Booking Train Tickets Sri Lanka – online booking + in-person

It’s the quintessential way to travel in Sri Lanka, the trains, especially if you are heading up to hill country. Sri Lankan trains through the tea plantations are an absolute delight. And some of the train journeys in Sri Lanka are amazing. But let’s start with some basics of buying and booking tickets (because they are distinctly different things, buying Sri Lankan train tickets and booking Sri Lankan train tickets that is). Traveling by train in Sri Lanka is one of the most popular ways for visitors to travel. And, because of the cost train travel in Sri Lanka is also extremely popular for Sri Lankans. Sri Lankan trains are clean, they can sometimes be comfortable (and sometimes not) and they’re a great way to travel in Sri Lanka like a local. But I digress. Let’s go through the details of buying train tickets in Sri Lanka, reserving train tickets, and how to book train tickets online in Sri Lanka.

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The Easiest Way to Buy Train Tickets

The easiest way to buy Sri Lankan Train Tickets is by using 12goAsia. Sri Lanka has some of the most stunning railway journeys in the world and you will not want to miss them. Book reserved seat tickets at least 30 days in advance of your travel.

Book your train here

When we first visited Sri Lanka in 2014 it wasn’t possible to buy train tickets online, so when we arrived in the early hours of the morning from Thailand, hopped on the airport express bus to Colombo Fort train station (the main railway station in Sri Lanka’s capital) we headed straight to the reservations office. We were lucky. At the time you could only travel to Jaffna in the far north of Sri Lanka with written permission from the military. We’d applied for and received this and as many other people didn’t have that, there were seats available. And we lucked out, we got seats in the marvelous observation car. It was glorious. Keep reading for details on the different carriages, seats, and tickets for trains in Sri Lanka.

If you want to travel on the Kandy to Ella train then you will NEED to book it. As soon as you know your dates, especially in high season, this train books out in minutes. Tickets for Sri Lankan trains go on sale 30 days before the date of travel. At 10:00am.

About Sri Lankan Trains

There’s a great network of trains around Sri Lanka. Mostly they’re slow, stopping at all stations along the route. Some are older than others. My experience is that they usually run late. And slow. But that’s part of the fun of it (sometimes).

On Sri Lankan trains there are different classes of carriages and seats. There’s first class, second class, and third class. The quality and comfort of the seats in these different carriages is reflected in the cost.

And then there are reserved seats and unreserved seats, although in first class there are only reserved seats. A reserved seat means that you definitely get a seat. Unreserved seats are exactly that. If you get on the train first you get a seat, if you don’t, then you’ll likely be standing.

There are a finite number of tickets that are sold for the reserved seat carriages – as there are a finite number of seats available. Tickets for these seats go on sale 30 days in advance of the departure. In the unreserved carriages, there is no limit to the number of tickets that are sold. Yes, you’ve read that right. And yes what you’re imagining is true. It gets manically crowded and busy, especially on holidays. (Don’t be like Sarah and Nigel and buy unreserved tickets for the day before Christmas Eve from Colombo Fort to Galle.) It might have been fun for a few minutes, but for the nearly 3 hours of train journey, it was decidedly uncomfortable.

I’m digressing again.

There are different carriages for reserved and unreserved seats. Some stations – like Ella – usefully display the train plan which shows where each carriage should stop. It’s not quite so easy in bigger stations like Colombo Fort.

So let’s clarify all of that. On Sri Lankan trains there are carriages for

1^stclass AC reserved carriages.
2^nd class reserved carriages
3^rd class reserved carriages
2^nd class unreserved carriages
3^rd class unreserved carriages

And no, you can’t ride on the roof. You’re not supposed to ride on the footplate (where the doors are), but inevitably it happens because there are usually lots of people on the trains.

Riding on the Footplate Sri Lankan Train

Sri Lankan Train Tickets – Buy or Book?

Until late 2021 or early 2022, it wasn’t possible to buy tickets online for Sri Lankan trains. The only way to buy a train ticket in advance was to head to a railway station and the reservations office and buy a ticket there. Reserved seat tickets go on sale 30 days in advance. And, as they’re so popular they usually sell out quickly.

Of course, if those reserved seat carriages end up being sold out then you can always turn up and buy a ticket in the unreserved carriages. You can’t buy tickets for the unreserved carriages until the day of travel – and it’s usually about an hour before the train is scheduled to depart.

So, there’s a clear difference between buying tickets and booking tickets. And a clear difference between reserving a seat and just buying a ticket to have the chance of getting on the train.

Sri Lankan Train Seat Classes and Carriages

I’ll preface this by saying that you don’t ACTUALLY need to have a reserved train ticket when you’re traveling by train in Sri Lanka. You can just rock up and buy an unreserved second-class or unreserved third-class ticket 30-60 minutes before the train departs.

Unreserved carriages in 2^nd and 3^rd class on Sri Lankan trains

We’ve done this several times. Unreserved carriages are much cheaper. But we’ve NEVER got a seat in any of these carriages. We have stood for hours and hours. It’s cheap, but it’s not comfortable. You need to be first on the train to get a seat. There are unreserved carriages in second and third class.

Reserved carriages on Sri Lankan Trains

Getting a seat in a reserved 2^nd or 3^rd class carriage is the BEST for any of the scenic rides (and face it a lot of Sri Lankan train journeys are scenic). This is because they have BIG windows that open. The first class reserved might have A/C, but they don’t have windows that open. And that doesn’t make for great photos. You’ll end up leaving the carriage to go and stand on the footplate to take your photos.

How to Buy Tickets Online for Sri Lankan Trains

Since the end of 2021 it’s been possible to reserve seat tickets for Sri Lankan trains online. And if you’re planning to take one of the popular routes – particularly the Ella to Kandy train – then you’ll want to do this as soon as tickets become available – 30 days before travel, at 10:00am. You’ll want to be quick off the mark, as this route can sell out within 15 minutes for popular dates. I kid you not. This article contains details of how to buy reservations for seats on Sri Lankan trains – there are a variety of options – how to collect your tickets, where to get your tickets from, and what to do if there are no reserved seats available.

What type of tickets are there on Sri Lankan Trains?

There are two types of tickets available on Sri Lankan trains. Reserved and Unreserved. And it’s exactly what it says in the name. An unreserved ticket means that you get a ticket to ride, but no guarantee of a seat. A reservation means you have a reserved seat.

There are separate carriages on Sri Lankan trains for reserved and unreserved ticket holders.

Reserved Tickets on Sri Lankan Trains

A train reservation on Sri Lankan trains means that you’ll definitely get a seat. They only sell tickets for the actual seat numbers. You can buy “reserved seat tickets” for 1^st class, 2^nd class, and 3^rd class carriages. First class is always air-conditioned. In 2^nd class, there are often AC carriages and non-AC carriages. 3^rd class is always “open windows”. There’s an additional class on some trains – which is basically a single carriage – called the Observation Carriage. This is a glorious way to travel. It’s the carriage at the end of the train, with a huge picture window, and if you’re lucky enough to get the seat right next to it you have a simply marvelous view. But also people traveling in this carriage tend to not worry too much about you crowding to the front / back now and then for a view (so long as you have a ticket for that carriage of course!)

We were lucky enough to take the Observation Carriage from Colombo Fort to Jaffna and it was a simply marvellous journey and I recommend it to anyone.

Unreserved Tickets on Sri Lankan Trains

If you’re not able to buy tickets for a reserved carriage, then you always have an option for buying tickets for the “unreserved carriages” – these are 2^nd class and 3^rd class. And they’re exactly what the name suggests. Unreserved. You buy a ticket – but only on the day, and usually an hour before the train is scheduled to depart.

And then when it comes to boarding, you get on with everyone else. It’s quite the thing. If you’re not boarding the train at its first departure station, then you’ll likely be fighting to get on the train when other people are fighting to get off. If you’ve got big bags, then it’s hard work. If you’re traveling during holidays it’s an interesting experience. From my personal experience, I do not recommend traveling the day before Christmas Eve from Colombo Fort to Galle. In 3^rd class unreserved. But I met the most delightful Sri Lankan families traveling for Christmas, just in very close quarters!

Buying Tickets Online For Sri Lankan Trains

You have a variety of ways in which to reserve train tickets for Sri Lanka online. But your reservation is just that. It’s not a ticket. And you need a ticket to travel.

You CANNOT in 2023 travel on this reservation. You need to take your reservation details to a Sri Lankan train station and get them to print the train ticket for you. And you need to make sure that the station that you go to is a “mTicket enabled station” – because not all of them are.

The list of mticket-enabled Sri Lankan train stations is here. It basically means that they have the facilities to print tickets for reserved seats.

How to pick up your Sri Lankan Trains Reservation Tickets

You’ll need to head to a mticket enabled Sri Lankan railway station along with the passport that you input to book your reservation to collect your ticket. If you’ve booked reservations for several people you should only need the lead passenger’s passport, but it’s best to take all of them just in case.

Where to book Sri Lankan Trains Online

There are several sites where you can book train tickets for Sri Lanka online. I’ll start with the most familiar. And the easiest.

Book Sri Lankan Trains on 12goAsia

This tried and tested site is familiar to travelers across Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and some parts of Europe. It’s easy to use. We’ve used it in all those places and never had a problem with them.

To book Sri Lankan train reservations with 12GoAsia, click here.

Notes about booking train tickets with 12GoAsia

You CANNOT travel on an Eticket. You’ll need to head to a reservations window and get a printed ticket for your journey.
You can book Sri Lankan train tickets with 12GoAsia. It is best to book as early as you can. As the tickets are only available to be purchased on Sri Lankan trains within 30 days of travel, if your travel is more than 30 days away, then 12Go will make the purchase with Sri Lankan trains when it gets to 30 days before your travel.
There is a fee to pay, so this will be a little more expensive than heading to a reservations office in Sri Lanka.
12GoAsia offers a Flexible option. If your requested train and class are fully booked, they will issue tickets on the next available train within 3 hours or the nearest class available ON THE SAME DAY. You can opt for this, or for NOT Flexible, which means that if your particular class or train is not available then they will refund you. So if you’ve requested 1^st class and that’s not available, then you’ll get 2^nd class and you’ll be refunded the price difference.

Book Sri Lankan Trains with the site seatrservation.railway.gov.lk

This booking site is run by Sri Lankan trains and Mobitel, one of the mobile providers in Sri Lanka. There is also an Android app and an iOS app. However, while I was able to download the app, you can only make a booking using the app if you have an account. I wasn’t able to create an account, as it wouldn’t accept a GB passport as a legitimate number.

You do NOT have to create an account if you use the Seatreservation website, you can just make bookings.

And as well as 12GoAsia we’ve used the Seatreservation site successfully to book trains online in Sri Lanka. The website has the following features:

It accepts foreign cards.
You can see availability for each class of travel
You can see if the route that you want is part of a longer route

You cannot travel on the resulting “reservation” you need to go to a train station to get your ticket printed. It can be any train station (it does not need to be the station you are traveling from or to) that is “mticket enabled”, keep reading for details on those.

List of mticket enabled stations in Sri Lanka

Here’s the link to the most current list. A station that is M ticket enabled simply means it’s a station that has facilities to print a reservation that you’ve bought online or via the phone. (I’ll cover buying Sri Lankan train tickets by phone shortly, but it’s not likely to be useful for most travelers).

Collecting your Printed Ticket after making an online reservation

You’ll need to produce the passport of the named person who made the online reservation to be allowed to collect the ticket.

You can collect the ticket at any time after booking. (we collected ours less than 5 minutes after booking in Ella). Simply collect from the “reservations window”

The reason we collected after just 5 minutes in Ella was that the station master there insisted we could turn up on the day and we didn’t need to book. (we were traveling mid-week out of the holiday season). However, we knew there were only four seats available (he said there would be cancellations). He didn’t want to make the reservation but said that we could reserve online. Which we did and collected the printed tickets immediately. After standing for 3 hours from Colombo Fort to Galle we were taking no risks on the 9.5-hour journey back to Colombo!

There is a 5% “convenience fee” for booking online. Otherwise, the price of the train ticket is the same as if you buy the ticket in person. Our tickets for 5,000 LKR cost us a further 250 LKR as the convenience fee. To be honest after our journey from Colombo Fort to Galle (that also included hanging around at Colombo Fort for nearly two hours as the departing train was delayed) it’s a convenience we were prepared to pay for! We use Wise to pay online without additional charges. (grab a wise account here).

Sri Lankan Train Printed Reservation Ticket

Where to buy Sri Lankan Train Tickets at a station

Buying tickets at a train station is easy, you just need to get to the right place at the station. The most difficult Sri Lankan train station to work this out at is Colombo Fort. It’s the main station in the capital of Sri Lanka (Colombo) and the biggest station in the country. It’s most difficult to work out because it’s bigger and much, much busier. However, there and in all other stations in Sri Lanka all the signage that you’ll see will be in both English and Singhalese.

Find the Right Ticket Counter for your Train Route

First, you need to find the ticket counter (or ticket office) where they sell reserved seat tickets – because they are different from buying an “on-the-day ticket”. You cannot buy an on-the-day ticket for Sri Lankan trains from the reservations office, nor can you buy a reserved seat ticket for the train from the “on-the-day” counters.

In Colombo Fort, all the ticket windows and offices are numbered. So if you’re looking for the Colombo Fort Reservations office it’s 17. Here are the numbers of the counters where you need to go to buy tickets for specific locations.

Colombo Fort Railway Station Ticket Counters & Destinations

At Colombo Fort Train station there are specific counters for particular routes and you can only buy the ticket for that route at that particular counter. These are the counter details.

1: The North Line – Anuradhapura and all the way north to Jaffna
2 & 8: The East Line – Kandy, Hatton for Adam´s Peak, Nanu Oya for Nuwara Eliya, and Ella
3: The North Line that branches east to Trincomalee
4: 1st & 2nd class reserved seat tickets only, for anywhere in Sri Lanka
13 & 14: The Southern Line – Galle, Bentota, Mirissa, and Matara
17 Intercity Reservation Office: For reserved seat cars and 1st class sleepers on all trains

Counter 17 is inside and the opening hours are from 06:00 until 16:00, it closes for lunch from 12:30 until 13:00

How to book Sri Lankan trains at a Train Station

If you’re in Sri Lanka and want to book tickets for a reserved carriage at a train station, then you’ll want to do that AS SOON AS YOU CAN. Reserved class tickets sell out VERY QUICKLY. So use this as your last resort, rather than your standard operating mode. Here’s how to buy reserved carriage tickets at a train station in Sri Lanka. You will need your passport with you.

Go to a reservations counter at the train station. These are known as M ticketing counters and they’re specific for train ticket reservations. Not all train stations have an M ticking counter, but you will find one at Colombo Fort, Kandy, Nanu Oya, and Ella. Here’s the full list of stations that have an M ticketing counter.
Request the date of the ticket that you want, as well as the route, the specific train that you want to take, the class, and how many tickets you want. You’ll need to provide your passport.
Pay for the ticket. Check the details are what you wanted.

Transport & Popular Routes in Sri Lanka

Here’s our guide to travel and transport in Sri Lanka
Here’s how to buy train tickets in Sri Lanka – online, on the phone and in person
Want to know what Sri Lankan buses are like? Here’s our guide.

How to book Sri Lankan Train Tickets by calling Mobitel or Dialog

The third and final way that you can reserve train tickets is by calling Mobitel or Dialog.

I DO NOT recommend this option. First of all you’ll need a SIM card from either of these two of Sri Lanka’s mobile service providers. They host call centers that provide train ticket reservations. You’ll need to be in Sri Lanka to do this, you can’t do it from abroad.

Buying Sri Lankan train tickets on the phone means that you’ll do just that. You ring a call center. If your experiences of call centers are anything like mine, then you’ll know its hard to hear / understand. If you’re a native Sri Lankan then its likely a LOT easier.

But for those of you who want to try this option, here’s how you buy reserved carriage train tickets using Mobitel or Dialog.

You’ll need either a Mobitel or Dialog SIM card. And you’ll need to recharge it to have more than enough credit on it to buy the tickets that you want.
Call the ticket reservation number for the provider of your SIM card.
1. For Dialog it’s 444
1. For Mobitel, it’s 365
Request the date of the ticket that you want, as well as the route, the specific train that you want to take, the class, and how many tickets you want. You’ll need to provide the passport number of the people traveling.
Your reservation will be read back to you, listen carefully, and confirm, if there are any mistakes that you notice later there are no refunds.
Once you’ve confirmed the details the cost of the reservations will be taken from your SIM card balance.
You will receive a reference number by SMS.
Next, you’ll need to go to one of the M ticketing counters at a train station and provide your passport and the reference number that you received via SMS.

Travel Tips for Exploring Sri Lanka

Get Travel Insurance: Civitatis includes medical expenses, repatriation, theft, luggage delays. No deductibles or upfront payments. Get a quote here.
Get online immediately with an eSIM for Sri Lanka
Download and install a VPN BEFORE you travel to Sri Lanka > discount coupon here
Book your airport transfer with Welcome Pickups
Read about transport in Sri Lanka in our guide here
Our guide to booking trains in Sri Lanka
You will 99% likely need a power adapter for Sri Lanka – there’s more here.
Book the best Sri Lanka tours and guides on Get Your Guide
Save money in Sri Lanka with a Wise debit card
Book Trains in Sri Lanka with 12goAsia
Book accommodation in Sri Lanka with Booking

Final Words on Booking Sri Lankan Train Tickets

Sri Lankan trains are a delight to travel on. Sometimes. They’re definitely better to travel on if you have a seat, and that means reserving a ticket ahead of time. You can buy tickets for Sri Lankan trains in person, online or on the phone, what you do need to be is organized, as the reserved seat carriages are popular and tickets sell out quickly.

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Booking Train Tickets Sri Lanka – online booking + in-person

About Sri Lankan Trains

Sri Lankan Train Tickets – Buy or Book?

Sri Lankan Train Seat Classes and Carriages