South Sudanese passport holders need an approved ETA before flying from Juba to Colombo, most easily through Dubai. The tourist authorisation gives 30 days and two entries, and the standard government rate applies.
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 Sudanese citizens
South Sudan is not on the list of countries for which Sri Lanka has waived its tourist ETA government charge. South Sudanese applicants pay the standard rate, as set out in the live prices shown on this page.
Overview
South Sudan and Sri Lanka know each other mainly through peacekeeping. Sri Lankan army medics have run the United Nations hospital at Bor for years, and Sri Lankan helicopter crews have flown for the mission across Jonglei. Travel the other way is modest but real: officials and officers on courses, students, patients, church groups, and South Sudanese families based in Nairobi, Kampala or Cairo taking a holiday by the sea.
Whoever is travelling, Sri Lanka requires an Electronic Travel Authorisation beforehand. People often search for it as a Sri Lanka visa or e-visa, and it serves that function: permission, granted online and recorded against your passport, to arrive for a short stay.
The South Sudanese passport is one of the world's newest, and applicants frequently hold older Sudanese papers, a second nationality or documents with differing name spellings. This page explains how those details bear on the application and what else to prepare before leaving Juba.
At a glance
Eligibility
Yes. South Sudanese nationals must hold an approved ETA for any short visit to Sri Lanka. Nothing in the peacekeeping relationship alters that, and a diplomatic note or invitation letter is no substitute for the authorisation when you check in at Juba International Airport.
The tourist ETA is intended for leisure and private visits: seeing the island, staying with friends, receiving medical care including Ayurveda, or attending sport and cultural events. A family holiday from Nairobi or a hospital appointment in Colombo both belong here.
Much South Sudanese travel to Sri Lanka is official or professional, and that changes the answer. Meetings, conferences, workshops and training lasting less than a month come under the business option. Paid or unpaid work is not allowed on a tourist ETA, and humanitarian staff should note that NGO activity, like journalism and political work, needs advance approval from the Sri Lankan government that the online ETA cannot provide.
Children need their own line in the application and their own passport. The government charge is not taken for a child under 12 on a tourist stay of up to 30 days, which eases the cost for South Sudanese parents travelling with several young children.
Stay & validity
A South Sudanese tourist ETA permits 30 days in the country and two entries. Counting starts with your first arrival and does not pause if you leave. Fly out to Malé on day twelve, return on day eighteen, and twelve days remain.
You have six months from the date of issue to make the first entry, on the terms stated in your approval. The passport must be valid for six months beyond your arrival. Since renewals are handled by the directorate in Juba and can be slow for those living abroad, check the expiry date first. A replacement passport has a new number and needs a new ETA.
Any stay past the 30 days requires an extension approved by the Department of Immigration and Emigration in Battaramulla, close to Colombo, and the request must go in before your current permission lapses.
Pricing
Live fees for South Sudanese 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 Sudan
Requirements
Everything South Sudanese 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.
South Sudanese applications are generally processed in a day or two, without any guarantee. We look over each one before it goes forward, with particular care over which of the three names has been entered as the surname, the point on which these applications most often stumble.
Apply at least three to five days before the journey. Juba is three and a half hours behind Colombo, so an afternoon submission arrives after the close of business in Sri Lanka. Power cuts and patchy internet are a fact of life in Juba, and it is safer to finish the form in one sitting on a stable connection.
Allow more time before Christmas, which is the main travel season for South Sudanese families and coincides with Sri Lanka's peak, and around Independence Day on 9 July. Delegations should not wait for the last nomination to be confirmed before the rest of the group applies.
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 are no direct flights from South Sudan to Sri Lanka. The quickest path from Juba is flydubai to Dubai, followed by a flydubai or Emirates flight to Colombo. Other travellers go through Addis Ababa with Ethiopian Airlines or Nairobi with Kenya Airways and then on to a Gulf hub, which makes two connections, and Turkish Airlines offers a route through Istanbul. People setting out from Wau, Malakal or Bor generally reach Juba on a domestic or humanitarian flight first.
Best time to go
South Sudan is landlocked, and for many visitors Sri Lanka offers a first sight of the open ocean. The dry season at home, from December to March, is also when roads are passable and people can get to Juba easily, and it lines up with calm, sunny weather on Sri Lanka's western and southern beaches.
Christmas and New Year are the high point of the South Sudanese calendar, and those who travel then will find Colombo's churches full and Negombo, a largely Catholic town near the airport, decorated for the season. Hotels are at their most expensive in those weeks, so reserve early.
From roughly May to October the rains flood large parts of South Sudan and the Nile spreads into the Sudd. In Sri Lanka the south-west is wet during the same months, but the east coast is dry. Trincomalee and Pasikudah are the places to go, and the Kandy Esala Perahera falls in July or August.
Those attending courses or receiving treatment have less choice of dates. They should be aware that mid-April's New Year holiday suspends classes and clinics for several days, and that Vesak in May and each monthly Poya are public holidays when offices close.
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 Sudan — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
A South Sudanese passport, a Kenyan alien card and a university record may each choose a different one of your three names as the surname. Airlines and the ETA system read the passport's machine-readable lines. Enter the names as they are divided there and book the ticket the same way.
Applicants born before independence in 2011 sometimes copy a date of birth, a spelling or even a passport number from an old Sudanese document. Those records often differ from the South Sudanese passport, particularly where a birth date was estimated. The current passport is the only source to use.
Many South Sudanese are also citizens of Australia, the United States or Canada, all of which are inside Sri Lanka's waiver of the government charge. That benefit depends on travelling with that country's passport. Select the nationality printed on the passport you will hand to the officer in Colombo.
Invitations to seminars, training courses and conferences are common between the two countries. Picking the tourist option because it looks simpler places the visit outside its conditions. Use the business option for those events, and seek prior approval for any NGO assignment.
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 has no mission in Juba; South Sudan is covered from the Sri Lankan High Commission in Nairobi. South Sudanese travellers do not have to go to Kenya or post their passport there for an ETA, as it is applied for and delivered electronically. The High Commission is the contact for matters the ETA does not cover.
FAQs
The questions South Sudanese passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes. South Sudanese citizens need an Electronic Travel Authorisation, which is the online approval usually referred to as a Sri Lanka visa. It must be obtained before travel and allows tourists 30 days with two entries. South Sudan pays the standard government rate.
Yes, the application is completed online and there is no office to visit. You need your South Sudanese passport, an email address and a card that works for international payments. Choose a time when your internet connection is dependable.
Whichever your passport designates. Look at the photo page and the two lines of machine-readable text beneath it, and copy the division between surname and given names from there. Do not rely on how a school, employer or foreign authority has recorded you.
Either will do if it has six months of validity, but you must travel on the one you apply with. Australia is among the 40 countries whose government charge is waived and South Sudan is not, so the Australian passport is normally the cheaper choice.
Yes, and for training of under a month, conferences or workshops it should be the business option, not the tourist one. Ordinary passport holders apply online in the usual way. Apply as soon as the dates are fixed.
The simplest routing is one stop in Dubai with flydubai, taking roughly 11 to 14 hours altogether. Connections through Addis Ababa, Nairobi or Istanbul are possible but usually longer. All flights arrive at Bandaranaike International Airport, north of Colombo.
A South Sudanese child under 12 is not charged the government fee for a tourist ETA of up to 30 days. They still have to be named in an application with their own passport. Older children and adults from South Sudan pay the standard rate.
Not as a South Sudanese citizen. The ETA is issued against the passport you travel on, and it has to be valid for six months from arrival. Apply with your current South Sudanese passport and use it for the whole journey.
Your nationality is already set to South Sudan. 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.
