Taiwanese passport holders arrange an ETA online before travelling to Sri Lanka, with no office visit. It grants 30 days and two entries, and the standard government rate applies because Taiwan is outside the fee waiver.
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 Taiwanese citizens
Taiwan is not among the 40 countries covered by Sri Lanka's waiver of the tourist ETA government charge, so the standard rate applies to adult Taiwanese applicants. Children under 12 are not charged the government fee. See the live prices shown on this page.
Overview
Sri Lanka is still a discovery for most travellers from Taiwan, known more through cups of Ceylon black tea than through first-hand visits. Those who go tend to be independent travellers and small guided groups drawn by the Cultural Triangle, the hill railways, leopard safaris and the Buddhist heritage of Kandy and Anuradhapura.
Getting in is an online matter. Sri Lanka requires an Electronic Travel Authorisation from every foreign visitor, and what Taiwanese forums call a Sri Lanka e-visa is this ETA. Because the whole process runs online against the passport number, there is no need to hand your passport to anyone or to travel abroad for a sticker.
Taiwan does not appear on the list of countries for which Sri Lanka waived its government charge in May 2026, so adult applicants pay the standard rate, with children under 12 exempt from that charge. Our service fee sits alongside it in the live prices shown on this page.
At a glance
Eligibility
Yes, without exception. Travellers holding a Taiwan passport need the ETA approved ahead of departure from Taoyuan or Kaohsiung, and staff at the transfer hub are likely to ask for it too.
The tourist ETA takes in the usual reasons for a Taiwanese trip: sightseeing, visiting friends or relatives, Buddhist pilgrimage as a private visitor, yoga and Ayurveda retreats, and attending sporting or cultural events. Each person in the party, children included, must be covered.
Taiwan's electronics, textile and tea-trading firms do send staff to the island, and they should select the business option for meetings, negotiations, trade conferences, seminars or training shorter than a month. Formal religious events and symposiums are also classed under business, not tourism. Employment and self-employment are possible on neither.
A stop of up to two days between flights, for example on a routing to the Maldives, can be covered by a transit ETA with no government charge if you hold documentary proof of the onward journey. Stay a third day and you need the tourist version.
Stay & validity
The tourist ETA gives a Taiwanese visitor 30 days in Sri Lanka from the date of first entry. It may be used for two entries, which helps anyone adding the Maldives or southern India to the trip, though the second arrival inherits only the unused part of the 30 days.
An approval remains usable for six months after it is issued. Taiwanese travellers who buy flights early for the Lunar New Year can apply as soon as the passport details are settled, bearing in mind that the terms printed on the approval override any summary.
Check the expiry page of your passport before anything else. Six months of validity from the arrival date is required, and while Taiwan issues ten-year passports to adults, children under 14 receive five-year ones that run down faster than parents remember. Extensions past 30 days are handled only by the Department of Immigration and Emigration in Battaramulla.
Pricing
Live fees for Taiwanese 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 Taiwan
Requirements
Everything Taiwanese 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.
Decisions for Taiwanese applicants typically come through in a day or two, and occasionally sooner. Since nothing is guaranteed, the sensible margin is three to five days before departure, and more if your journey begins with a connection where the first airline will check documents.
Demand rises around the Lunar New Year, when the long Taiwanese break coincides with peak season on Sri Lanka's south coast, and again during the July and August school holidays. For travel in those windows, applying ten to fourteen days ahead removes the pressure.
Taipei is two and a half hours ahead of Colombo all year. If further information is requested, the message is likely to arrive during Taiwanese office hours or early evening, so register an inbox you open at weekends, not a work address you ignore until Monday.
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 between Taiwan and Sri Lanka, so every itinerary involves one change. The most practical hubs from Taoyuan are Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, each with onward flights to Colombo, and total journey times of nine to twelve hours are normal depending on the layover. Booking both legs on one ticket keeps your baggage and connection protected.
Best time to go
Taiwan's Lunar New Year holiday in late January or February lands in the driest, sunniest part of the year for Colombo, Galle, the southern beaches and the tea hills. It is also the most expensive and crowded time, so rooms in Ella and around Yala should be booked early.
The Tomb Sweeping and Children's Day long weekend in early April is still good for the south-west and the hill country, though hot in the lowlands. Shortly afterwards, in mid-April, Sri Lanka celebrates its own Sinhala and Tamil New Year and transport fills with families travelling home.
Summer brings an interesting trade. July and August are typhoon season in Taiwan and monsoon season on Sri Lanka's south-west, yet the east coast at Trincomalee and Arugam Bay is dry and calm. A typhoon closing Taoyuan can still disrupt the outbound connection, so leave slack before fixed bookings.
The National Day break in October meets Sri Lanka's inter-monsoon, with short heavy showers on many afternoons across the island. Sightseeing at Sigiriya and Dambulla works well in the mornings. On any Poya full-moon day, expect a public holiday with alcohol sales suspended.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Taiwan — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
A Taiwan passport prints the holder's personal identity number on the same page as the passport number. The ETA must carry the passport number; using the other one produces an approval that matches no travel document.
A surname may be CHANG on the passport and Zhang in a company directory. Only the passport form counts. The same applies to given names, where hyphens and spacing should follow the printed page or its machine-readable line.
With no nonstop service, some travellers stitch together a low-cost flight to Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur and a separate onward ticket. The first airline may check Sri Lankan entry documents, and a missed self-made connection is at your own expense.
Children under 12 are spared the government charge, which leads some parents to assume no application is needed. Each child still has to be included with their own passport details.
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 embassy or consulate in Taiwan, which is one more reason the online ETA is the practical route for Taiwanese travellers. The application does not involve a mission at any point; only categories outside the ETA system would require contact with a Sri Lankan post abroad.
FAQs
The questions Taiwanese passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes. Taiwanese citizens need an approved Electronic Travel Authorisation, often described as a Sri Lanka e-visa, before travelling. The tourist version allows 30 days and two entries, and it is applied for online.
Yes. The application is completed online in English using your passport details, a card payment and an email address. No Sri Lankan office needs to see the passport itself.
No. The waiver covers 40 named countries and Taiwan is not one of them, so the standard government rate applies to adults. Children under 12 are not charged that fee. Current figures are in the live prices shown on this page.
There are none at present. Travellers change once, usually in Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur or Hong Kong, and should allow nine to twelve hours for the complete journey.
Follow the passport. If the form will not accept a hyphen, use the spelling in the machine-readable lines at the bottom of the photo page, where the two parts of the given name appear without it.
Most are approved within one or two days. We suggest applying three to five days before departure as a minimum and around two weeks ahead for Lunar New Year or summer-holiday travel.
Possibly, but only through the Department of Immigration and Emigration at its head office in Battaramulla, near Colombo, and the request must be made while your current stay is still valid. Our application covers the initial 30-day ETA.
No. It authorises you to travel, and the immigration officer at the airport decides on admission. Carrying your return ticket, hotel booking and proof of funds makes that conversation short.
Your nationality is already set to Taiwan. 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.
