How we verify

Most of what is written online about travelling with prescription medication is copied. One guide quotes another guide, that one quotes a forum post from a decade ago, and none of them opened the document the authority actually published. When we find two sources that agree with each other, the first thing we check is whether they are the same source twice — because more than once, that is exactly what they were.

This page describes the rules we work by. They are internal rules, published on purpose: if we are not willing to show you how we got to an answer, there is no reason for you to trust the answer.

Rule 1 · A literal quote, never a paraphrase

Every factual claim in our database is anchored to a word-for-word quote from the source, in the source's own language, with an outbound link and the date we read it. Not our summary of what it says. The sentence itself.

Paraphrase is where errors enter. "Up to a month" and "up to 31 days" look identical right up until the day they do not. So the quote is stored as written, awkward phrasing and all, and the translation sits next to it rather than replacing it.

Rule 2 · The grade of the source is stated, not hidden

Not every source is worth the same, and we mark the difference beside each one:

• Primary — a page, form, regulation or written reply from the body that

actually decides. This is the grade we chase.

• Secondary — a professional publication, an embassy, or a recognised

organisation quoting the authority. Useful, and never used alone.

• Report — a documented case in the press or a forum. It tells us where

people fall over in practice. It does not tell us what the rule is.

A claim resting only on a report is labelled as resting only on a report.

Rule 3 · "We do not know" is written down explicitly

This is the rule that is easiest to break and the most expensive to break. When a source does not answer a particular field, our record says not verified — not a guess, not a value inferred from common sense, and not an empty field that looks as though somebody checked.

That matters more than it sounds. An empty field and an unknown field look the same on a screen and are completely different things. One means nobody looked. The other means somebody looked and the answer was not there. We only ever write the second.

You will hear the same thing out loud in the free consult: "this part we know, and this part we would check as we go." A service that cannot tell you when it does not know is not really telling you anything when it does.

Rule 4 · Four levels of confidence, and we tell you which one you are in

The answer you get is phrased according to what we actually hold:

• A real case we ran — "we have done this, and this is what happened."
• We read the primary source ourselves — "I have read the regulation, and I

know where people fall over."

• Partial source — "there is a route, and there is one point we would clear

up as we go." You hear this before you pay, not after.

• An explicit prohibition, with the quote — the negative answer, with the

sentence it comes from. Always free.

That last line is the principle. An answer that stops you from travelling is not an answer we charge for. We have no incentive to tell you there is a problem when there is not one.

Rule 5 · The verification date is a real date

"Last checked" means the date a human opened the source and read it again. It is not the publication date and it is not an automatic stamp that refreshes every time the site rebuilds. Rules change. A page showing a fresh date that nobody re-read is precisely the kind of lie this page exists to prevent.

Rule 6 · One verdict per question

The answer that appears on a page of this site and the answer you get at the end of the questionnaire come from the same place: the same database, rendered through the same template. It is structurally impossible for a page to say one thing and your personal answer to say another, because they do not have two sources.

Rule 7 · The software is not allowed to rule on legality

Our tooling never decides what is permitted. A verdict comes only from a verified row, and that restriction is enforced in code rather than requested in an instruction. If there is no matching row, the system returns "not found" and routes to a human. Not found is a legitimate answer here, not an error.

What this is not

This is a verification policy, not legal advice and not medical advice. We quote sources and explain what they say and what they do not say. The decision, and in some routes the filing itself, remain yours — how it works sets out what is in our control and what is not.

Found a mistake?

It happens, and sources change. Tell us and we will correct it, with a new quote and a new date, and visibly. A correction nobody can see is not a correction.

If you want to test any of this, bring us your case in the free consult and ask us what we do not know about it. That question gets a straight answer.