From Asunción to Colombo is one of the longer journeys a Paraguayan can make, so settle the paperwork first. A tourist ETA grants 30 days and two entries, and it is issued online against 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
Paraguayans who travel to Sri Lanka are a small and adventurous group: honeymooners looking beyond Brazil's beaches, surfers, yoga students, and families with relatives working in the Gulf who add the island to a longer trip. The heat and the red earth will feel familiar to anyone from the Chaco or the countryside around Asunción, even if almost everything else is new.
Before any of that, a Paraguayan passport holder needs an Electronic Travel Authorisation. People looking for it in Spanish tend to search for a visa or e-visa for Sri Lanka, which is the same thing in everyday speech. You apply through a web form in English, and the approval is recorded electronically, so your pasaporte never leaves your hands.
Paraguay is not one of the forty countries for which Sri Lanka has waived its government charge. The standard rate therefore applies, together with a service fee for our help with the application, and the live prices shown on this page give the amounts in force today.
At a glance
Eligibility
The short answer is yes, without exception. Sri Lanka asks every foreign visitor to hold an ETA, and a Paraguayan who reaches the check-in desk at Silvio Pettirossi airport without one is unlikely to be given a boarding pass for the first leg.
For most Paraguayan travellers the tourist type is the right one. It takes in holidays and sightseeing, time with friends or family, medical treatment and wellness stays such as Ayurveda or yoga courses, and attendance at sporting competitions or cultural performances.
Paraguay's exporters and agribusiness firms occasionally send staff to South Asia. If your trip involves meetings, negotiations, a seminar or training of less than a month, pick the business option. Press work, political activity and assignments for non-governmental organisations require prior permission from the Sri Lankan authorities and cannot be arranged through this application.
Second passports are common in Paraguay, among descendants of Spanish, Italian and German settlers and in Mennonite communities with German ties. Those three European passports are covered by the waiver of the government charge, whereas Brazilian and Argentine ones are not. Apply with the passport you will actually show on arrival.
Stay & validity
Thirty days is the stay a Paraguayan receives on a tourist ETA, measured from the date of first entry. The authorisation is good for two entries, but the second does not restart the count: return after ten days in the Maldives and you have whatever is left of the original thirty.
Once approved, the ETA gives a Paraguayan six months from the date of issue in which to make the trip. For travellers who often buy long-haul tickets months ahead to catch a workable connection through São Paulo or Madrid, that leaves room to apply as soon as flights are confirmed.
Sri Lanka insists on a passport valid for six months from the day you arrive. Paraguayan passports have a comparatively short life, so a booklet that felt recent can be nearer its end than you think. Should it need replacing after your ETA is approved, the approval stays with the old number and you must apply again. Longer stays require an extension from the immigration department in Battaramulla.
Pricing
Live fees for Paraguayan 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 Paraguay
Requirements
Everything Paraguayan 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.
Paraguayan applications are generally answered within a day or two. We cannot promise a time, and the occasional file is slower, most often when the photograph of the passport page is cropped or blurred.
Send the application at least three to five days before you fly. If you are leaving during the summer holidays between December and February, in the two-week winter break in July or over Semana Santa, apply earlier still, since those are the weeks when Paraguayans travel in numbers and seats are hardest to replace.
Paraguay now keeps the same clock all year, which puts Colombo eight and a half hours ahead of Asunción in every season. A request submitted at siesta time reaches Sri Lanka close to midnight, so replies normally arrive overnight and are waiting when you wake.
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
There is no way to reach Colombo from Paraguay in fewer than two flights, and three is typical. Travellers leave Asunción for a larger hub, most often São Paulo, Madrid, Buenos Aires or Panama City, and continue with a Middle Eastern or Turkish airline. Those in Ciudad del Este sometimes find it simpler to cross to Foz do Iguaçu and start within Brazil.
Best time to go
Paraguay's summer and Sri Lanka's best beach weather arrive together. From December to February, while Asunción swelters, the island's south and west coasts are dry and breezy, and the tea country around Nuwara Eliya and Ella is cool enough for a jacket in the evening.
That makes the long school holiday the obvious time for Unawatuna, Hikkaduwa and Mirissa, for the old Dutch ramparts of Galle and for whale watching offshore. It is also the busiest period of the Sri Lankan year, so hotels and the scenic train from Kandy to Ella should be booked ahead.
The July winter break is short for such a distant destination, but those who manage it should head east. Trincomalee, Pasikudah and Arugam Bay have their dry season from May to September, when the south-west is under monsoon cloud, and Kandy stages the Esala Perahera around late July or August.
A country raised on tereré and cocido may enjoy seeing how the other great leaf is grown. Tea estates in the hills welcome visitors all year. Bear in mind that every full-moon Poya day is a public holiday with no alcohol on sale, and that mid-April's New Year shuts much of the country 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 Paraguay — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
Paraguayans cross to Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay on an identity card and can reach for it out of habit. Sri Lanka's authorisation attaches only to a passport number, and an application carrying cédula digits is worthless at the airport and cannot be corrected once paid for.
Entering González B. in place of González Benítez may match your bank card, but it does not match your passport. Write each surname as it stands in the machine-readable lines, and make sure the airline ticket follows the same spelling.
A Paraguayan passport reaches the six-month threshold sooner than travellers used to longer-term documents expect. Check the expiry against the day you land in Colombo, and renew before applying if the margin is thin, because a new booklet means a new ETA.
Some Paraguayans plan to apply during a long wait in São Paulo or Madrid. The first airline usually checks onward documents before departure from Asunción, so an application that is still pending can end the trip at the very first desk.
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
No Sri Lankan embassy or consulate operates in Asunción. Paraguayans who need consular help should start with the Sri Lankan embassy in the Brazilian capital and ask whether it covers their case. For the ETA itself there is nothing to visit, sign or send, as the whole process runs online from application to approval.
FAQs
The questions Paraguayan passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes. Paraguayan citizens need an Electronic Travel Authorisation, the online permit usually referred to as a Sri Lanka visa, and it must be approved before departure. For tourism it allows 30 days on the island with two entries.
Most are approved in one or two days, though no fixed time is guaranteed. Applying three to five days before you leave is a sensible minimum, and more during the December to February holidays when Paraguayan demand for long-haul travel peaks.
Every child must be included in an application and must travel on a passport of their own. The government fee is not charged for children under 12 on a tourist ETA of up to 30 days, but the authorisation is still required for them.
No. The identity card works within Mercosur but has no standing in Sri Lanka. You need a passport valid for six months beyond arrival, and its number is the one the ETA is linked to.
They do. Paraguay is outside the forty-country waiver, so the standard government rate applies to adult Paraguayan applicants, in addition to our service fee. See the live prices shown on this page instead of relying on figures quoted elsewhere.
Either, as long as you use one consistently. Italy is among the countries whose tourist ETA carries no government charge, so applying on the Italian passport changes the cost. The ETA will be tied to that passport's number, and it is the one you must present in Colombo.
Usually via São Paulo and then Doha, Dubai or Istanbul, or via Madrid and a Gulf hub. Both involve two changes and more than a day of travel. Before booking, check the transit conditions that each connecting country sets for Paraguayan passport holders.
Extensions are handled by the Department of Immigration and Emigration, whose head office is at Battaramulla near Colombo. You would need to apply there while your original stay is still valid. Repeated back-to-back visits used as a way of living in Sri Lanka are not permitted on a tourist ETA.
Your nationality is already set to Paraguay. 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.
