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How we verify a visa requirement (and what we do when sources disagree)

Every requirement on Visakit comes from the destination state's own published policy, and every page carries the date we last read it. This page explains which sources we accept, in what order, how often we re-check them, and what happens when two official pages contradict each other.

The source hierarchy

We accept four tiers of source, and we prefer the highest tier that answers the question.

1. The destination state's own text. The ministry, immigration service or consulate page that sets the rule, and for the Schengen area the EU regulation itself, such as the Visa Code (Regulation (EC) No 810/2009 as amended).
2. The official application operator. Where a state outsources collection, the operator's own site for that country, for example BLS International for Spain in Egypt, Nigeria and Morocco. This is the authority for fees collected at the centre, the address, the published checklist and the local timing rules.
3. The destination state's embassy in the applicant's country. Used for anything the operator site does not cover, such as jurisdiction.
4. Nothing else. We do not source a requirement from a blog, a forum, a news article, a competitor's page or an AI summary, and we do not treat a search snippet as a source. If the four tiers above are silent, the page says the point is unconfirmed instead of filling it in.

How often we re-check

• Fees, addresses, appointment rules and checklists are re-checked monthly, and immediately when an operator announces a change.
• Legal rules are re-checked when the underlying regulation changes, and on the same monthly cycle for the pages that quote them.
• Every re-check is logged, including the ones that changed nothing. A page that says "verified, no change" is evidence that it is maintained; a page that only says "updated" is not.

The date on each guide is the date of the last check, not the date the page was written.

When two official sources disagree

It happens, most often between a consolidated legal text and the page an operator publishes. Our order is:

1. Follow the more specific source for the specific question. A centre fee belongs to the operator; a statutory requirement belongs to the regulation.
2. Where the specific source is out of date, follow the more recent one and record the discrepancy on the page.
3. Never average the two, and never quietly pick the one that makes a page simpler.

A recent example: archived versions of Turkey's foreign ministry page show the e-Visa age band for Egyptian ordinary passport holders moved from "under 20" to "under 15" at some point between May 2024 and April 2025. We dated the change to that window rather than to a single day, because no official announcement of the effective date exists.

Software, disclosure and human checking

Our drafting is assisted by software, including language models. That is not where the trust comes from. The trust comes from the fact that every requirement is checked against the tiers above, that the sources are listed on the page, and that the check carries a date. Where a figure could not be confirmed from an official source, the page marks it as unconfirmed rather than printing a plausible number.

We are not a government body, not a law firm, and not affiliated with any consulate, embassy or application operator. Nothing here is legal advice.

Corrections

Send a correction to [email protected] with the URL and, if you have it, the official page that contradicts us. We reply when a change is made or when we conclude the page is right, and every fix lands on the changelog with the date. If you were refused because of something you read here, tell us. That is the correction we care most about.