Nicaraguans need an ETA approved before starting the long journey from Managua to Colombo. It gives 30 days and two entries, is bound to your passport number, and is charged at the standard government rate.
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
From Nicaragua, Sri Lanka is about as far as a traveller can go before starting to come back. The few Nicaraguans who make the trip find a country with familiar ingredients arranged differently: volcanic-looking highlands that turn out to be tea estates, a colonial fort town at Galle to set beside Granada, surf that rivals Popoyo, and a Buddhist culture with no counterpart at home.
Entry depends on an Electronic Travel Authorisation, the ETA, which Nicaraguans often call the visa de Sri Lanka or a visa electrónica. It is obtained online and bound to the number of your passport. Have it approved before you begin a journey that will involve at least two changes of aircraft.
Nicaraguan passports fall under the standard government rate. Sri Lanka's waiver of 25 May 2026 removed the charge for 40 countries without including Nicaragua. Our service fee for application assistance is charged in addition, and both are reflected in the live prices shown on this page.
At a glance
Eligibility
Yes. An ETA is compulsory for all foreign nationals visiting Sri Lanka for a short stay, Nicaraguans included, and no agreement between Managua and Colombo alters that. The cédula that carries you across the CA-4 borders is not valid for this trip; you need a passport, and the authorisation is issued against it.
Use the tourist ETA for a holiday, a visit to relatives or friends, treatment at an Ayurveda centre, a yoga retreat, or a sporting or cultural event you are attending or taking part in. It does not authorise business, trade, self-employment or any job, and that holds even when the work is unpaid or informal.
A Nicaraguan travelling for a conference, a workshop, commercial meetings or training of less than one month needs the business option. Sri Lanka treats journalism, political activity and NGO work as matters needing government clearance in advance, and none of them can be covered by applying online.
Children appear in the application individually, each with a Nicaraguan passport. Sri Lanka does not charge its government fee for children under 12 on a tourist ETA of up to 30 days.
Stay & validity
A Nicaraguan citizen with a tourist ETA may spend 30 days in Sri Lanka and may enter twice. The 30 days are a single block measured from the first arrival. Go to southern India for a week partway through and that week is gone from your allowance; the second entry simply picks up what remains.
The approval is valid for travel for six months from the date of issue, and the conditions it sets out prevail over any general description. Applying two or three months ahead of a December trip is therefore safe and sensible.
Sri Lanka requires six months of passport validity counted from your arrival. Confirm the expiry date on your Nicaraguan passport, and if you must renew, do so at Migración y Extranjería before you apply, as the ETA is tied to the number of the passport and does not follow you to a new booklet. Extending a stay past 30 days is a matter for the Department of Immigration and Emigration in Battaramulla, just outside Colombo.
Pricing
Live fees for Nicaraguan 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 Nicaragua
Requirements
Everything Nicaraguan 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.
ETA approvals for Nicaraguan passports tend to arrive within one or two days. A proportion take longer while extra checks are carried out, so the usual timing should not be read as a promise. Submit the application at least three to five days before you travel; most people apply as soon as flights are confirmed.
Managua keeps the same clock all year and so does Colombo, leaving a fixed gap of eleven and a half hours. An application filed after work in Nicaragua arrives at the start of the Sri Lankan day, which is helpful, but any follow-up question will reach you around midnight.
After payment the application is locked. If a surname is misspelt or a digit is wrong, you apply again and pay the government charge again; it is non-refundable and cannot be moved to the corrected application.
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
Managua has no flights to Europe or Asia, so Nicaraguans face one more connection than most of their neighbours. The cleanest option is Copa to Panama City and Turkish Airlines from there to Istanbul and on to Colombo. An alternative is Avianca to San Salvador, Iberia to Madrid, and then Qatar Airways or Emirates. Connecting in Miami or Houston shortens the search results but requires a United States visa on a Nicaraguan passport.
Best time to go
Nicaragua's dry season from November to April lines up with the dry season on the south-west of Sri Lanka, from December to March or April. The school holidays in December and January are the obvious window: Galle, Tangalle and Mirissa are sunny, the sea is calm, and the roads into the hill country are at their most reliable.
Early December has a complication of its own. Many Nicaraguans will not want to be away for La Purísima and the Gritería on the seventh and eighth, so departures cluster in the days that follow, just as fares rise for Christmas. Booking and applying in October or November avoids the rush.
Semana Santa brings the whole of Nicaragua to the beach, and it is a good moment to choose a different one. The south-west of Sri Lanka is usually still dry. Mid-April is Sinhala and Tamil New Year, a major holiday when families gather and many services pause, so try to be settled in one place for those days.
During the Nicaraguan rainy season the island's east coast is the place to be. From May to September Arugam Bay has dependable surf and Pasikudah has flat, shallow water, while the south-west takes the monsoon. Travellers free around the fiestas patrias in mid-September can still catch the end of that eastern season before the inter-monsoon rains of October and November.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Nicaragua — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
The cédula number is long, distinctive and known by heart, and it sometimes ends up in the passport field. Sri Lanka links the ETA to the passport number alone. An approval with the wrong number will not be found at the border, and it cannot be edited once paid for.
Some Nicaraguans go by their second surname or by a single surname at work. The application should follow the passport exactly, first surname first and second surname second. Changing the order to match how you are known creates a discrepancy an airline agent may question.
With three or even four flights, one delay can ripple through the whole itinerary. If you land in Colombo a day late, your 30 days start a day late, which is harmless, but a passport sitting right on the six-month limit could fall short.
Large numbers of Nicaraguans live in Costa Rica, the United States or Spain, and some hold a second nationality. The ETA must be requested with the passport you will present throughout the trip. A residence card from another country is irrelevant to the application.
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 maintains no embassy or consulate in Managua. Its nearest resident embassies are in Havana and Washington DC. For a tourist ETA a Nicaraguan applicant deals with neither, because the application, payment and approval all take place online.
FAQs
The questions Nicaraguan passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes. Nicaraguans must obtain an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) before going to Sri Lanka, which is the online approval many people call a Sri Lanka visa. It is linked to your passport number and gives a 30-day tourist stay with double entry.
No. Sri Lanka waived its government charge for 40 countries from 25 May 2026, and Nicaragua is not among them, so the standard rate is charged. Only Nicaraguan children under 12 escape the government fee on a tourist ETA.
No. A Nicaraguan cédula is accepted only for travel within the CA-4 area. You need a passport valid for at least six months from the day you arrive in Sri Lanka, and its number is the one entered on the application.
With at least two connections. A common route is Managua to Panama City with Copa, then Turkish Airlines to Istanbul and Colombo. Another goes through San Salvador and Madrid before a Gulf connection. Routes via Miami or Houston need a US visa.
At least three to five days before departure, and earlier for travel in December, January or Semana Santa. Approvals usually arrive in a day or two but are not guaranteed within any set time.
You can travel for holidays and sightseeing, visit friends and relatives, receive medical treatment including Ayurveda and yoga, and take part in sporting events and cultural performances. You cannot work, trade or run a business, and you cannot use repeated visits to live in the country.
The approved ETA can be used to travel for six months from its issue date. Once you arrive, it gives 30 days and two entries, with both entries falling inside the same 30 days. The conditions printed on your approval take precedence.
Yes. Sri Lanka requires at least six months of validity counted from your date of arrival, not from the date you apply. If your passport is renewed after the ETA is issued, the authorisation is lost and a new application is required.
Your nationality is already set to Nicaragua. 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.
