How it works
RSO Travel Matrix collects reports of US registrants entering other countries, including forum posts, news coverage, advocacy groups, and official sources. It then scores each country by how those trips went. Every report links to where it came from.
Where reports come from
- Trip reports that registrants share publicly on forums and discussion boards.
- Anonymous reports sent through our trip report form.
- Articles and comment threads from advocacy groups.
- News coverage of registrants being admitted, refused, or removed.
- The original RTAG Travel Matrix, kept as a low-weight baseline. It was last maintained around 2021 and has no dates or sources for individual entries.
The Sources page lists every source by category.
An AI model reads each source and pulls out the country, date, outcome, and what happened, in its own words and without names. A person reviews every batch before it's published.
How countries are scored
Each outcome has a value, from +1 for "admitted, no issues" to −1 for "refused entry". A country's score is the weighted average of its reports. A report's weight depends on:
- Age. A report counts half as much every 18 months.
- Source. Official and news sources count more than forum posts, and firsthand accounts count more than secondhand ones.
- Clarity. Reports whose details are unclear count less.
- Open
- Recent reports of entry without significant problems.
- Caution
- Usually admitted, but questioning or secondary inspection is common.
- Difficult
- Mixed results; a meaningful share of registrants have been refused.
- Refused
- Registrants are consistently refused, or the law bars entry.
Countries often treat travelers differently depending on how they arrive. A land crossing or a cruise stop may never involve the passport check that stops air travelers, so each report shows how the traveler arrived. Reports of changing planes are shown but don't affect the rating, since the traveler never entered the country.
If a country has a confirmed law that restricts entry for people with convictions, it can't be rated Open. A law that specifically bars people with sex-offense convictions makes it Refused. Countries with little data, or where the newest report is more than two years old, are hatched on the map.
Limits
Border officers decide on the spot, and many countries receive advance notice of registrant travel from the US. One person's result doesn't guarantee yours. Use this site to decide what to research next, not as permission to travel, and talk to an immigration attorney before you book.
Privacy
This site sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and loads nothing from other servers. It doesn't know who you are or which countries you look at. The one exception is the trip report form, which runs an automated bot check to keep out spam. Reports are stored without your IP address and deleted once they're processed.