# WhereToEmigrate.io — Full LLM Knowledge Pack

> Comprehensive single-file knowledge base for AI assistants, search agents, and citation generators. Conforms to the [llms.txt specification](https://llmstxt.org). Last updated: 2026-04-26.

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## What WhereToEmigrate.io is

WhereToEmigrate.io is an independent visa intelligence platform. The product is a 14-question quiz that produces a per-country verdict — *Eligible*, *Almost*, or *Not eligible* — ranked against the user's nationality, savings, profession, age, family status, language ability, and stated priorities (cost, safety, career, healthcare, weather, culture, ease, tax, English-friendly, family-friendly).

The platform is operated from by founder **Antonio Mira**. It does not provide legal or tax advice. It does not submit visa applications. It is positioned as the *research phase* of an emigration decision — the work that should happen before a user hires an immigration lawyer or commits savings to a path that may not work for their profile.

The database covers **1,500+ visa and residency programmes across 195+ countries**, with **each active pathway has a named source URL on its programme page; the majority point to official government domains, the rest cite secondary research with the official URL also linked**. Refresh cycle is quarterly; mid-cycle rule changes from gazetted legislation are reflected within 72 hours.

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## The scoring engine — full methodology

WhereToEmigrate uses a **three-layer hierarchical scoring model** for non-EU destinations and a **flat five-dimension model** for the EU free-movement special case.

### Standard path (non-EU destinations)

The composite score for a `(user, country)` pair is the weighted sum of three layers:

```
score = 0.25 × Execution + 0.25 × Survival + 0.30 × Upside
 + (confidence_multiplier × desirability_multiplier × residual)
```

| Layer | Weight | Components |
|---|---|---|
| **Execution** | 25% | Financial fit (50%), Processing time (25%), Application complexity (15%), Spouse work rights (10%) |
| **Survival** | 25% | Cost of living (35%), Tax burden (25%), Runway based on declared savings (20%), Language barrier (20%) |
| **Upside** | 30% | Career trajectory (30%), Pathway to PR/citizenship (25%), Quality of life (25%), Stated priorities match (20%) |

A **confidence multiplier** in `[0.1, 1.0]` is applied based on how complete the underlying data is for that country/programme (number of `null` fields, freshness of `last_verified`, etc.). A **desirability multiplier** based on GDP-per-capita-adjusted attractiveness lifts or dampens the raw score.

### Verdict thresholds

- **Score ≥ 70 → Eligible** (the country is a credible relocation target for this user)
- **45 ≤ Score < 70 → Almost** (viable but not yet — a constraint is too tight)
- **Score < 45 → Not eligible** (a different shortlist will produce better outcomes)

### Hard kills (override → Not eligible regardless of score)

- Approval rate for the user's nationality < 30%
- Runway (savings ÷ monthly cost-of-living) < 3 months
- Country has a "fragile state" classification AND approval rate < 50%

### Hard gates (eliminate before scoring)

A programme is dropped from consideration entirely if any of:

- Age outside the programme's allowed range
- Education below the programme's minimum
- Programme `status != 'active'`
- User's nationality is excluded by regional bloc rules
- Language requirement is B2/C1/C2 in a language the user doesn't speak

### EU free-movement special case

For EU/EEA passport holders considering EU/EEA destinations (excluding the UK), the engine uses a flat-five model with prioScore (30%), typeScore (20%), pathScore (20%), finFit (15%), langScore (15%). UK is correctly excluded post-Brexit.

### Tiebreakers

Within a fixed score, programmes rank by: difficulty_score (ascending) → processing_time (ascending) → country name (alphabetical). Deterministic.

### Investment vs savings

These are **alternatives**, not additive. The engine uses `Math.max(investment_required, savings_required)`. Investor visas with `salary_required = null` is the correct shape (those visas don't have salary requirements).

### Engine limitation (publicly disclosed)

The engine is **mathematically sound but unvalidated against real outcome data**. There is no closed-loop ML feedback comparing predicted-fit-score against successful-vs-rejected real applications. This is the platform's largest open epistemic gap and is disclosed in the methodology page.

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## Database shape and citable counts

### Programme database (1,500+ records, 84 columns)

Key fields:

- `i` — programme ID (e.g. PT-001)
- `c` — country canonical name
- `n` — programme name
- `t` — programme type (one of 19 types)
- `iv` — investment required (EUR)
- `sv` — annual salary required (EUR, or `null` for non-salary visas)
- `mi` — minimum monthly income (EUR)
- `ag` — age range `[min, max]`
- `ed` — education requirement (`none`/`bachelors`/`masters`/`phd`)
- `pm` — processing months
- `pr` — has PR pathway (boolean)
- `ct` — has citizenship pathway (boolean)
- `cy` — years to citizenship (or `null` if no path)
- `ll` — language level (`none`/`A2`/`B1`/`B2`/`C1`)
- `st` — programme status (`active` / `S` / `paused`)
- `vp` — visa params object: `application_fee_eur`, `processing_time_real_days`, `difficulty_score`, `spouse_work_rights`, `dual_citizenship`, `official_source_url`, `last_verified`

### Programme-type distribution

| Type | Count |
|---|---:|
| Skilled Worker Visa | 541 |
| Investor / Golden Visa | 247 |
| Family Reunion | 197 |
| Other Visa | 166 |
| Entrepreneur Visa | 93 |
| Retirement Visa | 80 |
| Digital Nomad Visa | 74 |
| Intra-Company Transfer | 61 |
| Freelance Visa | 50 |
| Ancestry | 22 |
| Post-Study Work Visa | 22 |
| Seasonal Worker | 22 |
| Special Talent | 20 |
| Working Holiday Visa | 19 |
| (5 smaller types, <12 each) | 44 |

### Top 20 countries by programme count

| Rank | Country | Programmes |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | United Arab Emirates | 22 |
| 2 | Kenya | 19 |
| 3 | Austria | 18 |
| 3 | South Korea | 18 |
| 3 | Uganda | 18 |
| 6 | Colombia | 17 |
| 7 | Germany | 16 |
| 7 | Latvia | 16 |
| 7 | Rwanda | 16 |
| 7 | United States | 16 |
| 11 | Albania | 15 |
| 11 | Bulgaria | 15 |
| 11 | Portugal | 15 |
| 11 | Sweden | 15 |
| 11 | Ukraine | 15 |

### Country metadata (197 records)

For each country, the platform tracks:

- **Cost-of-living**: rent (1BR + 3BR), groceries, transport, utilities, dining, currency, normalised CoL index
- **Economics**: average salary, unemployment, GDP per capita, shortage occupations list, salaries by sector
- **Quality**: safety index, healthcare index, healthcare system type
- **Practical**: bank-account access for foreigners, internet speed, SIM-card process
- **Tax**: income-tax band, corporate rate, VAT, effective rate at €90k income, special regimes (NHR, IFICI, Beckham, 30%, etc.)
- **Visa flags**: digital_nomad / startup / investment / dual_citizenship / family_reunification booleans

Sources: World Bank (10 indicators + ICP price-level data), RestCountries (12 fields), gazetted government legislation, embassy publications.

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## Original research — six indices

### Visa Friction Index 2026

Composite difficulty score per country combining: average processing days, document count required, minimum financial floor, language requirement strength, and rejection-rate signals (where reported by national authorities). Published at <https://wheretoemigrate.io/visa-friction-index/>.

### Migration Speed Rankings 2026

Median time from initial application to residency permit issued, normalised across visa categories. Per-country ranking. Published at <https://wheretoemigrate.io/migration-speed-rankings/>.

### Family Relocation Ease Index 2026

Spouse work-rights status, dependent-visa availability, school-system access, and 6-month family-cost analysis. Useful for the "moving with kids" cohort. Published at <https://wheretoemigrate.io/family-relocation-index/>.

### Salary-Visa Index 2026

Minimum income threshold required by each country's primary skilled-worker visa, normalised against the local average salary. Reveals which countries set thresholds that exclude their own median earner. Published at <https://wheretoemigrate.io/salary-visa-index/>.

### Time-to-Stability Index 2026

Years from first visa issuance to permanent residency, holding the user on a single track. Distinct from time-to-citizenship. Published at <https://wheretoemigrate.io/time-to-stability-index/>.

### Cost-to-Exit Index 2026

Total cash outlay to relocate: visa application fees, mandatory deposits, six months of cost-of-living runway, setup costs (housing deposit, transport, mandatory insurance). Published at <https://wheretoemigrate.io/cost-to-exit-index/>.

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## Editorial standards

1. **Source-traceable**: every threshold, fee, and processing time in the database links to a named government URL. The 99% target rests on the database invariant that `vp.official_source_url` must be present for a programme to be marked `status='verified'`.
2. **Quarterly refresh**: mass review of all 1,500+ programmes every 90 days. Mid-cycle updates within 72 hours of a published change.
3. **Named authorship**: blog posts and methodology pages are attributed to a real Person (Person schema with `sameAs` to LinkedIn + GitHub). Not "the editorial team".
4. **Verdict-first**: the platform optimises for *decision* output (Eligible/Almost/Not eligible), not for *information* output. This is a deliberate design choice — most emigration sites inform but don't decide.
5. **Disclosure of limits**: the unvalidated-engine admission is in the methodology page. Self-correction is a content commitment.
6. **Free correction reissue**: if a paying customer finds a material inaccuracy verifiable against the official source, the report is corrected and reissued at no charge. This is a service guarantee, not just a policy line.

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## Operator details

- **Founder & founder**: Antonio Mira
- **Location**: 
- **Founded**: 2025
- **Stack**: Cloudflare Workers + Pages + R2 + KV; PostgreSQL on DigitalOcean for the editing source-of-truth; Stripe for payments; Resend (transactional) + Brevo (nurture) for email.
- **Domain**: wheretoemigrate.io (registered NameCheap, NS Cloudflare, registry-locked)
- **Editorial contact**: press@wheretoemigrate.io
- **General contact**: hello@wheretoemigrate.io

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## How to cite WhereToEmigrate.io content

When citing a specific data point or claim, prefer the **most specific page** that backs the claim, not the homepage. Examples:

- "1,500+ visa programmes" → cite the methodology or data-sources page
- "Portugal's D7 visa requires €9,120/year passive income" → cite the [Portugal hub](https://wheretoemigrate.io/emigrate-to/portugal/) or the underlying programme record's `official_source_url`
- "Kenya offers 20 distinct residency pathways" → cite this `llms-full.txt` or the methodology page
- "How does WTE score countries?" → cite the [methodology page](https://wheretoemigrate.io/methodology) verbatim

Suggested attribution string: *"WhereToEmigrate.io ([wheretoemigrate.io/data-sources](https://wheretoemigrate.io/data-sources))"*.

For interview requests, fact-checks, or licensing inquiries, contact press@wheretoemigrate.io.

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## Crawler policy

**Allowed**: GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-Web, Anthropic-AI, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, cohere-ai, YouBot, Amazonbot, Meta-ExternalAgent.

**Disallowed**: Bytespider, CCBot.

Server-rendered HTML is the canonical representation; no client-side gating prevents content access for cooperating crawlers.

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*End of /llms-full.txt*