Spanish passport holders need an ETA before flying to Colombo, though Sri Lanka has waived its government charge for Spain since May 2026. Thirty days, two entries, and enough flexibility for a Sri Lanka and Maldives honeymoon.
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
Spain sends more visitors to Sri Lanka each year than most people in either country realise. The island has become a fixture of Spanish honeymoon brochures, usually sold as a circuit through Sigiriya, Kandy and the tea hills with a few nights in the Maldives added at the end, and August departures from Madrid and Barcelona fill early.
Whatever the trip looks like, a Spanish passport does not get you in on its own. Sri Lanka asks every foreign visitor to hold an Electronic Travel Authorisation before flying, and Spaniards are no exception. Anyone searching for a visado para Sri Lanka or a Sri Lanka e-visa means this document.
Good news for Spanish travellers arrived on 25 May 2026, when Spain was named among 40 countries whose citizens no longer pay Sri Lanka's government charge on a tourist ETA. The authorisation remains compulsory and our application service still carries a fee, so check the live prices shown on this page before you start.
At a glance
Eligibility
Yes. Spanish citizens need an approved ETA for any short visit, whether that is a two-week viaje de novios, a surf trip to Arugam Bay or a stopover on the way to Malé. Spain's place on the waiver list removes a charge, not the requirement, and airlines at Barajas and El Prat look for the approval at check-in.
The tourist option covers what most Spaniards go for: sightseeing, beach time, visiting friends, an Ayurveda retreat or a yoga course, and taking part in an amateur race or tournament. If your employer is sending you to a trade fair, a negotiation or a seminar, pick the business option instead, because the tourist one excludes commercial activity.
Nationality, not residence, decides how you are treated. Spain is home to large Colombian, Venezuelan, Argentine, Moroccan and Romanian communities, and a resident holding one of those passports applies under that nationality and may fall under the standard government rate. A Spanish residence card plays no part in a Sri Lankan application.
Families should add every child to the application, including babies travelling on their own Spanish passport. Children under 12 were already spared the government fee on a tourist stay before the waiver reached Spanish adults, but each child still needs an authorisation recorded against their own passport number.
Stay & validity
A tourist ETA gives Spanish visitors 30 days in Sri Lanka, counted from the day of first arrival. That comfortably covers the ten-to-fifteen-night circuits Spanish agencies sell.
Two entries are allowed, which suits the classic Sri Lanka y Maldivas combination. You can land in Colombo, tour the island, fly to Malé for a week and come back through Colombo for the flight home, provided the return falls inside the same 30 days. The second arrival receives only whatever days are left, not a new month.
Once approved, the authorisation can be used for a first arrival at any point in the following six months, so a couple booking in February for an August wedding trip can apply early without wasting it. The conditions printed on your approval take priority over any general description, including this one.
Pricing
Live fees for Spanish 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 Spain
Requirements
Everything Spanish 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.
Applications from Spain are usually decided within a day or two. We suggest applying at least three to five days before departure, and nobody can promise a decision by a particular hour, so do not leave it until the night before a morning flight from Madrid.
August changes the picture. Almost the whole of Spain holidays in the same four weeks, Sri Lanka is a favourite long-haul choice for that month, and the Kandy Esala Perahera draws visitors from everywhere at the same time. If you are flying between mid-July and the end of August, apply a couple of weeks ahead.
Check your passport before anything else. Spanish passports last ten years for holders aged 30 or over and five years for younger adults, so twenty-somethings are the group most often caught short by the six-month rule. Renewing gives you a new passport number, so always renew first and apply for the ETA afterwards.
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 nonstop service between Spain and Sri Lanka, so every itinerary involves one change, most often in the Gulf. Doha, Dubai and Abu Dhabi each connect Madrid and Barcelona to Colombo with a single stop, and Istanbul offers the widest choice of Spanish departure cities. Travellers from the Canaries or the Balearics normally add a domestic leg to Madrid or Barcelona first.
Best time to go
Spain's holiday calendar and Sri Lanka's weather do not line up neatly, which is worth understanding before you book. August, when most Spaniards travel, falls in the south-west monsoon: Bentota, Galle and Mirissa see rain and rough seas, while the east coast around Trincomalee, Pasikudah and Arugam Bay is dry and at its best.
A well-planned August circuit therefore runs through the Cultural Triangle and Kandy, where the Esala Perahera procession takes place in July or August, and finishes on an eastern beach rather than a southern one. Cheaper packages sold in Spain sometimes still end in the south-west.
For the south and west coasts and the hill country, the months to aim for are December to March. The December puente around the Constitución and Inmaculada holidays, Christmas through Reyes, and an early Semana Santa all fall inside that window, and whale watching off Mirissa runs from November to April.
Colombo is four and a half hours ahead of peninsular Spain in winter and three and a half in summer, with the Canary Islands an hour further behind. Sri Lanka never changes its clocks.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Spain — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
Forms abroad often have room for one surname, and Spaniards get used to leaving the second one off. On an ETA that habit causes a mismatch. Enter García López as both words, in plain capitals if you prefer, because the airline compares the approval with the passport line by line.
The DNI number is the one Spaniards know by heart, and it finds its way into the passport number box surprisingly often. Sri Lanka links the authorisation to the passport, so an approval issued against a DNI number is useless at the airport and a new application is the only fix.
Coverage of the waiver in Spain led some travellers to think they could simply turn up. The charge was removed for Spanish citizens; the authorisation was not. You still need an approved ETA before boarding.
A passport renewed at a Policía Nacional office comes back with a different number. An ETA approved against the old one does not carry over, so anyone whose pasaporte is due to expire within the year should renew before applying, not after.
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 resident embassy in Madrid; Spain is covered from the embassy in Paris. Spanish tourists have no reason to contact it for an ETA, which is applied for and delivered online without an appointment or posting a passport. The embassy is relevant only to matters outside the online system, such as media or NGO work needing prior clearance.
FAQs
The questions Spanish passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes, and for Spaniards it takes the form of an Electronic Travel Authorisation. Spanish citizens must hold an approved ETA before travelling to Sri Lanka for a holiday, and it is this document that people usually mean by a Sri Lanka visa. It is applied for online and tied to your passport number.
Sri Lanka's government charge on the tourist ETA has been waived for Spanish nationals since 25 May 2026. The authorisation is still mandatory, and a service fee applies when you use our application assistance. The live prices shown on this page reflect what a Spanish passport holder pays today.
No. Sri Lanka does not accept the Spanish identity card. You need a full Spanish passport with six months of validity counted from your arrival date, and the ETA is issued against that passport's number, not your DNI.
A tourist ETA allows a Spanish visitor 30 days from first arrival, with two entries inside that period. Staying longer means obtaining an extension from the Department of Immigration and Emigration in Battaramulla before the 30 days end.
Yes, and many Spanish honeymooners do. The double entry lets you leave for Malé and return to Colombo, as long as both arrivals fall within 30 days of the first. If the Maldives comes last and you fly home from Malé, you only use one entry.
Put both surnames in the surname field in passport order, separated by a space. Replace ñ with N and leave out accents, following the coded lines at the bottom of the passport photo page. Peña Núñez is therefore entered as PENA NUNEZ.
No. The waiver follows the nationality of the passport, not the country you live in. A Colombian citizen resident in Valencia applies as a Colombian national and is charged whatever government rate applies to that passport, regardless of holding Spanish residence.
Three to five days before departure is the sensible minimum, since most decisions come back within a day or two but none is guaranteed. For August and Christmas departures, when Spanish demand peaks, a fortnight's margin is more comfortable.
Your nationality is already set to Spain. 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.
