How we source our visa data
Visa rules affect real money and real travel plans, so we're upfront about where our information comes from, how current it is, and where its limits are.
What we cover
isvisarequired.com provides visa-requirement guidance for 195 countries — 37,830 passport-to-destination combinations — plus dedicated guides for airport transit and electronic travel authorisations (ETIAS, ESTA, ETA, eTA).
Where our data comes from
Our requirement data is built from three layers:
- Official government sources. Every destination page links directly to that country's official immigration portal and its embassy/consulate finder — the authoritative source for your specific case.
- An open base dataset. Our baseline matrix is derived from the widely-used open-source Passport Index dataset, which gives consistent coverage across all country pairs.
- Source-verified corrections. Where the baseline has gone stale, we layer on manual corrections that we've checked against official government announcements (for example, recent changes to the UK ETA and visa-free transit schemes). These corrections always take precedence over the baseline.
How current it is
Rules we have individually checked are marked on their page with the official source they were checked against. Visa policy changes frequently and sometimes with little notice, so a checked rule tells you what the source said when we read it, not a guarantee that nothing has changed since. Every correction we have made is listed, with its source, on our verified changes log.
Important limitations
Our information is general guidance, not legal or immigration advice. Your actual requirement can depend on details we can't always capture — your specific nationality and any second nationality, your residence permits, the purpose and length of your trip, your exact route and any layovers, and recent rule changes.
Always confirm with the official government source (linked on every page) or the airline before you book or travel. We are not liable for decisions made solely on the basis of this site.
Transit and residence are separate
The main checker covers tourist/short-stay entry. Airport transit rules and electronic travel authorisations are handled on their own pages, because they follow different rules. Residence permits and second documents can also change your requirement — check the official source for your situation.
Spotted something wrong?
We genuinely want to fix errors quickly. If a page looks out of date against an official source, tell us here and we'll review it against the government source and update our corrections.
Who we are
isvisarequired.com is an independent travel-information service. We are not affiliated with any government, embassy or visa-processing company, and we never charge for visa applications — we only ever point you to the official portal.