
VisaDB: Find visa requirements based on citizenship and travel purpose - wilsonfiifi
http://visadb.io/index.html
======
ringaroundthetx
I typically use wikipedia for this purpose.

On a similar note: One thing I've found interesting about VISA lists and
passport usefulness rankings is that it has no bearing on the experience
you'll have coming into a country.

For example, the German passport is supposedly soooo much better than the US
passport, but diving into it you see that a few countries have slightly
different status designations for the two. Where the status designation for
the German one being a slightly better one.

But when you get to the airport in those countries, the US passport has the
easier route with the automated immigration. While the supposedly better
passport with better status still busses you through the line with the hoard
of the newly minted Chinese middle-class with the humans slowly evaluating
everyone.

I think the country-specific nuances between status designations are hard to
rank, if it is functionally similar in all capacities once you get in the
country. And the experience/treatment getting into the country isn't listed at
all.

~~~
BrandoElFollito
Could you give some examples?

I traveled with a US fellow to several countries outside of respective regions
(all Middle East except Iran and Syria), Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore,
Australia, North and West Africa - among others and I cannot remember our
passports (mine is French) to be treated differently (when the visa or not
visa conditions were the same of course).

What is this "automated immigration" you mention?

------
ubernostrum
Or go get the one-week free trial at expertflyer, which as far as I know pulls
from Timatic, the same database used by airlines to determine whether you need
a visa to get on the plane.

Example for comparison: visadb for US->China only says "Visa required to
travel".

The expertflyer pull goes into detail about the extended visa-free
"transits"[1], exceptions for some visa-on-arrival tourist programs,
requirements for also entering Tibet, requirements for yellow fever
vaccination, requirements for children traveling with an adult, etc.

[1] While many non-US countries have the concept of visa-free transit for
connecting from one international flight to another, they usually require you
remain in the airport the entire time. In certain cities, China allows you to
leave the airport, stay in a hotel and see the city for 3-6 days depending on
which city you "transit" in, so long as the origin of your immediate inbound
flight and destination of your immediate outbound flight are not the same
country. Some airlines infamously have trouble with this, since their agents
incorrectly enter a destination of China (due to a planned multi-day stay)
instead of a transit of China, and get back a result requiring a visa.

Most recently, I've seen AA passengers complain due to the popularity of a
mileage run LAX-PEK-NRT-LAX, where the passenger spends a couple days in
Beijing and never leaves the airport in Tokyo. From the perspective of the
Chinese policy, this is a valid round trip to Tokyo with an outbound
connection in Beijing, requiring no visa for the transit of China. AA agents
try to enter as a round trip to Beijing with a return connection in Tokyo,
requiring a visa to visit China.

~~~
taejo
One can query Timatic without signing up for anything at
[http://cms.olympicair.com/timatic/webdocsI/spdbmainv.html](http://cms.olympicair.com/timatic/webdocsI/spdbmainv.html)

~~~
zapperdapper
Oh that's nice - that's going to be very useful - bookmarked!

------
Broken_Hippo
This is great. I'd use something like this to travel, for sure: Pick a nice,
cheap place and stay there.

Though I'm curious... exactly how cheap is 100% cheaper? For example:

Northern Mariana Islands VISA FREE FOR 30 Day(s) Compare to Norway:
Accomodation is 100% cheaper Restaurants are 38% cheaper Transportation is
100% cheaper

------
Matthias247
There seems to be a bug in the cost of living comparison. For "Restaurant" and
"Transport" it shows "x % cheaper" if the first country is cheaper. However
for "Accomodation" it shows does display "x % cheaper" when the second country
is cheaper.

~~~
danishsoomro
Hey Matthais, I am aware of a bug where it shows 100% cheaper coz I do not
have a data point.

Can you explain little bit more :) I am the one who created the tool on my own
so would like to fix the issue you are pointing to :) Cheers

~~~
Matthias247
No problem. What I've been doing is selected citizenship "German, destination
country America, USA and cost of life comparison. Then I'm seeing there those
strange percentages for the Accomodation part.

------
lucideer
This is a really nice interface, but I'm curious about the data source and its
ability to keep up-to-date. I've very quickly found a few
inconsistencies/incorrect entries - I understand these are in the process of
being fixed[0][1] but if this is all manual, that might be quite difficult to
maintain.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14987484](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14987484)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14987470](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14987470)

------
zapperdapper
This is a really cool idea. I especially like the 'cost comparison' feature.

Minor quibble - I checked for Philippines as I'm from UK and go there quite a
lot. The DB says the visa exemption is 21 days - it's actually 30 days.

Where do you get your data from? Trawling embassy sites? That's quite a lot of
work as the information does change. Take Thailand for example - they have
made so many changes over the years it's hard to keep up with - even the
border staff often don't know what the latest regulation is! :)

~~~
Markoff
I dunno about changes, but Malaysia has been visa free for my contry minimum
10 or more years, yet still is not shown in list of Asian visa free countries
for my citizenship. Same goes for Japan. I could understand Thailand always
changing visa, but Malaysia is pretty consistent.

------
cfowlerdev
Bug(?): "Svalbard and Jan Mayen" is not a country. Svalbard is a Norwegian
archipelago, and Jan Mayen is a Norwegian volcanic island, so they usually
just list under Norway. And they don't use the same flag as Andorra.

Same goes for "Åland Islands" which are part of Sweden, and they certainly
don't require a Visa from a UK citizenship. Also, I'm pretty sure Faroe
Islands, Guernsey, Isle of Man and Jersey don't require a Visa from a UK
citizen.

~~~
lucideer
Svalbard and Jan Mayen have separate visa requirements to Norway, so they
should be listed separately, but the actual listed results seem to be
incorrect (I don't think you need a visa from most/all Schengen)

Not sure about Åland, you definitely don't need a visa from UK (or Ireland) to
visit Isle of Man, and you're likely right about the others too.

------
nsriv
Really useful tool! Wish the initial dropdown had countries too, rather than
just continents and leaving country sifting to the next page.

~~~
danishsoomro
Thanks alot for liking the tool :) I will certainly add the country to country
in the first release, it was a bear minimum prototype :)

------
fitaua
VisaDB is outdated. Ukrainians can travel to EU Member States without a visa.
[https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/ukrainians-can-now-
travel-t...](https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/ukrainians-can-now-travel-to-eu-
member-states-without-visa/)

------
kwhitefoot
It claims that as a UK citizen I will need a visa to travel to Jersey,
Guernsey, and The Isle of Man. Seems a bit odd.

~~~
danishsoomro
Its a bug, I am trying to solve all of them. I think I would need some help
from the community :)

------
throwaway2016a
This lists Saint Martin as requiring a Visa from the US which I found weird
because I didn't need one to visit there as a tourist about four so I looked
it up and it seems you still don't need one. Which is great because it was one
of the best vacation's I've had.

------
Markoff
it's pretty much useless, just checked visa free asia destinations for my
citizenship and apparently Malaysia and Japan are not in Asia, since while
they mention many visa on arrival countries, these completely (3 months) visa
free countries are not shown for my citizenship, so I will rather not check
countries which I am not familiar with

and I am not going through list of 200 countries to correct wrong data ind
atabase

also by my experience with prices, those restaurant/transport/accommodaion
prices are completely unrealistic, you telling me Cambodia has slightly lower
prices of transportation thn EU country? only someone who never been to
Cambodia and EU can say that

------
Macha
I'm not sure if realises Ireland is in the EU. It tells me I need a eVISA for
most European countries.

~~~
danishsoomro
Yes thats a bug I am trying to resolve :) I will fix it along with many other
bugs :) Thanks for pointing out.

------
reustle
Is this essentially just scraped data from pages like this?
Visa_requirements_for_United_States_citizens

------
compsciphd
Iran lets one travel there with an Israeli passport for free?

~~~
klipt
No, but it would be technically correct to say there's no visa requirement
because even _with_ a visa, they wouldn't let you in.

Wikipedia color codes it as "admission refused":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Israeli_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Israeli_citizens#Visa_requirements_map)

