Every route has a primary-source link and an access date.
Research
Compare visa routes in a decision matrix
Turn marketing pages into a criteria matrix: what the permit grants, who may hold it, which income counts, what it costs and which questions need a professional.
You are comparing remote-work residence routes for someone with [NATIONALITY], [INCOME_TYPE] and [HOUSEHOLD].
Candidate routes: [ROUTES]
Build a matrix with one row per route and these columns:
1. What the permit grants: residence, entries, dependants, and any path to long-term status.
2. Who may hold it: nationality, place of application, employee versus self-employed, and any local-client restriction.
3. Income or savings test: gross or net, averaging window, dependent uplift, and the evidence the authority accepts.
4. Total first-year cost: government fees, renewals, translations, legalisation, insurance and any required representative.
5. Obligations while holding it: minimum stay, address registration, reporting duties and renewal deadlines.
6. Tax interaction: what the permit itself changes, and which domestic tests still apply.
7. Open questions for a licensed professional in [COUNTRY].
Rules:
- Use the issuing authority's page as the primary source. Link it and include the date you accessed it.
- Do not state "you qualify". State the test and what evidence the authority publishes.
- Mark an empty cell "not published" rather than guessing.
- Keep immigration status, tax residence and social security as three separate questions.
- End with the three questions whose answers would eliminate the most routes.
| Variable | What to put there |
|---|---|
[NATIONALITY] | The passport you will apply on. Routes differ by nationality and some are closed to certain passports. |
[INCOME_TYPE] | Employment, freelance, company owner, pension, savings. The eligible income definition is usually narrower than the marketing page. |
[HOUSEHOLD] | Who is moving and whether anyone needs to work locally. Dependent rules and income uplifts depend on it. |
[ROUTES] | Two to five named routes with the issuing country. Add the official programme name if you know it. |
[COUNTRY] | Where you need the professional. Cross-border cases often need one in each country. |
Run it
How to use this template
Start with two routes, not ten. The matrix gets shallow fast.
Ask for the source link and access date before you ask for a recommendation. Without the link it is a summary of marketing pages.
Copy the income test wording verbatim into the matrix. “Sufficient means” and “at least X” are different tests.
Take the open questions to a licensed professional in the relevant country. The matrix is preparation, not advice.
Checks
Guardrails before you trust the output
The matrix separates immigration status, tax residence and social security.
No cell says “you qualify” or predicts an outcome.
Missing data is marked, not filled with a plausible number.
Adapt
Variations worth keeping
If you are already in the country
Add a column for in-country switching: whether the authority allows a change of status without leaving, and what that costs in time and travel.
If a family member needs local work rights
Add a column for dependent work rights and the evidence required. A permit that lets you stay but not your partner work may fail the real test.
Why this works
“Digital nomad visa” is not one product. Each route is a package: who may apply, what income counts, what you owe locally, what you must do while you hold it, and what it leads to. Marketing pages compress that package into a headline fee. The matrix puts the conditions back.
The prompt also keeps three systems apart. Immigration status, tax residence and social security can give three different answers, and a page that merges them is not a shortcut; it is a category error.
What good looks like
A useful matrix has more “not published” cells than a brochure would. That is the point. The empty cells are the questions you take to the authority or a licensed professional. A matrix with no empties is usually a matrix with invented answers.
The first-year cost column should be uncomfortable. Renewals, translations, legalisation, insurance and travel for appointments are real, and they are the lines that turn a cheap route into an expensive one.
Adapt it to your work
If you are comparing routes for a client, keep the client's facts out of the public prompt. Use placeholders and run it on a machine you control. If you are comparing routes for yourself, add a column for “what happens if I leave for four months” — the answer is often different from what the marketing page implies.
Failure modes
- The model says “generally”. Ask for the sentence in the authority's page. “Generally” is where the errors live.
- The matrix treats the permit as a tax decision. Add the line: “The permit does not determine tax residence; name the domestic test that does.”
- Every route looks viable. Add a column for the constraint that would disqualify you and ask the model to fill it honestly.
Related templates
This page is part of the free library.
The prompt is also in the Markdown mirror at
/prompts/visa-route-matrix.md. If the scenario is close but not right, send the gap to the help desk with the output you expected.
Found a gap in the library?
Send the scenario, the prompt that failed, or the harness change that broke your setup. The help desk takes questions and corrections from humans and agents, and every accepted fix updates the page date.