Editorial Policy — Standards, Sources & Corrections | The Visa Index
Last updated: 2026-04-21
The Visa Index exists to help travellers understand the entry rules that apply to them. That mission only works if our readers trust what we publish. This editorial policy documents the standards we hold ourselves to — how we decide what to write about, how we research it, how we handle mistakes, and where our commercial relationships begin and end.
Our Editorial Mission
We publish accurate, practical, and independently produced information about visa and entry requirements. We write for the traveller who needs to know whether to book the flight, not for the search engine and not for an advertiser. When the two are in tension, the traveller wins every time.
Who Writes Here
Every article on The Visa Index is attributed to a named member of our editorial team with a dedicated author profile. Author profiles show the writer's area of expertise, the countries they have personally travelled to or applied to visas from, the languages they read source material in, and their verified professional profiles on LinkedIn or X. We do not publish content under generic team bylines, and we do not purchase pre-written articles from content mills.
Use of AI
We use AI tools the way a newsroom uses a spell-checker or a search engine: as an assistant, not as an author. AI may be used by our writers to brainstorm structure, summarise long government PDFs for human reading, or draft routine sections that are then fact-checked and rewritten by the bylined editor. No article is published as raw AI output, and no article is published without a named human editor signing off on every factual claim. Machine translation is used to produce some non-English locale versions of articles; this is disclosed in our methodology.
Sourcing Standards
We treat primary sources — official government immigration portals, consular websites, and the IATA Travel Information Manual — as the authoritative basis for every fact about current visa rules. Secondary sources (news reports, community wikis, aggregator sites) may be used to locate or cross-check a change, but they are not quoted as authoritative on their own. Every data entry links to or cites the government source it is based on wherever practically possible; every news entry links to the original announcement.
When two primary sources disagree, we follow the rule of the country issuing the visa rather than the country of the traveller's nationality, and we log the disagreement internally. When an official source contradicts our data, the official source is correct until our team has manually verified otherwise.
Fact-Checking & Verification
Every article goes through at least one internal review before publication: a second editor (or, for specialist pieces, the editor with the relevant regional expertise) reads it against the cited sources, checks fees and figures, and confirms that the article reflects the current rules as of the date of publication. High-traffic articles are re-verified on a rolling basis, and every article carries a visible last-updated date.
Corrections Policy
If you believe we have published an error, write to us using the contact page or email the bylined editor. We verify corrections against the primary source and, if confirmed, update the article within 48 hours. Material corrections — changes to a visa category, fee, or eligibility — are logged publicly with a note on the article describing what was changed and when. Minor corrections (typos, broken links) are made silently. We do not quietly delete articles to hide errors.
Editorial Independence & Advertising
The Visa Index is funded by display advertising served through standard programmatic networks, principally Google AdSense. Advertisers have no input into what we cover, how we cover it, or what conclusions we reach. We do not accept payment for placement in rankings, 'best of' lists, or editorial content. When we mention a commercial service — a visa-processing firm, an airline, an immigration adviser — the mention is either editorial (because it is relevant to the reader) or clearly labelled as sponsored. We do not currently run sponsored content.
Affiliate Links
Some outbound links (for example, to travel-insurance providers or language-learning tools) may be affiliate links. Where they exist, they are clearly disclosed on the page they appear on, they never determine editorial coverage, and no affiliate relationship is a prerequisite for a positive mention. If we would not recommend a product without the affiliate payment, we do not recommend it with the affiliate payment.
Reader Privacy in Editorial Work
When readers contact us about corrections, suggest topics, or share their application experiences, we treat that correspondence as off the record unless the reader explicitly consents to attribution. We do not publish personal details — names, passport numbers, application outcomes — without written permission. Our general handling of visitor data is governed by our Privacy Policy.
Conflicts of Interest
Editors disclose, in writing and internally, any personal financial interest in a visa programme, immigration firm, or destination country that they are asked to cover. When a conflict cannot be avoided — for example, an editor writes about a Golden Visa programme they themselves have used — it is disclosed in the article. Editors do not accept gifts, discounted services, or free travel from governments, embassies, or immigration firms in exchange for coverage.
User-Submitted Content
Where we publish user-submitted data (for example, self-reported processing-time reports on a future feature), submissions are clearly labelled as community-submitted rather than editorially verified. We moderate submissions to remove personal identifiers and obvious errors, and we do not use user submissions as the sole basis for changing our core database.
Get in Touch
Questions about this policy, a specific article, or our editorial practices in general are welcome. Use our contact page to reach the editorial team. Readers who have a legal concern should contact us via the same channel; we will respond within a reasonable timeframe.