Cookies

The site itself sets no cookies to read a route page. Cookies enter the picture only through advertising, and only where you have agreed to them.

In effect from 19 September 2026

What a cookie is here

A cookie is a small file a site stores in your browser. Some are needed to make a page work at all. Others exist to recognise a browser across visits and across sites, which is how personalised advertising works.

Cookies we set

None for reading the site. Route pages are static HTML and run no JavaScript at all. You can read every verdict, fee and checklist on this site without a single cookie being written.

If you set a preference such as a colour theme, it is kept in your browser's local storage, not a cookie, and it is never sent to us.

Cookies third parties set

Advertising

The site is funded by advertising. Ad vendors, including Google, may set cookies or read device identifiers to choose an ad, to cap how often you see it, and to measure whether it worked. We do not receive or store those identifiers ourselves.

Google's use of advertising cookies is described at How Google uses information from sites that use its services.

Analytics

Our traffic measurement is cookie-free by design. It counts page views in aggregate and does not set an identifier in your browser.

How to refuse them

• In the EEA, the UK or Switzerland: a consent notice appears before any non-essential cookie is set. Nothing but strictly necessary storage runs until you choose. You can reopen that notice at any time from the link in the footer and change your answer.
• Anywhere: turn off personalised advertising at Google Ads Settings, or opt out across many vendors at aboutads.info/choices and optout.networkadvertising.org.
• In your browser: every major browser can block or delete cookies. Doing so will not stop you reading anything here, because nothing on this site depends on one.

Why there is advertising at all

Because the alternative is worse. A visa site that takes no advertising generally takes commission for sending you to a paid intermediary instead — which is exactly the business this site exists to warn you about. Advertising lets the government portal stay the main link on every page. See how this site is funded.