Editorial Method

Last updated: 30 June 2026

Why this page exists

The Attaché Desk covers administrative, legal and security topics that matter to people making real decisions about a posting abroad. This page sets out how a guide gets written, what counts as a source, how often guides are reviewed, and what to do if something is wrong. It exists so that anyone relying on a guide can judge, for themselves, how much weight to put on it.

How a guide is built

Each guide starts from the official framework that governs the topic: a treaty, a national statute, a ministry circular, or the published rules of the relevant authority. Procedural detail, such as the documents a mission typically submits or the order in which steps happen, is drawn from the published guidance of the responsible government department or international organisation wherever that guidance exists.

Guides follow a consistent structure: an overview of what the topic covers and who it applies to, the legal or administrative basis, eligibility or status questions, the process itself, costs and timing where these are publicly available, the points that most often cause confusion or go wrong in practice, and a list of official sources.

Where a detail cannot be confirmed against an official or otherwise reliable source, it is left out rather than estimated. The Attaché Desk does not fill gaps with plausible-sounding figures.

What counts as a source

Priority is given, in order, to: primary legal texts (treaties, statutes, regulations); the published guidance of the ministry, agency or international organisation directly responsible for the topic; and official statistics or fee schedules published by those same bodies. Where a topic has no single official source, such as comparing schools or characterising a neighbourhood, multiple independently published sources are used and cross-checked against each other.

Sources that are not used: forums, unverified aggregator sites, and any source whose factual claims could not be traced back to an identifiable origin.

Review cadence

Every guide is reviewed at least once every six months. The "last reviewed" date shown on each guide reflects when it was last checked against current sources, not simply when it was first published. Where a change in regulation, a new procedure, or a materially different fee or threshold comes to light before the six-month mark, the guide is updated as soon as practical rather than waiting for the scheduled review.

A review means the guide is re-checked against its cited sources and current official guidance. It does not mean every guide is rewritten on every cycle; many details are stable and require no change.

Corrections

If you find an error, an outdated figure, or a reference that no longer matches the current official position, corrections are welcome and acted on. Write to contact@theattachedesk.com with the page concerned, the specific inaccuracy, and a reference to the correct current source where you have one. Corrections are reviewed against the source provided and the guide is updated where the correction holds up.

Where editorial responsibility stops

The Attaché Desk publishes orientation, not advice. Every guide carries this distinction explicitly, and it is not a formality: regulations vary by accreditation category, by sending state, and by individual circumstance in ways that a general guide cannot capture. The role of a guide is to give an accurate, sourced starting point and to flag the specific things worth confirming with your mission, your organisation, or a qualified adviser, not to replace that confirmation.