are all tourists in Sri Lanka's terms. Someone sent by a government department to a workshop, or by an employer to negotiate a contract, is a business visitor and should pick the business option.
Stay & validity
Nauruans receive 30 days in Sri Lanka from the date of first entry. You have six months from the day of approval in which to make the journey, and the wording on the approval itself is what finally governs the visit.
The ETA can be used for two arrivals. That helps if you intend to spend a few days in the Maldives mid-trip, since you may come back to Colombo for your flight home. The return does not buy more time: days spent outside the country still come off the same 30.
A longer stay is a matter for the Department of Immigration and Emigration in Battaramulla, outside Colombo, and must be applied for while your original permission is current. Do not build a plan on leaving and re-entering again and again; using successive visits to live in Sri Lanka is not allowed on a tourist ETA.
Pricing
Live fees for Nauruan 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 Nauru
Requirements
Everything Nauruan 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.
Approval for a Nauruan application typically arrives in a day or two. No one can promise a particular turnaround, and a blurred passport image is the most frequent cause of a longer wait.
The official suggestion of three to five days before departure is workable for Nauruans who are already in Brisbane. If you are starting from the island, apply before you book the Nauru Airlines seat or at least a fortnight ahead, because the limited schedule gives you little chance to recover from a late approval. December and January, when Sri Lanka is busiest, deserve extra margin.
Nauru keeps the same time all year, six and a half hours ahead of Colombo. An application sent on a Nauruan morning reaches Sri Lanka in the small hours, so a same-day response is unlikely; look for it the next day.
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
Nauru Airlines is the only carrier at Nauru International, and Brisbane is its main gateway, about four and a half hours away. From Brisbane, Nauruans can connect through Singapore or Kuala Lumpur to Colombo, or take a domestic flight to Melbourne or Sydney and board SriLankan Airlines' nonstop. The airline also flies to Nadi, which opens up the Fiji Airways service to Singapore. Passing through Australia or Fiji has its own entry or transit conditions, separate from the ETA.
Best time to go
Nauru's wetter months, roughly November to February, coincide with the dry season on Sri Lanka's south-west coast. A trip over Christmas or around Independence Day on 31 January puts you in Bentota, Hikkaduwa or Galle at the right moment, though that is also when hotels fill fastest.
The year's other natural break for Nauruans is mid-year. From May through September head for Arugam Bay, Pasikudah or Trincomalee on the east coast, where the sea is settled while the opposite shore gets the monsoon. Surfers will find Arugam Bay at its most reliable in those months.
Angam Day on 26 October keeps many people at home, and Sri Lanka in late October and November sees inter-monsoon showers almost everywhere. If those are your only free weeks, base yourself inland around Kandy and the ancient cities, where a wet afternoon matters less than it would on a beach.
Scale is the thing Nauruans notice. You can drive round Nauru in half an hour; crossing Sri Lanka from Colombo to the east coast takes most of a day. Plan fewer stops than the map suggests, and allow for the six-and-a-half-hour shift, which makes early nights and early starts the easiest rhythm for the first week.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Nauru — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
Nauruans are so accustomed to arranging Australian paperwork for the first sector that the final destination's requirement gets overlooked. The Sri Lankan authorisation is separate from anything needed to pass through Australia, and both must be sorted before you leave the island.
Households often keep expired passports alongside current ones, and the numbers differ. An ETA issued against a cancelled book is useless at check-in. Government charges are not refunded or transferred, so a slip here means starting again and paying again.
Because the tourist option is the familiar one, staff travelling to a seminar or training course sometimes choose it out of habit. Meetings, conferences and short training are business purposes. Picking the right option at the start is far simpler than explaining a mismatch to an officer in Colombo.
A passport nearing its expiry may have served for recent trips elsewhere, but Sri Lanka counts six months from your arrival date. Check the expiry before you pay, and renew first if it falls short, since the new Nauruan passport will need its own application anyway.
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
Nauru has no Sri Lankan mission of its own, and Nauruans rarely need one. Tourist ETAs are dealt with online from start to finish. For anything the online route does not cover, such as journalism or other activity requiring prior clearance, the High Commission in Canberra is the closest resident Sri Lankan post, conveniently in the country most Nauruans pass through.
FAQs
The questions Nauruan passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes. Nauruans must obtain an Electronic Travel Authorisation, Sri Lanka's online visa for short visits, before they travel. A tourist ETA gives a 30-day stay and may be used for two entries. It is linked to your passport electronically once approved, so there is no label to collect.
No. The waiver covers forty countries and Nauru is not one of them, so Nauruan passport holders pay the standard government charge together with our service fee. The exception is a child under 12 on a tourist visit of up to 30 days, for whom the government fee is not charged.
Fly Nauru Airlines to Brisbane and connect from there. The two usual choices are Brisbane to Singapore and on to Colombo, or a domestic hop to Melbourne or Sydney for the SriLankan Airlines nonstop. Either way, the journey is likely to spill into a second day.
Use one passport consistently and apply with that one. Travelling on the Australian passport places you under the waiver for Australian nationals, so the government charge does not apply; travelling on the Nauruan one means the standard rate. What you must not do is apply with one and present the other.
Usually one to two days, without any guarantee. Because the time zones are six and a half hours apart, answers tend to arrive overnight Nauru time. Apply a couple of weeks before you leave the island and you will not be watching your inbox at the departure gate.
Yes. Sporting events and competitions are among the purposes a tourist ETA covers, so Nauruan athletes and their supporters can use it. Paid work is a different matter and is not permitted on this authorisation.
The ETA stops being usable, because it belongs to the old passport number. You would need to apply again with the new passport and pay the charges again. If a renewal is due within the next few months, do that first and apply afterwards.
No. There is none on Nauru, and a tourist ETA does not involve one. You complete the application online and the approval is emailed. Keep a copy on your phone and a printed one in your hand luggage for the check-in desks in Nauru and Brisbane.
Your nationality is already set to Nauru. 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.
