Nigerian passport holders need an approved ETA before flying to Colombo. It gives 30 days and two entries, is applied for online from Lagos, Abuja or anywhere else, and is tied to your passport number.
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
Sri Lanka is not yet a mainstream holiday choice in Nigeria, but it is no longer an unusual one. Honeymooners from Lagos pair it with the Maldives, families who have already done Dubai look one flight further east, and traders, students and church groups all make the journey in steady numbers. All of them need an Electronic Travel Authorisation before leaving home.
Nigerians searching for a Sri Lanka visa or e-visa are looking for this same document. The ETA is the short-visit permission Sri Lanka issues online, and for a holiday it replaces any trip to an embassy. Unlike most foreign visas Nigerians apply for, it involves no biometrics appointment and no interview.
This page sets out how the rules apply to a Nigerian passport specifically: what the standard government rate means for you, how the 30 days work if you add a side trip, which routes out of Murtala Muhammed and Nnamdi Azikiwe airports make sense, and where Nigerian applications most often go wrong.
At a glance
Eligibility
Yes. Every Nigerian citizen travelling to Sri Lanka for a short visit needs an ETA, and it should be approved before you check in. Airlines at Lagos and Abuja look for it at the counter.
Nigeria is not among the forty countries whose nationals have had the government charge lifted since 25 May 2026, nor is it covered by a reciprocal or SAARC arrangement. Nigerian applicants therefore pay the standard government rate, alongside our service fee for handling the application. Both are itemised in the live prices shown on this page.
The tourist ETA suits the reasons most Nigerians travel: a beach and safari holiday, a honeymoon, a visit to friends studying or working in Colombo, an Ayurveda retreat or attendance at a sporting event. It does not cover buying stock, negotiating with suppliers or any paid or unpaid work. A trip to source tea, garments or gemstones for resale in Nigeria is business, and the business option is the correct one.
Church travel deserves a specific mention because it is so common from Nigeria. Sri Lanka treats religious events and symposiums as a business-category purpose, so a delegation attending a convention, crusade or ministers' conference should not apply as tourists. Dual nationals should also think about which passport to use: a Nigerian who also holds a British, American or Canadian passport is assessed on the passport entered in the application, and those three nationalities currently fall inside the waiver.
Stay & validity
A tourist ETA issued to a Nigerian passport allows a stay of 30 days and two entries. The clock starts on the day you first land, and both entries have to fit inside that single 30-day period. If you spend ten days on the south coast, fly to Malé for five and return, you come back to the remaining fifteen days rather than a new month.
Once approved, the authorisation can be used for a first arrival at any point in the following six months, which gives Nigerians booking well ahead for December or an Easter wedding trip plenty of room. The conditions printed on your own approval take precedence, so read them when the email arrives.
Sri Lanka asks for six months of passport validity counted from your arrival date. Nigerian adults may hold either a five-year or a ten-year booklet, and holders of the shorter one reach the six-month line sooner than they expect. Check the expiry before you pay, because a renewed Nigerian passport carries a new number and the ETA cannot follow it across.
Pricing
Live fees for Nigerian 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 Nigeria
Requirements
Everything Nigerian 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.
Most applications lodged from Nigeria are decided within a day or two. That is typical, not guaranteed. We recommend submitting at least three to five days before your flight, and more if your dates are fixed around a wedding or cruise.
The December rush needs extra margin. Flights out of Lagos fill early in the weeks before Christmas, Sri Lanka is entering its own high season on the west and south coasts, and application volumes rise everywhere. Nigerians travelling between mid-December and early January should aim to have the approval in hand a fortnight before departure.
Colombo is four and a half hours ahead of Lagos all year, since neither country changes its clocks. An application sent after close of business in Nigeria reaches Sri Lanka in the middle of the night, so a same-day answer is unlikely. Submitting in the Nigerian morning is better.
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 nonstop between Nigeria and Sri Lanka, so every journey involves one change, almost always in the Gulf or Istanbul. Lagos has the widest choice, Abuja has good daily options too, and travellers from Port Harcourt, Kano or Enugu usually connect domestically first.
Best time to go
December to March is when the beaches Nigerians usually book, from Negombo round to Bentota, Galle and Mirissa, are at their driest and calmest. It coincides with harmattan at home, so you swap dust haze and dry air for clear skies and warm sea.
The long school vacation, which runs from late July into September, falls in the south-west monsoon. Families tied to those dates should look east instead: Trincomalee, Pasikudah and Arugam Bay are in their dry season then, and the Kandy Esala Perahera, the island's grandest procession, takes place in July or August.
Sallah breaks move through the calendar each year, so check which coast is in season before booking around them. Muslim travellers from northern Nigeria will find halal food easy to come by, particularly in Colombo, Kandy and along the east coast.
Two local points are worth knowing. Every full moon is a Poya day, a public holiday on which alcohol is not sold, including in hotels. And mid-April brings the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, when many shops close for several days.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Nigeria — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
Many naira debit cards have low monthly ceilings for international spending, or are switched off for it entirely. A payment that fails at the last step leaves you with no application at all. Confirm with your bank that the card works for online payments abroad, or use a card linked to a domiciliary account.
Nigerians often write the surname last in everyday life but find it printed first on the passport, and some are known by a middle or baptismal name. The form must mirror the data page field by field.
A crusade, convention or ministers' retreat is a religious event, which Sri Lanka places under the business category. Groups that apply as tourists and then explain the real purpose at the border put the whole delegation at risk.
Every Nigerian passport renewal generates a new number. Applicants who keep an old booklet for its valid visas sometimes copy the wrong one, and an authorisation issued against a cancelled passport is of no use at the airport.
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
Nigerian holidaymakers have no reason to contact a Sri Lankan mission, because the ETA is applied for and issued online. Sri Lanka's High Commission in Abuja was closed at the end of 2021 and Nigeria was reassigned to the mission in Nairobi; if you need consular help for something outside the ETA, confirm the current arrangement with Sri Lanka's foreign ministry first.
FAQs
The questions Nigerian passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes: Nigerian citizens must hold an approved Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) before travelling to Sri Lanka for a holiday, family visit or other short stay. It is applied for online, linked to the passport number and allows 30 days with two entries.
No. The government charge has been waived for forty nationalities since May 2026 and Nigeria is not on that list, so the standard rate applies. Current government and service charges are in the live prices shown on this page.
Yes. The whole process is online and there is no interview, biometrics appointment or passport submission. You need a scan of your data page, a working email address and a card that accepts international payments.
Thirty days from the date of first arrival. You may leave and return once within that period, but the second entry only gives you whatever is left of the original 30 days.
Residence in Britain does not alter the rules, because Sri Lanka looks at nationality and not at where you live. You apply as a Nigerian citizen at the standard rate. Only travelling on a British passport, if you hold one, would bring you under the waiver.
That is a health matter separate from the ETA, but an important one. Sri Lanka's port health authorities ask travellers arriving from yellow fever risk countries, which include Nigeria, for a valid vaccination certificate. Carry the yellow card you already use for leaving and re-entering Nigeria.
No. Sourcing merchandise, meeting suppliers and negotiating contracts are business activities and are outside the tourist conditions. Select the business option when applying so that what you tell the immigration officer matches what your authorisation says.
Usually where you are staying, for how long and when you leave. Have a hotel confirmation, your return ticket and proof of funds ready in print. Approval allows you to travel, while admission is decided by the officer at the desk.
Your nationality is already set to Nigeria. 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.
