Korean passport holders must have an ETA approved before flying from Incheon to Colombo. Sri Lanka waives its government charge for South Korea, and the authorisation allows 30 days on the island with two entries.
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
Important for South Korean citizens
South Korea is on Sri Lanka's list of 40 countries whose nationals pay no government charge for a tourist ETA. You still have to obtain the ETA before travel, and our service fee applies; current totals are in the live prices shown on this page.
Overview
Sri Lanka has moved from a niche choice to a regular entry in Korean travel programmes and honeymoon brochures, usually paired with the Maldives. Korean visitors come for Sigiriya at sunrise, the blue train between Kandy and Ella, safari drives in Yala, and for many Buddhists the temples of Anuradhapura and Kandy.
There is also steady traffic rooted in personal ties: tens of thousands of Sri Lankans work in Korea, and Korean employers, colleagues and friends travel to the island to visit people they know. Whatever the reason, the entry formality is the same Electronic Travel Authorisation, which Korean search results often label a Sri Lanka visa or e-visa.
For Korean passports the government charge on the tourist ETA is waived, a concession in force since 25 May 2026. That does not remove the requirement or make the whole application free of cost: a service fee for our help with the application applies, as the live prices shown on this page make clear.
At a glance
Eligibility
They do. Korean travellers are used to walking into much of Asia with nothing but a passport, and Sri Lanka is an exception worth noting before you book. An approved ETA should be in your inbox before you reach the check-in desk at Incheon or Gimhae.
A holiday, a honeymoon, a private temple pilgrimage, a visit to friends, an Ayurveda programme or participation in a sporting or cultural event all sit within the tourist ETA. Package tours do not change this: the agency may organise it, but each traveller's authorisation hangs on that person's own passport.
Koreans travelling for their company need to choose differently. Meetings with suppliers or partners, negotiations, conferences, seminars and training lasting under a month call for the business option. Paid or unpaid work, running a business of your own, reporting for the media and NGO projects are not available through the online ETA.
Passengers who merely break the journey in Colombo for no more than two days can use the transit ETA, which carries no government charge and needs proof of the onward flight. A honeymoon couple overnighting before Malé and returning later for a tour should take the tourist ETA instead.
Stay & validity
Thirty days is the stay granted to Korean tourists, and the clock starts on the first arrival. The ETA is double entry, which is exactly what the popular Sri Lanka and Maldives combination needs, but the return leg is given only the days remaining from the original thirty.
You have six months from the date of issue in which to make the trip. Couples planning an autumn wedding can therefore settle the ETA once flights are confirmed and forget about it, as long as nobody renews a passport in between. The conditions printed on the approval are the final word.
Korean adult passports usually run for ten years and minors' for five, and Sri Lanka requires six months of validity counted from arrival. If your trip turns into something longer than 30 days, the extension is a matter for the Department of Immigration and Emigration at Battaramulla, outside Colombo, and must be arranged before your permitted stay runs out.
Pricing
Live fees for South Korean 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 South Korea
Requirements
Everything South Korean 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.
Korean applicants generally hear back within one or two days. That is typical, not guaranteed, so submit at least three to five days before you fly and avoid leaving it to the night before a morning departure.
Korea's holiday calendar creates sharp peaks. Seollal and Chuseok each produce a rush of overseas departures, and the late-July to early-August summer break is the busiest fortnight of the year. Add Sri Lanka's own high season from December to March and it makes sense to apply two weeks ahead for those periods.
Seoul runs three and a half hours ahead of Colombo with no seasonal change on either side. Requests for clarification tend to arrive in the Korean afternoon or evening, and replying the same day keeps the application moving.
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
SriLankan Airlines links Seoul Incheon with Colombo nonstop on certain days of the week, a flight of roughly eight to eight and a half hours. Outside those days, Korean travellers usually connect in Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur or Hong Kong, and passengers from Busan either position to Incheon or connect through a South-East Asian hub. Check current operating days before committing to dates.
Best time to go
The Korean winter is long, dry and bitterly cold, and it overlaps neatly with the best months on Sri Lanka's south and west coasts. From December through March the sea at Bentota, Hikkaduwa and Mirissa is calm, whales pass offshore, and the hill country around Ella is clear enough for the hikes Korean travellers favour.
Seollal, falling in late January or February, is the easiest long holiday to match with that season. Chuseok in September or early October is trickier: the south-west is at the tail of its monsoon and inter-monsoon showers follow, so a cultural circuit of Sigiriya, Polonnaruwa and Kandy is a better bet than a beach week.
Summer holidaymakers from Korea should look east. Late July and August bring rain to Colombo and Galle but settled weather to Trincomalee, Pasikudah and the surf at Arugam Bay, and the Kandy Esala Perahera procession usually falls in the same window.
Spring and autumn wedding seasons explain why so many Korean honeymooners arrive in April, May and October. April is hot and includes the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, when many shops close for several days, while October afternoons are often wet. Neither spoils a trip, but both reward flexible planning.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from South Korea — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
A given name such as 길동 may appear as GILDONG, GIL DONG or GIL-DONG depending on what was requested at issue. The ETA has to follow the passport's version, not the one on a credit card or airline profile.
Koreans sometimes hold frequent-flyer accounts under PARK and a passport reading BAK, or the reverse. The ticket, the ETA and the passport should all carry one identical spelling, or check-in staff at Incheon will query the difference.
Group bookings are common for Korean travellers, and errors creep in when an agent types twenty passports from photographs. Ask to see your own entry before payment, because a wrong digit means starting a new application.
Honeymooners often assume the 30 days begin again when they fly back from Malé. They do not. Plan the whole itinerary, both countries included, so that your final departure from Colombo falls inside the original period.
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
The Sri Lankan embassy in Seoul looks after consular services and the visa types that need government clearance in advance. Nothing about a tourist ETA for a Korean citizen involves an appointment there; the application is made online from start to finish.
FAQs
The questions South Korean passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes. South Korean citizens need an Electronic Travel Authorisation, the online permission many people call a Sri Lanka visa, approved before they travel. It allows a 30-day tourist stay with two entries.
Not for a tourist ETA. South Korea is among the 40 countries covered by the waiver that began on 25 May 2026. A service fee for our application assistance is separate, and the live prices shown on this page give the amount payable.
SriLankan Airlines operates nonstop flights between Incheon and Colombo on selected days. When the timetable does not suit, one-stop itineraries through Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur or Hong Kong are widely available.
Always the passport. The ETA is matched against the passport's romanised name and number, so copy both from the photo page and ignore other documents.
Yes. The tourist ETA permits two entries, so you can tour Sri Lanka, fly to the Maldives and return. Both arrivals must fall within 30 days of the first, and the second stay is limited to the days left.
About two weeks ahead is sensible for those holidays. Most approvals take a day or two, but departures bunch tightly around both festivals and there is little room to rebook if something needs correcting.
No. Paid and unpaid employment are both excluded, and work with non-governmental organisations needs prior government approval that the online ETA cannot give. Short business meetings and training use the business option.
The approval stays attached to the old passport number and cannot be moved. You would need to submit a new application with the new passport's details, so renew first and apply second whenever possible.
Your nationality is already set to South Korea. 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.
