Editorial policy

Who writes Visa Almanac

Visa Almanac is operated by Advertee LLC (USA). Every page is written and checked by the Visa Almanac editorial team. We sign pages as a team rather than with individual names, and every edit is recorded in the public change log.

How we check a rule

• Official sources only. Each rule comes from a government portal, a foreign or interior ministry, an embassy or consulate, an immigration authority, or the official visa centre appointed by an embassy. Not from agencies, forums or other guides.
• A quote and a date for every rule. When we check a rule we keep the exact wording of the official page and the date we read it. The date is shown on the page and in every row of our tables.
• The source is linked where you read the rule: under the answer, in each table row and in the numbered list of sources on every page.

What we leave out

If an official source does not confirm a detail, we remove it rather than guess. A shorter page we can stand behind is better than a longer one with unchecked claims. When a detail is not published at all, such as a visa centre fee, the page says so.

How we count the globe's visa map

The colour of each country on the globe shows how many people need a visa arranged before they travel there: a visa from an embassy or visa centre, an eVisa, a visa-free entry that only works with another visa or residence permit, or no entry at all. Visa-free entry, a visa on arrival and an electronic travel authorisation (ETA) don't count as needing a visa.

We add up the population of every nationality whose rule we have verified for that country, leaving out its own citizens. Population is the 2024 figure from the World Bank (CC BY 4.0); Taiwan and the Vatican are not in that dataset, so they are left out of the counts. A country is coloured only when we have verified the rule for nationalities that make up at least 90% of the world's other people; the rest are hatched as not verified. The same figure appears as text on each country's page and in Countries A–Z.

When official pages disagree

Official pages sometimes contradict each other: an embassy web page and its own checklist, or a ministry and the visa portal. We show the conflict openly, link both sources and say which one we follow and why. Each documented conflict is also listed in the change log.

Corrections

When we get something wrong, we correct the page and record the correction in the change log with its date. We do not rewrite pages silently.

Report a change

Rules change without notice. If you have seen a rule change at a border, an embassy or a visa centre, tell us or write to hello@visaalmanac.com. We check every report against the official source before we change a page.

Independence

Visa Almanac is not a government website, does not issue visas and does not sell visa services. Our rules do not depend on any agency, and no one can pay to change a rule or how it is shown.