Romanian passport holders need an ETA approved before leaving for Sri Lanka. The tourist authorisation gives 30 days with two entries at the standard government rate, and a short-validity temporary passport is the detail most likely to cause trouble.
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
The link between Romania and Sri Lanka has become unexpectedly personal. Thousands of Sri Lankans now work in Romanian restaurants, factories and delivery fleets, enough for Colombo to open an embassy in Bucharest, and many Romanians first hear about the island from a colleague. Add affordable one-stop fares from Otopeni and a strong appetite for exotic winter holidays, and curiosity turns into bookings.
Romanians planning that trip must obtain an Electronic Travel Authorisation beforehand. Search for viza Sri Lanka and you will find it described as a visa or e-visa; the correct term is ETA, and it is an online approval connected to the number in your pașaport, with nothing to collect and nothing stuck into the booklet.
Below we explain how the rules apply to a Romanian passport in particular, including the status of the one-year temporary passport, the way Romanian letters should be typed, the position of Romanians living abroad and the best routes from Bucharest and the regional cities.
At a glance
Eligibility
Every Romanian citizen visiting Sri Lanka for a short stay needs an ETA, and airlines verify it before departure. A carte de identitate, including the newer electronic version, is accepted for travel inside the EU only and plays no role here.
Romania does not feature among the 40 nationalities for which Sri Lanka has waived its government charge on tourist ETAs. Romanian applicants are therefore charged the standard government rate. We deliberately keep amounts out of this text, so rely on the live prices shown on this page.
Several million Romanians live in Italy, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Residence abroad does not alter anything: you apply with your Romanian passport from wherever you are, and the authorisation is the same. Citizens of the Republic of Moldova who also hold Romanian nationality should apply with the passport they will actually carry.
Use the tourist ETA for holidays, honeymoons, visits to Sri Lankan friends and their families, Ayurveda treatment and cultural or sporting events. Employers and recruiters travelling for meetings or negotiations, a common reason given the labour ties, need the business option instead.
Stay & validity
From the date of issue you have six months to travel. That suits Romanians who reserve early for the winter holidays or for a spring trip around Orthodox Easter, provided the passport quoted in the application remains the one in use.
The stay is 30 days counted from first arrival, and two entries are allowed. The second entry does not reset anything, so someone who leaves on day twelve for the Maldives and returns on day nineteen has eleven days remaining.
Longer visits are possible only with an extension granted by the Department of Immigration and Emigration, whose head office is in Battaramulla near Colombo. Sri Lanka does not regard an approved ETA as a right of entry, and the officer may ask about your plans, your ticket home and your funds.
Pricing
Live fees for Romanian 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 Romania
Requirements
Everything Romanian 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.
Approvals for Romanian applicants typically arrive in one or two days, though this is an observation and not a commitment. Submit your details a minimum of three to five days before the flight.
Allow longer around Christmas and New Year, the February vacanța de schi that moves from county to county, and the cluster of free days around 1 May and Orthodox Easter. Those are the periods when Romanians fly long-haul in numbers and when a late correction is most stressful.
If you applied for a new passport through a consulate abroad and are waiting for delivery, hold off until it arrives. Applying with the old number and then travelling on the new one means paying twice, because the first authorisation cannot be transferred.
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 from Romania to Sri Lanka. Bucharest Henri Coandă has good one-stop options through Doha, Dubai and Istanbul, and the short hop to Istanbul also makes Turkish Airlines a natural choice from several regional airports.
Best time to go
Romanians tend to look to the tropics in the depth of winter. From December through March the south and west of Sri Lanka are dry, and a typical circuit links Sigiriya, Kandy, the train to Ella, a safari in Yala and a week on the sand near Mirissa or Unawatuna.
The February ski holiday is assigned to each county in a different week, giving families a ready-made slot in the best season. A week is tight for a journey of this length, so many combine it with a few days of leave.
Orthodox Easter and the 1 May holiday often fall close together in late April or early May. By then the south-west is turning humid ahead of the monsoon, and the Vesak full moon in May fills towns with lanterns. Summer travellers, including those using the 15 August holiday, should aim for Pasikudah, Trincomalee or Arugam Bay.
The mini-break around 30 November and 1 December coincides with the tail of the inter-monsoon rains and the start of the whale season. Romania is three and a half hours behind Sri Lanka in winter and two and a half in summer, a modest gap that most people shake off in a day.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Romania — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
The pașaport simplu temporar is often obtained in a hurry and runs for one year. If fewer than six months remain on the day you land, it does not meet Sri Lanka's requirement, whatever the ETA says.
Romanian keyboards produce comma-below and cedilla forms that foreign systems may reject or garble. The machine-readable zone shows plain S and T, and that is what belongs in the form.
Someone known as Andrei may be Ioan-Andrei in the passport. Omitting part of the name, or dropping the hyphen-joined half, means the ETA does not reflect the travel document.
Romanian business owners visiting recruitment agencies or interviewing candidates are travelling for business purposes. A tourist ETA does not cover negotiations or trade activity.
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 opened a resident embassy in Bucharest in 2024, largely to support its nationals working in Romania. Romanian tourists do not have to visit it to obtain an ETA; the embassy is relevant only for matters that the online system does not handle.
FAQs
The questions Romanian passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Romanians need an Electronic Travel Authorisation, usually described as a Sri Lanka visa or e-visa, before they travel. It allows a 30-day tourist stay with double entry.
No. Romania is not one of the 40 countries in the waiver that took effect on 25 May 2026, so the standard government rate is payable. Current pricing is in the live prices shown on this page.
Only if it still has six months of validity on the day you arrive. Because a temporary passport lasts twelve months, check the expiry date carefully and apply with that passport's own number.
Yes. The application is online and your place of residence is irrelevant. Use your Romanian passport details and the same rules and government rate apply.
Leave the diacritics off and follow the machine-readable zone. Ștefănescu is entered as STEFANESCU and Brătianu as BRATIANU.
No. The carte de identitate is valid for EU travel only. A passport is required for Sri Lanka, and the ETA is recorded against it.
With one connection in Doha, Dubai or Istanbul the journey usually takes ten to thirteen hours. There is no nonstop service from Romania.
Yes. Visiting friends and relatives is a permitted tourist purpose. Meetings to recruit workers or sign contracts are business activity and need the business option.
Your nationality is already set to Romania. 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.
