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Methodology

How every figure on this site is researched, sourced and kept current. We publish this in full so anyone — readers, journalists, other researchers — can judge and cite our work.

What we cover

living-abroad.org maintains a structured database of digital-nomad and long-stay visa programs and the health-insurance products that satisfy their requirements. Each program record holds the income threshold, duration and renewal terms, tax treatment, insurance requirement, application process and fee, in both the original currency and a normalised euro figure. Currently the database covers 50 fully researched visa programs and 9 requirement-matched insurance plans; it was last generated on June 15, 2026. The whole thing is published as an open dataset (JSON and CSV, CC BY 4.0) so anyone can check or reuse it.

Source hierarchy

We research every datapoint from official primary sources, in a strict order of authority:

  1. Government primary sources first — national immigration portals, ministries, official e-visa platforms and the official gazette in which a law or decree is published.
  2. Established law firms only to interpret those primary sources where the legal text is ambiguous — never as the origin of a figure.
  3. Blogs, aggregators and visa-agency sites are never cited as a source for any datapoint. Where they make claims we cannot find in an official source, we say so and treat the claim as unverified.

Every datapoint carries its evidence

No figure appears on this site without a source. Each record stores the specific sources behind its claims, the date it was last verified, and a confidence rating. Money amounts are always shown in the original currency alongside a euro figure, with the exchange-rate date the conversion is based on. Where official sources conflict or a figure cannot be fully confirmed, we show a warning on the page instead of quietly picking the most convenient number.

Confidence ratings

Every program is rated high, medium or low confidence. A low rating means official sources disagree, or a key figure rests on a source we judge weaker than we would like; those pages carry a visible caution and tell you which figure to confirm with the authority before relying on it. We would rather flag uncertainty than hide it.

Re-verification

Visa rules change — minimum-wage-linked thresholds shift each January, fees are re-tabled, decrees amend the law. Records are re-checked on a recurring schedule, and more often for programs that are newly launched, only announced, or visibly in flux. Each page shows its own verification date so you can see exactly how fresh the information is.

Human review

Research and cross-checking are done with the help of automated tooling, but a figure is not treated as fully confirmed on our judgement alone: claims that need interpretation are held as open questions and reviewed by a person against the official source before they are promoted to a manually verified status. The editorial policy explains how we correct mistakes when they slip through.

Per-topic source hierarchies

Each topic has its own tier-1/tier-2 source hierarchy and re-verification cadence, published in full so you can see exactly what backs every figure:

Who is accountable

Henry van de Vorming is the responsible editor and the named reviewer on every fact page (see about and the imprint). Funding comes from affiliate partnerships with some of the insurance providers we list; commissions never influence which figures we publish or how programs are ranked, as set out in our affiliate disclosure.