How to get an answer

Vamola asks for four required things: your Passport, your Destination, your Purpose and your age, plus two optional ones: your occupation, and any Transit countries you have passed through. Nothing else.

Vamola matches, it does not just list. Enter your details and Vamola finds the Routes that fit you, and separates them plainly into what you match and what you do not, with the reason stated for each, every time. A Route you do not match is never hidden: it still appears, with the reason you do not match it, because seeing the whole picture, not only the part that flatters your details, is the point.

Stating conditions rather than judging them is still the design underneath the matching. Vamola states the published conditions of each Route, the fees, the maximum stay, the documents and vaccinations it asks for, and checks them against what you told it: matching where you clearly meet a published condition, not matching where you clearly do not, and saying it cannot tell wherever the page does not let it decide either way. See Cannot tell below for what that third answer means, and why it is the honest majority case rather than a failure. Vamola still does not ask about your funds, your history or anything else beyond Passport, Destination, Purpose, age and Transit; judging whether a named person actually qualifies, beyond what a government page states in writing, is immigration advice, and that is a line Vamola does not cross.

How matching works: what you match, and what you do not

Every Route Vamola shows for your Passport, Destination and Purpose is placed in one of two groups: what you match, and what you do not, and both groups are shown, always. A Route in the second group is not removed or hidden: it stays on screen with the specific reason you do not match it, stated in the same plain language as everything else in Vamola.

This matters most for age. Australia's Working Holiday visa (subclass 417) runs from 18 to 35 for some passports and 18 to 30 for others; if the age you enter falls outside the published range for your passport, Vamola marks that Route as not matched and states the range, rather than pretending the Route does not exist for you. Seeing why you do not match is as useful as seeing that you do.

Age: Vamola decides the age question itself

Age is required, and as of 1 September 2026 Vamola always answers the age question itself. Earlier, some Route cards told you to check the age rule the Route publishes: that was Vamola asking you to do its own job, and it is gone. Every Route now states, in one of five ways, exactly where your age stands, and Vamola never hands the question back to you.

The first and most common answer is a published age band. Australia's Working Holiday visa (subclass 417) is 18 to 35 for an Italian passport, and other bands apply for other passports, from 18 to 30 for several, including Belgium, Japan and the Netherlands. If your age falls outside the band, the card says so plainly, states the band, and says why you do not match.

The second answer is that no age rule is published at all. The Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482) is the clearest example: its own government page states there is no age requirement for this visa, and Vamola's card says exactly that, rather than inventing a limit nobody published.

The third answer is any age, but with an extra test outside a band. Australia's National Innovation visa (subclass 858) works this way: applicants under 18, and applicants 55 and over, must be of exceptional benefit to the Australian community, while applicants from 18 to 54 face no age condition at all. At 52 the card says that extra test does not apply to you. At 56 it says it does, and states what it requires.

The fourth answer is that age is scored rather than barred. Canada's Express Entry is the clearest example: age scores zero points from 45 onward, but the pass mark stays reachable from your other factors. Scoring zero on age is not being refused, and Vamola says this plainly, because a traveller who sees a zero naturally assumes the opposite.

The fifth answer is honest and plain: an age rule Vamola has not read yet. Where the authority that publishes a rule is one Vamola has not curated, such as Quebec's own immigration ministry or an individual Canadian provincial nominee stream, or where the page will not open to us, as happens with several United States Department of State pages, the card says so rather than guessing. This is a real, visible state, not an error: Vamola would rather tell you it has not read a rule than invent one. This is the honesty principle behind every Fact in Vamola: it only ever states what a government page actually says, shows the date Vamola last checked that value against the page it cites, and never guesses a value or invents a limit no page publishes, because that would end your search wrongly.

Occupation: optional, and Vamola never guesses your code

Several Australian work Routes ask for an occupation on a published list. Vamola used to list that as a condition and say nothing about whether yours was one of them. Since 2 September 2026 you can enter what you do, and it answers.

Type what you do in the Occupation field on the first screen and Vamola shows you the closest wordings from ANZSCO, the occupation classification the Australian Bureau of Statistics publishes. You pick the one that matches. Vamola never picks for you, because a wrong code would quietly open or close real Routes and you would have no way of knowing it had happened.

The field is optional and it is not a gate. Leave it empty and you get the same complete answer you always did, with the occupation conditions listed as things the Route asks of you.

Once you have picked, each Route that names an occupation list says where you stand. Subclass 482's Core Skills stream and subclass 186's Direct Entry stream ask for the Core Skills Occupation List, so the card says whether yours is on it; where it is, the card also carries the Department's own warning that caveats apply to some occupations and a nomination can be refused even for an occupation on the list. Subclass 482's Specialist Skills stream names no list at all: its page asks for an ANZSCO occupation in Major Group 1, 2, 4, 5 or 6, and the card answers that instead. A Route whose list does not hold your occupation is closed, and it says so plainly, with the list named.

Two things Vamola will not do. If nothing in ANZSCO matches what you typed, it says so and leaves the occupation conditions unanswered rather than picking something plausible. And where the Department of Home Affairs still lists your occupation under an older version of ANZSCO than the one Vamola matches against, it will not say your occupation is missing from a list, because that would be a fact about two numbering schemes and not about you: it says so and leaves those conditions unanswered too.

The classification and the lists are two different things published by two different authorities, and they change at different times, so each carries its own source link and its own Checked-on date under WHAT VAMOLA HAS READ. What you type stays on this device, like your age, and is never sent anywhere.

Cannot tell: a real answer, not a failure

Where a Route's published conditions include something Vamola was not told, such as whether an employer will sponsor you, what your occupation is, or what qualifications you hold, Vamola says it cannot tell rather than guessing at an answer either way. This is not a fallback for rare cases: for many Routes it is the single most common answer, because Passport, Destination, Purpose, age and Transit are not enough information to judge sponsorship, occupation or qualification conditions, and Vamola does not pretend otherwise.

An unchecked condition is never counted as met. If a Route requires employer sponsorship and Vamola was not told you have one, that condition is marked cannot tell, not matched: Vamola never assumes a yes on your behalf just because you did not say no.

Seeing cannot tell is Vamola being honest about the edge of what a handful of fields can establish, not a gap in how carefully a Route was curated.

A hedged rule, and the way back in

Some official pages state an age rule with a hedge built into it: the word usually, a list of exemptions, or a limit measured at the moment you are invited to apply rather than at the moment you apply. If you fall outside the band such a page publishes, Vamola says so plainly, and then names the hedge as the one condition that could still open the route to you.

Australia's Employer Nomination Scheme (subclass 186) is the clearest example. Its published page states that applicants must usually be under 45, then lists exemptions for academics, scientists and technical specialists among others. Enter 52 and the card reads Not open to you as things stand: this route asks for ages 44 and under, you entered 52, so you do not meet the age rule its page publishes, and falling under one of the exemptions that page lists is the only thing that could still open it. The exemptions themselves are quoted underneath, in the page's own words.

That is different from a route whose page admits no exception. Australia's Working Holiday visa (subclass 417) publishes 18 to 35 and stops there, so at 52 it simply reads Closed to you, with nothing more to add.

Neither heading is a prediction. Vamola says you fall outside a rule a page publishes, which is a fact about that page and about the age you entered. It never says an application would be refused, and it never says one would be granted.

How to read an answer

For your Passport, Destination and Purpose, Vamola shows every Route open to you: a working holiday visa, a visa waiver, a permanent residence pathway, or whatever pathways exist for that combination, split into what you match and what you do not. Most cells have more than one.

Each Route now opens with a summary: the fee, the maximum stay and whether you may work, the three things most people came for. Tap Show details on a Route to see its Requirements and the rest of its Facts. The detail has not gone away, it is one tap under the summary rather than the first thing on screen.

Each Route lists its Requirements: the documents, vaccinations, minimum bank balance or age range you need to use it. A fee and a maximum length of stay are Facts too: single curated figures, each one carrying its own Source and Checked-on date, shown beside the claim it supports rather than buried in a footnote.

Where the official page does publish a figure, Vamola now shows it. For example, an Australian Working Holiday visa Route may show a figure of about AUD 5,000, and Canada's International Experience Canada may show about CAD 2,500. These are the indications the government page itself states for showing you have enough funds, not a fixed fee, and Vamola carries that caveat alongside the figure rather than presenting it as a price.

Not every Requirement has a published figure behind it. Where the official Source does not publish an amount, such as how much money you need to show to enter as a tourist, Vamola says so in words instead of showing a number: it reads as a plain statement that no amount is published, rather than leaving a blank space or a zero. Seeing no number where you expected one means the Source truly does not publish one, not that Vamola forgot to look.

The Source beside a Fact is a link. Tap or click the site name and the official page opens in a new tab on the web, or in your phone's own browser rather than inside Vamola, so you see the real address bar and the real certificate of the government site. The full address is in the tooltip. If the page will not open, because you are offline or because nothing on your device handles links, Vamola shows you the whole address to copy or type in yourself. Nothing about your question travels with the click: nothing you searched for is added to the address, and no referrer is sent.

Can you get it on your own, and where does it lead?

These are the two questions people ask about a work visa before any other, and every Route open to you now answers both, in two short lines under the heading that says where you stand.

Who has to act. A Route reads either You apply yourself: the page names no other party who has to act first, or Somebody else must act first followed by who: an employer must nominate or sponsor you, a state, territory or provincial government must nominate you, an eligible relative must sponsor you, or an approved nominator or sponsoring organisation must put your name forward. Some Routes name more than one, and Vamola names all of them: Australia's Skilled Work Regional visa (subclass 491) accepts either a state nomination or a sponsoring relative, and those are two different prospects depending on who you know.

The difference is worth reading carefully. Australia's Skilled Independent visa (subclass 189) needs nobody: the Department invites you in response to your own expression of interest. In the United States, the EB-1A and the National Interest Waiver say in so many words that you may petition for yourself, while H-1B, L-1 and the ordinary employment-based categories need an employer to file. In Canada, Express Entry is a profile you create, and the Provincial Nominee Program waits on a province.

Where it leads. A Route either grants permanent residence, which means the visa you are granted is permanent residence with no other visa first, or it is temporary. A temporary Route says whether its own page publishes a way on to permanent residence, and names the onward route and the waiting period where the page names them. Australia's subclass 482 Labour agreement stream says you can go on through the Employer Nomination Scheme (subclass 186); the Core Skills stream says only that you may apply if eligible and names no route; subclasses 491 and 494 publish a three year wait. Where a page publishes nothing about permanent residence, Vamola says that instead of implying a pathway.

Both lines carry a Source and a Checked-on date like every other claim: tap Show details on the Route to see the page each was read from. Where every Route open to you says the same thing, Vamola says it once above them all rather than on each card.

Where nobody has read the page, Vamola says so and names the authority that publishes it, as its own gap rather than as something for you to go and check. It will never guess that a Route needs no sponsor.

Permanent residence, not just holidays and work

Permanent residence is one of the three purposes you can pick, alongside holiday and work. It used to be buried inside work, which meant that somebody who wanted to move permanently and had no interest in a job had to ask about work to find the routes for it. Pick permanent residence and Vamola shows the routes that actually grant it first, and below them the temporary routes whose own page publishes a way on to it, each one marked Temporary and naming the second step where the page names it.

A route can belong to more than one purpose, and Vamola does not duplicate it to manage that. Australia's Employer Nomination Scheme (subclass 186) is a work route and a permanent residence route on one page, so it appears in both answers, once, with the same figures and the same Checked-on dates. Which purposes a route belongs to comes from what its own page says about where it leads, never from a list somebody keeps by hand.

Where Vamola has not read where a route leads, it does not put that route in a permanent residence answer, because that would be claiming it is a way in on no reading at all. It says so instead, under What Vamola has read, and counts them. Vamola matches across 56 of the 81 possible passport, destination and purpose combinations for Australia, Canada and the USA. This is still a small slice of what these three countries publish between them, and Vamola does not oversell it.

The standout fact is Canada's. Express Entry, Canada's points-based route to permanent residence, publishes no age limit at all: age is scored, worth more points in your late twenties than your fifties, but it never disqualifies an application on its own. Someone in their fifties can apply for Canadian permanent residence directly, from abroad, with no work permit or working holiday first. A provincial nomination adds 600 points on top of the points already scored, which for most candidates is enough on its own to guarantee an invitation.

Australia is more mixed. Its National Innovation visa (subclass 858) has no age band: applicants from 18 to 54 face no age condition at all, while applicants under 18 or 55 and over must show exceptional benefit to the Australian community. See Age above for how Vamola states that. Its skilled visas, Skilled Independent (subclass 189), Skilled Nominated (subclass 190) and Skilled Work Regional (subclass 491), together with Employer Nomination (subclass 186), do publish an under-45 rule, though 186 hedges it: see Hedged rules above.

This is still a small slice of what Australia, Canada and the USA publish for permanent residence. Vamola will keep saying so plainly as coverage grows, rather than implying a completeness it has not earned yet.

When a route is not taking applications

A government sometimes pauses a programme, or fills its annual quota, and stops taking applications from anybody. When a route's own official page says so, Vamola shows that route as closed to you, whatever else you match. Meeting every published condition does not help when the door is shut, and a green heading over a shut door would be the most misleading thing this app could print.

The card says it in the page's own word, and it says what the page does and does not publish about it. If the page gives the date the programme stopped, Vamola gives you that date. If the page says nothing about reopening, Vamola says that too, rather than letting you assume it is coming back.

Where a page publishes a way in that survives the pause, Vamola shows the route as not open to you as things stand, and quotes that way in underneath, exactly as it does for a hedged age rule. The United States H-1B is the case: its annual cap can be full for the year while a university or a nonprofit research organisation can still petition at any time.

Where Vamola has not been able to read a route's page on this point, it does not guess in either direction. The route is shown as usual and the answer says, once, that Vamola has not read whether those routes are taking applications.

What Checked-on means

Every Fact in Vamola carries a Checked-on date: the date Vamola last checked that value against the page it cites.

That checking is automatic, and it is a real check, not a date moved on a timer. Vamola fetches the page it names and compares what the page says with the figure it is showing you. A Checked-on date moves only when the page was genuinely fetched and still said the same thing. If the page cannot be fetched, or if it no longer holds the value, the date stays where it was and the Fact is flagged, because a check that did not happen must never look like one that did.

Vamola re-checks every Fact on a monthly cycle, whether or not its Source page looks like it changed, alongside a separate daily check that watches for a Source moving. If a Fact's monthly re-check falls overdue, it stays on screen with its true Checked-on date and a flag, rather than being quietly treated as current. Nothing is ever auto-renewed.

Vamola reports what a government page said on a date. It reads its sources automatically. It is not immigration advice and it is not a guarantee, and Vamola is not responsible for what those pages say. Every figure links to the page it came from, so you can check it yourself: that link is the point, and it is stronger than any promise we could make.

Coverage gaps

Vamola aims to cover every Passport, Destination and Purpose combination for its launch countries. There are 81 of them: nine passports, British, Irish, Italian, Spanish, Mexican, Canadian, New Zealand, Australian and United States, three destinations, Australia, Canada and the USA, and three purposes, holiday, work and permanent residence. Vamola answers 56 of the 81 today, and not every passport is covered for every destination and purpose. The other 25 are Coverage gaps, and Vamola says so plainly: not covered yet, with a link straight to the official source.

A Coverage gap can mean two different things, and Vamola does not blur them. It can mean Vamola has not curated that combination yet, or it can mean there is genuinely no such route to curate. Mexico travelling to Australia for work, and Mexico travelling to Canada for work, are both Coverage gaps of the second kind: Mexico is not on either country's working holiday scheme list, so there is no route there to show, and Vamola says so rather than guessing or inventing one.

A Coverage gap is never filled by guessing. Vamola would rather send you to the primary source than show you a figure nobody has checked.

The United States has no working holiday visa

The United States has no working holiday visa, and this is worth saying plainly, because travellers routinely assume otherwise.

What exists instead is a set of named categories, and Vamola names them rather than pretending a working holiday Route exists. Temporary worker categories such as H, L, O, P and Q normally require an employer to petition for you before you can use them. The J exchange visitor programme runs through a designated sponsor rather than an application you make alone. The E-3 is for Australian nationals only. The TN, under USMCA, is open to Canadians and Mexicans, who are treated differently from each other under its terms.

None of these behave like a working holiday visa, and Vamola does not present them as if they did.

Transit and vaccinations

Your Destination answer appears first, on its own: the vaccination Requirement for arriving directly, together with the other Routes and Facts. Transit, a country you pass through without properly entering it, is separate from your Destination. It is an optional field: add the countries you have passed through to refine the vaccination Requirement, because yellow fever rules can depend on where you have been in the days before you arrive.

For Australia today, entering the country needs no vaccination certificate on its own. A yellow fever certificate is recommended if you were in a country on the World Health Organization's list within six days before you arrive. Leave Transit blank and Vamola shows this caveat as it applies generally; add your Transit countries to see whether it truly applies to you.

The app switches languages too

This manual is written in English, Italian and Spanish, and so is the app itself. Use the same language selector, top right, to switch lucaintini.ai/apps/vamola/ between English, Italian and Spanish.

One thing stays in English on purpose, in every language: official visa names and subclass numbers, such as eVisitor (subclass 651) or Visitor visa (subclass 600). That is deliberately not translated, because it is exactly what you need to search for and what the government page itself calls it. Translating it would make it harder to find, not easier.

A page on the web for every Australian route

You do not have to open the app to read what Vamola holds. Every Australian route it has read has its own page on the web, in English, Italian and Spanish, starting at lucaintini.ai/apps/vamola/visas/australia/. There is one page per route, and it states what the route is, who has to act before you can hold it, where it leads, what its page publishes about age, what it costs, how long you can stay, and every condition it states. Every one of those carries a link to the government page it was read from and the date Vamola last checked it.

These pages are generated from the same data the app answers you from, on every deploy, so they cannot say something the app does not. Nothing on them is written by hand.

What a page cannot do is tell you whether a route is open to you: it does not know who you are. For that, open the app and enter your passport, where you are going, why, and your age. The match happens on your device and what you enter never leaves it.

Australia only for now. Canada and the United States are already in the app and do not have their pages yet.

When a fee reads not published

Some Facts now read not published instead of showing an amount. This is the case most likely to confuse you, so it is worth explaining plainly: where the official page Vamola cites does not print a figure, Vamola says so in words rather than showing a number it cannot read from that page.

The clearest example today is the Australian Visitor visa (subclass 600): its fee is not printed on the government page at all. That page sends you to a pricing estimator instead of stating a figure, so Vamola will not state a figure it cannot read from the page it cites. Seeing not published is Vamola working correctly, not a bug: it means the primary source truly does not print a figure, not that Vamola forgot to look.

New Zealand's special case

New Zealand deserves its own note, because its Route does not work like the others in this manual. A New Zealand passport travelling to Australia is normally granted a Special Category visa (subclass 444) on arrival: it is free, and it permits you to work. It is not a re-entry visa: it ceases the moment you leave Australia, so a fresh Special Category visa is granted on each arrival rather than carrying over between trips.

Money: everything is free

Everything Vamola does is free. The match is free. The Dossier will be free when it is built. Change alerts will be free when they are built. There is nothing to buy, there is no paid tier, and no part of an answer is held back behind a price.

Free and working today: the match itself, every Route, every Fact, every figure cited and dated, with one unobtrusive advertisement below the answer, never inside it, and never from the immigration lawyer or visa agency categories. Vamola does not detect or block ad blockers: if you block ads you simply see no ad, and nothing about the app is degraded.

Coming, and not built yet: the Dossier, with the full checklist per Route, its document list, its cost breakdown and an export you can keep; and Change alerts, which tell you when a rule affecting your matched Routes changes, rather than leaving you to notice on your own. Neither exists in the app today. This manual will say so plainly, in English, Italian and Spanish, until the day they ship, and will stop saying coming the moment they do, not before.

If Vamola is useful to you, a one off donation of any amount is welcome, and it is entirely optional. Nothing is withheld from somebody who gives nothing, and nothing extra is promised to somebody who gives. There is no way to donate in the app yet either, and this manual will not pretend otherwise.

You do not need to sign in to use any of this. The only reason to sign in will be to have alerts sent to you by email once alerts exist, and that will be with Google or Apple, never an email and a password of your own choosing.