From Port Moresby, Colombo is one change of aircraft away in Singapore. PNG passport holders need an approved ETA before that second flight, giving 30 days in Sri Lanka and two entries within them.
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
Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka know each other mostly through work. Sri Lankan accountants, teachers and engineers have been part of professional life in Port Moresby and Lae for a generation, and it is often a colleague's invitation to a wedding in Kandy or Negombo that first puts the island on a Papua New Guinean's travel list.
There are other threads too. Both countries belong to the Commonwealth and to the Colombo Plan, whose secretariat sits in Colombo and runs short courses that PNG public servants attend. Highlanders from Jiwaka and Western Highlands, where tea is grown at home, find the estates around Nuwara Eliya oddly familiar, and the Barramundis have given PNG cricket followers a reason to watch South Asian grounds.
Whatever the reason, a PNG passport holder cannot simply buy a ticket and go. Sri Lanka requires an Electronic Travel Authorisation, the document often described in Port Moresby travel agencies as a Sri Lanka visa. It is issued online against your passport number and the airline looks for it before boarding.
At a glance
Eligibility
Papua New Guinean citizens need an ETA for every short visit to Sri Lanka. PNG is not among the 40 countries whose tourist ETA carries no government charge under the waiver introduced on 25 May 2026, so the standard government rate applies in addition to our service fee. Check the live prices shown on this page for the current position.
Choosing the right type matters more for PNG travellers than for most, because so many trips are work-related. Attending a friend's wedding, sightseeing, visiting a former colleague's family or booking an Ayurveda stay are all tourist purposes. A Colombo Plan workshop, a seminar, a church symposium or training lasting under a month belongs under the business option.
Longer study, a posting with an employer, or any paid or unpaid job in Sri Lanka is outside the ETA system altogether. Journalists from PNG media houses and staff of non-governmental organisations travelling for their work also need government approval in advance, and the online application is not the channel for it.
If Colombo is only a pause between Singapore and a flight to the Gulf or Europe, the transit option allows up to two days with no government charge, as long as you can show the onward booking. Children under 12 from PNG are not charged the government fee on a tourist ETA either, though they must still be included.
Stay & validity
A tourist ETA lets a Papua New Guinean visitor remain for 30 days from the first arrival. It may be used for two entries inside that period. A traveller who attends a wedding near Colombo, flies to Chennai for a few days and comes back does not gain extra time, since the return is given only the balance.
After approval you have six months in which to make that first arrival. Air Niugini's international schedules can change at short notice, and this window means a postponed trip does not automatically require a new application. The wording on your own approval remains the final authority.
The six-month passport rule is counted from the day you land in Sri Lanka. Getting a PNG passport renewed means dealing with the immigration authority in Port Moresby, which is a journey in itself for applicants from the Highlands or the islands. Renew first, then apply, because a new passport number needs its own ETA.
Pricing
Live fees for Papua New Guinean 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 Papua New Guinea
Requirements
Everything Papua New Guinean 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 ETAs for PNG passport holders are approved in one or two days. Leave three to five days before your Port Moresby departure as a minimum. If internet access where you live is unreliable, submit the application while you are somewhere with a stable connection, and save the approval to your phone as a file as well as an email.
Port Moresby is four and a half hours ahead of Colombo. An application completed after lunch in PNG arrives at the start of the Sri Lankan working day, which is about as good as the timing gets. Late-evening submissions wait until the following morning there.
Avoid leaving it to the week of travel around Christmas and during the September Independence holidays, when flights out of Jacksons are full and rebooking is hard. Nobody can promise how quickly a given application will be decided, so the margin is your protection.
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
Papua New Guinea has no direct air link with Sri Lanka, but the connection is simpler than the distance suggests. Air Niugini flies from Port Moresby to Singapore, where SriLankan Airlines and Singapore Airlines both leave for Colombo. Travellers from Lae, Mount Hagen, Rabaul or Madang start with a domestic flight into Jacksons International, and Manila or Brisbane are fallback gateways.
Best time to go
Seasons in PNG and Sri Lanka are both ruled by monsoon winds, so the question is which coast, not which month. December to March is the dry spell for Colombo, Galle, the southern beaches and the tea hills. It overlaps with the long Christmas school holiday and with the wettest months in much of PNG.
From May to September the pattern reverses. Rain settles over Sri Lanka's south-west while the east coast, around Trincomalee and Pasikudah, has its best weather. Port Moresby is dry and dusty at that time of year, and a trip then is about calm lagoons and the Cultural Triangle, which stays fairly dry inland.
Highlanders usually cope well with the cool of Nuwara Eliya and Ella. Coastal Papua New Guineans should pack warm layers for the hills, where nights can feel colder than Goroka. Leopard safaris at Yala and Wilpattu are a real contrast with PNG, which has no big cats at all.
If you are invited to a Sri Lankan wedding or family event, ask about the date early. Many are planned around auspicious days, and travel during the Sinhala and Tamil New Year in mid-April means closed shops and crowded roads. Monthly Poya days are public holidays on which alcohol is not sold.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Papua New Guinea — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
PNG officials sent on short courses in Colombo sometimes apply as tourists because it looks simpler. Training under a month, workshops and seminars sit under the business option, and arriving with a course letter and a tourist ETA invites questions at the desk.
Departmental and company addresses in PNG are frequently blocked from webmail abroad. If the approval goes to an inbox you cannot open in Singapore, you have nothing to show the airline.
Where a passport carries a single name, or a father's name in place of a family name, copy the layout as printed. Swapping the order to look more conventional produces an ETA that does not match the document.
The ETA says nothing about the stop in between. PNG travellers planning to leave Changi airport between flights should check Singapore's entry requirements for their passport separately and well ahead.
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
There is no Sri Lankan high commission in Port Moresby; the mission in Canberra covers PNG. An ETA applicant has no need to write to Canberra or send a passport there. The mission becomes relevant only for work, long study or purposes needing prior clearance.
FAQs
The questions Papua New Guinean passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes. Papua New Guinean citizens must hold an Electronic Travel Authorisation, commonly called a Sri Lanka visa, before travelling. For tourism it gives 30 days and two entries, and it is applied for online without visiting any office.
You can apply from anywhere in PNG with an internet connection, or from abroad. Nothing is posted and no interview is held. The approval is sent by email and is linked to your passport number.
No, Papua New Guinea is not on the list of 40 waiver countries, so the standard government rate is charged. The exception is a child under 12, who is not charged the government fee for a tourist ETA.
Short-term training of under one month, along with workshops, seminars and conferences, is a business purpose. Select the business option when you apply. Courses that run longer are not covered by an ETA at all.
The usual way is Air Niugini from Port Moresby to Singapore, then a connecting flight to Colombo. With a reasonable connection the journey takes most of a day. Routes via Manila or Australia add a second change.
Yes, visiting friends and relatives is a tourist purpose. Give their home address as your address in Sri Lanka and keep their phone number handy, because officers sometimes ask who you are staying with.
You have six months from issue to arrive for the first time, and then 30 days in the country. Both permitted entries must happen within those 30 days.
The approval stays attached to the old passport number and cannot be transferred. You would need to make a new application with the new passport, and government charges already paid are not refunded.
Your nationality is already set to Papua New Guinea. 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.
