Every programme. A government URL. No exceptions.

Open data attributions

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

• OpenAlex (24,191 universities + scholarly metadata) — released under CC0 1.0 Universal (public domain dedication). Source: openalex.org.
• The World Bank Open Data (GDP, GDP/capita, unemployment, demographics) — released under CC BY 4.0. Attribution: "The World Bank, World Development Indicators." Source: data.worldbank.org.
• OECD (labour, taxation, salary benchmarks) — used under OECD Terms and Conditions with attribution.
• ILO (International Labour Organization statistics) — Creative Commons Attribution.
• WHO Global Health Observatory (health system indicators) — Creative Commons Attribution.
• UN Human Development Report (HDI) — UN open-data licence with attribution.
• QS World University Rankings — fair-use citation in education comparisons.
• Cost-of-living, safety, and healthcare indices — sourced from primary statistics agencies (Eurostat, OECD, World Bank, Instituto Nacional de Estatística, national health authorities), supplemented by manually-compiled benchmarks for cities not covered by primary sources. See /limitations for caveats.

Per-field provenance

Every number in our reports should be defensible. The table below shows the current state per field across the 256 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

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

Every question feeds a specific part of the matching engine. Nothing decorative. Here's the map.

Nationality

Passport drives the visa pathways open to you. We filter the 2,500+ programmes against your nationality's blocked/eligible lists. EU citizens also unlock intra-EU free-movement rules.

Age

Age gates working-holiday schemes (typically 18–35), points-based skilled visas (CRS for Canada, EOI for NZ), and retirement-residence routes (often 50+ or 55+).

Family status & children

Household size adjusts required savings, processing fees per dependent, and cost-of-living projections. Children unlock education-related pathways and trigger international-school cost overlays.

Education

Minimum education is a hard gate on most skilled visas (bachelor's typical, master's for points bumps). Drives credential-recognition steps in your action plan.

Profession, job offer & work location

Occupation matches against shortage lists, skill-class codes (NOC, ANZSCO, ESCO), and employer-sponsorship routes. Whether you have an offer changes which route is "active" vs "Plan B". Remote work routes you toward digital-nomad and freelancer-friendly destinations.

Years of experience

Experience drives points-based scoring (CRS, EOI), unlocks senior/critical-skills tracks, and shifts your placement in employer-sponsored routes.

Languages

Most countries require a proficiency level (B1, B2, C1) in an official language. English level alone qualifies you for Anglophone routes; other languages unlock destinations where English is not the medium.

Income & income type

Minimum-income thresholds gate digital-nomad visas, employer-sponsored work permits, and family-sponsorship routes. Income type (employed / self-employed / passive / freelance) routes you to different visa families.

Savings

Most non-employment routes require liquid savings as proof of funds. We also use savings to compute your runway against destination cost-of-living before any income lands.

Investment willingness

Unlocks investor, golden-visa, citizenship-by-investment, and startup-visa routes (€50k+ skews startup; €250k+ skews golden-visa; €500k+ unlocks CBI tier).

Primary goal & priorities

Goal is the SEGMENT key — routes you to the right brief template (Skilled-EM, Intra-EU, HNW, Nomad, Family). Priorities weight the scoring across safety, tax, climate, cost, and quality-of-life dimensions.

No question is decorative. If a field is collected, it drives at least one downstream decision in your report.