Freelance & Nomad Visa Threshold Index (2026)

Methodology

The Visa Threshold Index records how each freelance, self-employment and digital-nomad residence route SETS its financial test — the formula and the national benchmark it is pegged to — rather than a headline figure that expires the moment the benchmark is revised. Sourcing: every record is extracted from one published Colo visa guide (the `slug` field names it); the dedicated country guide is the source where one exists, otherwise the regional guide. Nothing is inferred or computed — a field is null when neither its source article nor the named issuing authority states the value. `computedMonthlyEUR` is populated ONLY when the source article states a single unambiguous EUR monthly figure; it is null for ranges, for savings/capital tests, for annual thresholds, and for routes benchmarked in a non-EUR currency (no FX conversion is performed). `prHorizonYears` records the standard (non-accelerated) permanent-residence horizon stated by the source, and is null where the route explicitly does not lead to permanent residence. `asOf` is the currency date of the FIGURE and nothing else: the month the recorded test is current to, as declared by the source article or as established against the issuing authority's own publication. It carries no claim about whether we re-checked the record — that is what `verification` and `verifiedOn` say. Verification: from v2026.08.3 every record carries two dedicated fields, because the outcome of a verification attempt is a different fact from the currency date of a figure and one field cannot honestly carry both. `verification` is a closed enumeration of four values. `confirmed-open` — we read the named issuing authority's own publication for this route, it is open, and it states the recorded test. `unconfirmed-source-unreachable` — we could not read the authority's own statement of the test (the page blocks automated clients, serves a challenge, or publishes only in a form we could not machine-read), so the recorded figure stands on its earlier sourcing and was NOT re-confirmed. `unconfirmed-not-published` — we did read the authority's material and it does not state the fact in question. `unconfirmed-field-level` — the headline threshold WAS confirmed against the authority, but a named subordinate field (a family uplift, for instance) was not, and that field is therefore null. `verifiedOn` is `YYYY-MM` and is populated ONLY on a `confirmed-open` record, where it gives the month of the confirming check; it is null on every unconfirmed record. That is enforced, not merely intended: `scripts/generate-visa-index-data.mjs` fails the build when a non-`confirmed-open` record carries a `verifiedOn` at all, and names the case of a non-`confirmed-open` record claiming the current revision month explicitly, because that is the specific false claim this schema exists to prevent. Editions before v2026.08.3 tried to express the same distinction by leaving `asOf` un-advanced on unverified records; that was a prose convention no build could check, and four records (Indonesia, Greece, Cyprus, Grenada) contradicted it by carrying an `asOf` of 2026-08 that read as a claim of August verification. v2026.08.3 replaces the convention with these two fields and restates those four records honestly. Provenance: `sourceAuthority` names the government body that actually issues the route (an immigration directorate, migration agency or ministry), in its official local-language name with an English gloss where that helps, and `sourceUrl` links that authority's own page for the route (https only; null where no official page could be established). From v2026.08 those two fields are established against the issuing authority's own publication rather than the Colo guide, and where that check contradicted the guide, BOTH the record and the guide were corrected. Liveness: on 11 August 2026 every record in the index was swept for liveness — each route was checked against its named issuing authority's own publication to establish whether it is still accepting applications, rather than assuming continuity from the previous edition. Of the thirty-two records now in the index, twenty-five carry `verification: confirmed-open` with `verifiedOn: 2026-08` from that sweep and seven carry an `unconfirmed-*` value with a null `verifiedOn`; one further route was found CLOSED and was removed. Routes whose legal basis has been repealed, or whose programme has closed, are REMOVED rather than left in place with a caveat: v2026.08 removed Iceland's Long-Term Remote Worker route (the long-term visa provision of the Foreign Nationals Act was repealed by the Visa Act No. 37/2026 — Directorate of Immigration notice, 13 May 2026), Antigua and Barbuda's Nomad Digital Residence (the Department of Immigration's own programme site states the programme has ended) and — in the 11 August 2026 liveness sweep — the Cayman Islands' Global Citizen Concierge Programme (the Immigration (Transition) (Global Citizen Exemption) Regulations (2023 Revision) provide at reg. 7 that the Regulations expired on 30 November 2024 and that applications had to be made no later than 31 October 2022; the Cayman Islands Government no longer lists the programme). The sweep also corrected two thresholds that disagreed with the issuing authority — Portugal's D8, which is pegged to four times the guaranteed minimum monthly wage under Decreto Regulamentar n.º 4/2022 art. 31.º-A(1)(c) and NOT to the IAS, and Italy's digital-nomad minimum, which the consular network now publishes as three times an €8,500 healthcare-exemption floor. Scope: routes a freelancer or remote worker can obtain on the basis of their own work or income. Passive-income residence routes are INCLUDED when the income test is itself the admission criterion (Portugal's D7, Spain's Residencia No Lucrativa); their route name says "passive-income route" and the threshold formula states what kind of income qualifies, so a reader is never misled into thinking freelance earnings satisfy a test that only accepts pensions, dividends, rent or royalties. Investment-, deposit- and employer-sponsored programmes (golden/premium residencies, Second Home deposits, entrepreneur-endorsement and business-migration schemes) are deliberately excluded — they are not freelance pathways, and their admission criterion is a capital transfer rather than an income test. Not legal or tax advice: verify every figure with the named authority before applying. Version numbering is YYYY.MM.N: N increments on any within-month change to the record set. 2026.08.1 added verified issuing authorities and sourceUrl to every record; 2026.08.2 is the post-liveness-sweep revision that removed the Cayman Islands GCCP and corrected the Portugal D8, Italy and UAE Green Visa entries; 2026.08.3 introduced `verification` and `verifiedOn`, restated the four records that had carried an unearned August 2026 verification claim, set Cyprus's `familyUplift` to null because the Migration Department's own page does not state an uplift, and replaced Mexico's minimum-wage threshold formula — which no reachable source supports — with the per-consulate economic-solvency test the route actually applies.

Compiled from the 30 published visa guides at trycolo.co/visas, checked against the issuing authorities in the liveness sweep of 11 August 2026 — each record states the outcome of its own check in `verification`. Each row links back to the guide it was extracted from.