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How the Visa Income Checker works

How we turn official rules into amounts, where the numbers come from and what can make them change.

1. The official rule

For each visa we read the rule in an official source: a law or decree in the official gazette, a ministry or consulate page, or the immigration authority's page. The rule is either a fixed amount (for example €3,000 net a month for Hungary's White Card, €50,700 a year for Germany's Blue Card) or a percentage of an official index (for example 200% of Spain's minimum wage).

2. The official index

When the rule depends on an index, we take the index from the law that sets it or from the statistics office, and show how we got the monthly figure:

Spanish minimum wage (SMI) 2026: €1,221 a month × 14 payments

€1,221 a month paid 14 times a year = €17,094 a year (Royal Decree 126/2026, articles 1 and 3). Over 12 payments this equals €1,424.50 a month. Spain sets a new SMI every year by royal decree (the 2026 decree was published on 19 February 2026, retroactive to 1 January).

Spanish IPREM 2026 (public income indicator), monthly: €600 a month

IPREM = €600 a month (€7,200 a year), set by the 2023 State Budget Law and still in force in 2026. The IPREM changes only when a new State Budget Law (or a decree) sets it: check every January.

Portuguese guaranteed minimum monthly wage (RMMG) 2026: €920 a month

RMMG 2026 = €920 a month (decree no. 139/2025 of 29 December, as cited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Portugal raises the minimum wage every January.

Croatian average monthly net salary for 2025: €1,449 a month

Average monthly net salary paid in January–December 2025: €1,449 (Croatian Bureau of Statistics). The Ministry of the Interior states the resulting amount: 2.5 × €1,449 = €3,622.50. The average for the previous year changes each year (DZS publishes it early in the year); the Ministry then updates the amount.

Italian income level for exemption from healthcare co-payments: €8,263.31 a year

Law 537/1993, art. 8(16): ITL 16,000,000 a year; at the fixed conversion rate of ITL 1,936.27 per euro = €8,263.31 a year. Fixed in the law: changes only if the law or the decree is amended.

3. Family members

Some rules add an amount for each family member (Spain, Portugal's D7, Croatia, the UK partner visa when extending under the pre-2024 rules). Others set no amount for family members, and we say so instead of inventing one. The calculator counts "adults including you" and "children under 18". If you type your income, the calculator compares it with the minimum: monthly rules are compared month by month, yearly thresholds with your yearly total (your monthly income × 12, 13 or 14 payments). For the UK visas it shows the other conditions instead of a yes/no, because the going rate for your occupation also counts.

4. Monthly and yearly amounts

When a rule is monthly, the yearly figure is the monthly amount × 12, except where the official wording counts 14 payments (Spain's digital nomad visa: €2,442 × 14 = €34,188, which equals €2,849 × 12). When a rule is yearly (most salary thresholds), the monthly figure is the yearly amount ÷ 12. In countries that pay 13th and 14th salaries, the monthly payslip is lower than this figure.

5. Currency conversion

We convert with the euro foreign exchange reference rates published by the European Central Bank every working day at around 16:00 CET. The rates are read again by your browser when you open a page, so the conversion follows the latest published rate. For an amount in another currency (for example pounds), we first convert it to euros and then to your currency. Conversions are indicative: consulates usually check the amount in the official currency, sometimes with their own rate, and exchange rates move.

Source: ECB statistics – euro foreign exchange reference rates (daily XML). The reference rates are published for information purposes only.

6. Checking and updating

Every source shows the date we checked it. We re-check all programmes every January, when minimum wages, the Dutch and German salary thresholds, Denmark's pay limit and many other amounts change, and whenever an official page changes. If we cannot read an official source, we do not publish the visa.

7. Visa refusal rates

The visa refusal rates pages use the European Commission's yearly Schengen visa statistics (by Schengen country, consulate and country where the application was made) and the Home Office's quarterly UK entry clearance visa datasets (by nationality). A script downloads the official files, recalculates every rate and checks it against the official totals. Full method.

8. UK visa English tests

The UK visa English tests (SELT) pages use the Home Office lists of approved test centres and approved tests (ODS files on GOV.UK, updated every few weeks), the GOV.UK guidance for each visa and the Statement of Changes HC 1691 for the B2 level from 26 March 2027. A script downloads the lists every week, checks that the sentences we rely on are still in the official pages, and stops if anything changed. We do not show test fees: they are set by each provider.

14. Australian citizenship ceremony wait times

The citizenship ceremony wait times pages use the Department of Home Affairs ceremony wait times by council and its citizenship processing times. The council table is not in the HTML of the official page: the page loads it from a public data address of the same website, which a script reads in the same way, together with the column names and the notes of the page; the processing times are read from the official page itself. Home Affairs shows only the latest month, so we save every update and show the history. State and national shares are our calculation, weighted by the number of people waiting.

15. In Spanish and Portuguese: money to enter Europe

The Spanish and Portuguese pages take the amounts from the European Commission's table of reference amounts for crossing the external border (the same file as the Schengen pages for UK and UAE residents) and quote the Schengen Borders Code, the EU visa list, the Visa Code and, for Spain, the two ministerial orders in the BOE in the official Spanish and Portuguese texts. A script reads every source again and checks that each sentence we quote is still there; the ETIAS status is read from the official ETIAS website. The calculator only multiplies the official amounts by days and people: where the table does not say how two amounts combine, it does not combine them.

Licences and attributions

  • Laws, decrees and official notices (BOE, Gazzetta Ufficiale, Bundesanzeiger, Normattiva) are cited as facts with a link to the official text; we do not reproduce the documents.
  • Exchange rates: European Central Bank, euro foreign exchange reference rates (source: ECB).
  • UK: contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (GOV.UK and Home Office immigration statistics).
  • Schengen visa statistics: European Commission, DG Migration and Home Affairs (reuse authorised with acknowledgement of the source).
  • EU law (Schengen Borders Code, visa list, Visa Code): Official Journal of the European Union via EUR-Lex and the Publications Office; only EU legal texts published in the Official Journal are authentic.
  • Australia: Australian Government Department of Home Affairs, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia (ceremony wait times and citizenship processing times).
  • Other ministry and immigration authority pages are cited with links; the amounts are facts taken from them.

Not covered yet

Greece (digital nomad visa and financially independent person visa), Cyprus, Malta, Estonia, Czechia, Romania, Latvia, Iceland, Costa Rica, Brazil, Panama, Colombia and the United Arab Emirates: the official page could not be read by our checks or gave conflicting figures. Colombia's rule is in Colombian pesos, a currency the ECB does not publish. Thailand's DTV has no income threshold (it asks for savings) and its fee and residence rule change from embassy to embassy: see Thailand DTV visa by embassy. Mexico's amount depends on the consulate: see Mexico residency by consulate.

9. Thailand DTV visa and Ireland's PPS numbers

The Thailand DTV visa pages quote the official DTV pages of the Thai embassies and consulates. A script reads each page again and checks that every fee and rule we show is still written there; if a page changes, nothing is updated until we read it again. The Ireland pages in Who moved where use the monthly PPS number files of Ireland's Department of Social Protection (CC BY 4.0); a script checks that the months add up to the yearly totals.

10. US OPT and the UK Graduate visa

The US OPT and STEM OPT pages use the USCIS fee schedule (Form G-1055), the USCIS pages on Form I-765, OPT and STEM OPT, the SEVP help pages and the Federal Register; the UK Graduate visa pages use GOV.UK, the Immigration Rules (Appendix Graduate), the Statement of Changes HC 1333 and the Home Office fees table. A script reads every page again and checks that each figure we show is still written there; if a page changes, nothing is updated until we read it again. Proposals and rules on hold are labelled as such. The date calculators run in your browser.

11. Mexico residency

The Mexico residency pages use the Ley Federal de Derechos and Annex 4 of the 2026 Miscellaneous Tax Resolution (Diario Oficial) for the fees, the visa guidelines of 25 July 2025 for the days of UMA, INEGI for the UMA value, and the official pages of the Mexican consulates for the amounts in their currency. A consulate is listed only if its own page writes the amount and is from 2026. A script reads every source again and checks that each figure is still written there; if a page changes, nothing is updated until we read it again. We re-read the fees and the UMA every January (new Miscellaneous Tax Resolution, new UMA from 1 February).

12. Study in Italy

The Study in Italy pages use the Ministry of University and Research and Foreign Ministry procedures for international students (published on Universitaly), the Ministry's decrees on scholarship amounts, ISEE limits and particularly poor countries, Poste Italiane and the Polizia di Stato for the residence permit costs, Normattiva for the health service contribution and the ISEE equivalence scale, the Bank of Italy for the annual average exchange rates, and the 2026/27 calls of the regional scholarship agencies and universities. A script reads every source again and checks that each figure is still written there; if a call changes, nothing is updated until we read it again. The ISEE estimate is ours and is labelled as such: the CAF or the agency calculates the official figure. We re-read the calls every summer, when the new ones come out.

13. Italy 7% flat tax for foreign pensioners

The Italy 7% flat tax pages use the text of article 24-ter of the income tax code and of the laws that changed it (Normattiva), the guidance of the Agenzia delle Entrate, the earthquake lists (Decree-Law 189/2016 on Normattiva and the Abruzzo Region's list for 2009) and ISTAT's resident population of every Italian town on 1 January. A script reads every source again and checks that each rule we quote is still written there. The town check says only whether a town is in one of the areas of the law and whether ISTAT's figure is within the limit: it does not say that anyone qualifies. We load ISTAT's new figures every January.

Not immigration or legal advice. These are the minimum amounts written in the official rules on the date we checked them. Requirements change, and consulates and immigration offices can ask for more or assess your documents differently: always check the official page or ask the consulate before you apply.