SINGAPORE, 27 August 2024: Sri Lanka’s Cabinet has green-lighted a free visa concession for 35 nationalities effective 1 October 2024 for six months ending 31 March 2025.
The deal waives the fee for visitors who enter the country on a 30-day visa-on-arrival. It will help reduce queues at the airport following the suspension of the eVisa authorisation online service that VFS Global offered until earlier this month.
The concession makes the visa gratis, but it should not be confused with visa-free entry, as immigration officials still issue a visa on arrival stamped in passports. Fees remain in place for other visa categories issued at embassies or through the Department of Immigration and Emigration in Colombo.
Thirty-five countries on the list
India, China, UK, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Australia, Denmark, Poland, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Nepal, Indonesia, Russia, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, France, the US, Canada, Czech Republic, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Israel, Belarus, Iran, Sweden, South Korea, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and New Zealand.
The Cabinet of Ministers approved the concession last Wednesday following the recommendation of an expert committee that studied free visa schemes in Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The latest decision to suspend the visa fee follows a pilot project that offered a visa fee waiver to visitors from India, China, Russia, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia and Thailand since late last year.
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