The Data Transparency Index
A ranked atlas of what the world's public statistical systems publish about US-citizen populations living within their borders, country by country, domain by domain. Higher scores indicate richer published evidence. Lower scores indicate that even basic counts of Americans in residence go unreported. The Index measures public data only: administrative records held but not published are not counted.
The Index counts only what is publicly published.
Most countries could score higher: what lowers a rating is rarely the absence of data (authorities generally hold the underlying records) but the decision not to release it in publicly accessible, US-disaggregated form. The Index is a picture of what governments have chosen to publish, not of what can be known. Records released to us on request are published separately and never move a score. See the request ledger at the foot of this page.
A counting note: four of the 99 jurisdictions on this Index (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Kosovo) are not UN member states. UN coverage is therefore 96 of 193 members: 95 destination countries plus the United States itself.
What the Index Measures
The transparency index is a 0 to 5 score expressing how completely a country's public statistical apparatus exposes data on Americans abroad across five reporting domains. The score is a measure of data publication, not of population size. A low score does not mean few Americans live there; it means we cannot know from published sources alone.
The Five Domains
Tier 1: Strong
Annual time series across most domainsTier 2: Adequate
Stock and flow solid, one or two gapsTier 3: Limited
Estimates only or aggregated proxiesTier 4: Weak
Very limited, single domainTier 5: Structurally Absent
No publicly available US-disaggregated dataWhen we ask, governments often answer.
Most of what the Index marks as unpublished still exists, and a formal request is often all it takes. Guatemala released its full register of US residents within seven working days of being asked. Here is every request we have made, including the one refusal. Released data appears on country pages, clearly badged. It never changes an Index score.
| Country | Institution | Asked | Answered | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Argentina | National Directorate of Migration (DNM) | Jan 5, 2026 | May 28, 2026 | Answered: delivery pending |
| Argentina | Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship | Jan 5, 2026 | May 21, 2026 | Released: met expectations |
| Costa Rica | Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) | May 21, 2026 | May 28, 2026 | Released: exceeds expectations |
| Guatemala | Guatemalan Migration Institute (IGM) | Jan 5, 2026 | May 11, 2026 | Released: exceeds expectations |
| Guatemala | National Statistics Institute (INE) | Jan 5, 2026 | May 11, 2026 | Released: exceeds expectations |
| Guatemala | Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINEX) | Jan 5, 2026 | May 13, 2026 | Refused: no meaningful response |
| Guatemala | National Registry of Persons (RENAP) | Jan 5, 2026 | May 13, 2026 | Released: exceeds expectations |
| Philippines | Bureau of Immigration (BI) | n/a | May 2026 | Released: exceeds expectations |
| Philippines | Philippine Retirement Authority (PRA) | n/a | May 13, 2026 | Released: exceeds expectations |
| Philippines | Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) | n/a | May 2026 | Released: partially met expectations |
| Argentina | National Registry of Persons (RENAPER) | Jan 5, 2026 | Pending | Pending |
| Canada | Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) | May 25, 2026 | Pending | Pending |
| Colombia | Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Cancilleria de Colombia) | May 20, 2026 | Pending | Pending |
| Costa Rica | General Directorate of Migration and Foreign Affairs (DGME) | May 21, 2026 | Pending | Pending |
| Kenya | Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) | May 26, 2026 | Pending | Pending |
| Mexico | Secretariat of Foreign Affairs (SRE) | May 16, 2026 | Pending | Pending |
| Panama | National Migration Service (SNM) | May 21, 2026 | Pending | Pending |
Response times, legal bases and quality scores for every request are on the dashboard's Data Transparency page. An n/a means the filing date was not recorded.
If you can lift a score, tell us.
The Index is built from publicly available sources. Where the data shows up, the country scores; where it doesn't, the country drops. But sources surface in unusual places: a parliamentary written answer, a national-census microdata table not mirrored to the official portal, a bilateral migrant matrix released only in the language of the destination country. Each edition refines what came before.
A dataset we missed
A specific public source (statistical office release, government register, parliamentary answer, bilateral migrant matrix) for a specific country that we haven't surfaced. The more obscure, the more useful.
A score you'd contest
A country whose tier you'd argue with. Ideally with the reasoning and the evidence behind your view. Disagreements with the dot pattern on a specific domain are welcome too.
A country we should add
A destination outside the current 99-country scope where the US-citizen presence is meaningful enough to warrant tracking in a future edition.
Prefer email? Write to info@americanemigration.com
Every submission is adjudicated internally. Ratings are revised as evidence warrants. Contributors are credited where appropriate. We do not publish working files, weighting, or methodology beyond what appears in this document.
Public versus administrative. Many of the countries on this Index hold US-specific records that would lift their score considerably if released. Where domain dots appear empty or partial, the underlying data may already exist inside the relevant authority; it is simply not publicly available. Targeted information requests can change that picture, as in the Guatemala example above. The Index tracks only what is currently public.
Reading the dots. A filled dot indicates the domain is covered by a published, US-disaggregated, official data source. A half-filled dot indicates partial coverage: a proxy series, a derived figure, a country-of-birth substitute for citizenship, or an aggregated regional cut. An empty dot indicates no published US-disaggregated data identified in that domain.
What the Index is not. A low score does not mean few Americans live there. Israel (Tier 2) carries an estimated 200,000 US citizens; Costa Rica (Tier 4) carries embassy estimates of roughly 100,000. The Index measures publication architecture, not population size. Several high-population destinations score low because their statistical systems aggregate "North American" or "foreign citizen" data without breaking out the United States specifically.
Treaty carveouts. Status-of-Forces and Defense Cooperation Agreements typically exclude US military and diplomatic populations from host-country administrative datasets. Bahrain (NAVCENT), Kuwait (Camp Arifjan), Japan (US Forces Japan), Italy (Aviano, Vicenza), Germany (Ramstein), and the UAE (Al Dhafra) all carry sizable US military populations that do not appear in the civilian data this Index scores.
Edition cadence. The Index is revised on a rolling basis as new datasets surface and as country research reaches publication-grade. Submissions of new sources, contested ratings, or additional country candidates are accepted year-round at info@americanemigration.com.