Sri Lanka Eta Request: Fill & Download for Free

Once you get the email from Sri Lanka Immigration authorities granting you the ETA approval, you need to print out this email (or to get a copy of it on your phone).This document can be requested by your airline upon check-in in the your country of departure.Then, after disembarking at Colombo International airport, you follow the boards to reach the Immigration counters. There, you show your passport and the printout or the electronic copy of your ETA. The Immigration officer will stick the visa on your passport before stamping it to mark the first day of its validity.

Yes and no.Applying for a visa ultimately depends on your country of nationality’s relationship with the country you intend to visit. This determines the visa(s) you can apply for and criteria you need to meet.If the two countries have a strong relationship, you will often find that you may be exempted from requiring a visa, commonly known as ‘Visa Free’. That means you can enter the country with having to supply an application to request entry prior to your travel.Some countries, require all visitors to obtain a visa regardless of where they’re from. Australia and New Zealand are a good example of this. These countries have a decent relationship with a number of countries and offer an electronic visa, know as ETA (Electronic Travel Authority). These visa types are mostly applied for online, unless you have have special circumstances, such as a criminal record or other matter that is flagged by immigration.However these visas are only offered to a select group of countries to which they have a good relationship with. If you come from a country that is not on the list, you may be required to fill out an application on paper and submit it at the local/nearest embassy/consulate for the country you want to visit.Visa types that you can apply for online are:eVisas (Cambodia, Vietnam)eTA (Canada, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Australia)ESTA (United States)EITA (United Kingdom) (Not yet functioning due in 2023)There are a number of countries that don’t offer an online travel visa, where you are required to attend the local/nearest embassy or consulate to apply in person.I have put together a blog post explaining this further. Alternatively there are service that digitalise all these visa applications forms and makes it much simpler to apply.Source: I’m the Co-Founder of OpenVisa, a service that allows Australians to check and apply for visas worldwide from Facebook Messenger.