Data sources

Every programme. A named official source. Almost no exceptions.

Every visa programme enters the database with a named, fetchable link to its official source. Country context is different, and we'll say so plainly: 82% of our cost-of-living data comes from Numbeo, a crowdsourced panel. Crowdsourced data is barred from ever supplying a visa or tax rule. Below: every source, by country, by pathway — including the gaps.

7,000+
Pathways with an official source URL
200+
Countries
Q2 26
Last sweep
72h
Mid-cycle SLA

EU & EEA · 27 countries

758 URLs · verified 2026-05-12

Americas · 35 countries

519 URLs · verified 2026-05-10

Asia & Pacific · 32 countries

443 URLs · verified 2026-05-08
Policy

The three rules for what enters the index.

Calibrated so this page is the receipt for every claim in every report.

Rule 01

Named, fetchable, official.

Every visa programme carries a link to its official source page — almost always the issuing authority's own site (canada.ca, migri.fi, ind.nl, migrationsverket.se, bamf.de), a national gazette, or an official programme portal. A tail of 75 programmes (2%) points instead to a UN, academic or NGO legal database — UNHCR Refworld, GLOBALCIT, ILO NATLEX — for the handful of countries that publish no usable page of their own. This rule governs visa rules only. Country context is a separate layer, held to a lower standard. Rule 02 says how much lower.

Rule 02

Crowdsourced data cannot touch your verdict.

Numbeo — a crowdsourced panel — supplies 82% of our cost-of-living facts. We'd rather tell you than have you assume otherwise. It is the de-facto reference for prices, and no statistics agency publishes rent and grocery data for 200+ countries. But it is barred by policy from supplying an immigration or tax rule: in our source registry it is flagged blocked for both. It shapes context. It can never move what we show as a programme's requirement — that runs on government sources alone.

Rule 03

Quarterly sweep + fast-tracked fixes.

Top-30 destinations re-verified each quarter. If a country gazettes a material change mid-quarter and it's flagged to us, we verify it against the source and ship the fix within 14 days — the diff appears at /changelog.

Found something out of date? Tell us.

Send the programme name and the official URL. We verify it within 72 hours and, once confirmed, fix the database within 14 days — crediting the contributor in the changelog.

hello@wheretoemigrate.io

Logged at /changelog · contributor credited by name (or anonymously)

Open data attributions

Where this site or our reports use third-party open datasets, attribution per their licences:

Counts were measured against the country dataset we serve on 3 September 2026, and cover all 16,273 country-level facts across our 250-country reference table. The previous figure published here — 14,302, counted on 13 July 2026 — was not regenerated for seven weeks; it now is, from the data itself. Sources we monitor but which currently feed zero facts — OECD, Eurostat, WHO, UNDP, IMF, UNESCO — are deliberately not listed above. Naming a source we don't actually use would be the same lie in the opposite direction.

Per-field provenance

Every number in our reports should be defensible. The table below shows the current state per field across the 200+ countries in our reference data — including the brutal distinction between numbers we re-pull live from the source and numbers that carry a labeled source we haven't re-verified today.

Legend:   ✓ Live = freshly pulled today from the cited source ·   ◐ Labeled = source name correct, value pre-existed (not re-verified today) ·   ◯ Pending = source NAMED as verification target; value still awaiting re-pull

Field Status Coverage Source
gdp_per_capita✓ Live83.2%World Bank · WDI NY.GDP.PCAP.CD (pulled today 2026-05-29)
unemployment✓ Live74.6%World Bank · WDI SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS (pulled today 2026-05-29)
inflation✓ Live71.5%World Bank · WDI FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG (pulled today 2026-05-29)
cost_of_living_index_wb✓ Live~86%World Bank · WDI PA.NUS.PPP (pulled today 2026-05-29) — clean composite alternative
min_wage✓ Live53.1%ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization) — 167 countries
gini_index✓ Live32.8%World Bank · WDI SI.POV.GINI (pulled today 2026-05-29) — WB publishes irregularly per country, hard ceiling
personal_rate_top◐ Labeled83.6%PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries — source named, value pre-existed (not re-pulled today)
special_regime◐ Labeled83.6%PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries — value pre-existed
vat_rate_pct◐ Labeled82.0%PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries — value pre-existed
effective_rate_90k◐ Labeled78.5%PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries — value pre-existed
healthcare_index◐ Labeled85.9%World Bank composite (122 countries) + Numbeo, crowdsourced (89 countries)
safety_index◐ Labeled80.1%Numbeo, crowdsourced (89 countries) + Global Peace Index, IEP (78 countries)
cost_of_living_index◐ Labeled85.9%Numbeo, crowdsourced (152 countries) + World Bank (62). WB-only alternative published as cost_of_living_index_wb
rent_1br / groceries / transport / utilities / dining◐ Labeled~78%Numbeo — crowdsourced, 100% of these fields (rent_1br/groceries/transport/utilities 194 countries, dining 186). No statistics agency publishes these globally.
avg_salary◯ Pending80.9%Eurostat (EU) / OECD / ILOSTAT regional — verification per top-30 destination still pending

Coverage % = countries where the value carries a per-field _last_verified + _source stamp. The Status column is the honest truth about how recently we re-verified each value against its named source. Re-generated from reports/data-provenance/by-field.json per audit run. If a number you rely on isn't defensibly sourced, email us: hello@wheretoemigrate.io.

How we use your quiz answers

Your passport, the route you pick, and five questions about that route. Every one feeds a specific part of the match. Nothing decorative. Here's the map.

Passport

Your passport decides which programmes are open to you at all. We filter the 7,000+ programmes against the nationalities each route names. EU citizens also unlock intra-EU free-movement rules.

The route you are taking

Work, study, investment, ancestry and the rest are separate legal families with separate rules. Picking one decides which five questions you are asked and which programmes we compare you against.

Eligibility profile

Who you are for this route: your occupation, the level you would study at, where the money would come from. Most routes are open only to particular profiles.

The core route requirement

The one thing a route will not bend on — a job offer, a place at an institution, the asset you would invest in. It is the most common reason an application never starts.

Financial requirement

The salary, the proof of funds, or the sum you could invest. Nearly every route sets a number here, and that number is what your answer is read against.

Rights and restrictions

Who moves with you, whether you may work, whether you must actually live there. Two routes with identical requirements can differ completely on what they let you do afterwards.

Duration and long-term outcome

How long you want this to last, and whether you are aiming at permanent residence or citizenship. It separates a route that renews indefinitely from one that simply ends.

No question is decorative. If we ask it, it maps to one of the five factors we show you for every programme.