38 countries immediately exempted from visas as a solution to visa queues

Sri Lanka has immediately become a visa-free country for 38 countries. This decision was made at yesterday's Cabinet meeting following reports of difficulties in issuing arrival visas to foreigners, including tourists, who arrive in Sri Lanka with long queues and severe congestion at Katunayake Airport.

The arrival visa issuance process had been operating for years without any delays, generating revenue for the government. However, when the government decided to issue visas through the VFS company, excessive queues developed. Data entry issues arose because it was difficult to convert the previous system to the technological method used by this company.

However, citing a threat to Sri Lanka's security, the court suspended the company's operations, and now visa issuance has been switched back to the previous method.

When reactivating this method, the online issuance system was halted due to technical reasons, and it was decided to issue visas only at Katunayake Bandaranaike International Airport. This caused excessive queues.

However, the government's solution to the queue problem has been to make visas free.

It is reported that the Cabinet has authorized the President to waive visa fees for 38 countries, following Singapore's 'one-chop' system.

This will allow for issuing and extending visas with just one official stamp on an applicant's passport.

In an X message, Foreign Affairs Minister Ali Sabry stated that implementing this decision will help reduce congestion at visa counters.

The 38 countries that have been made visa-free are as follows:
Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States.