How the Geo-Flex score works

Three questions, not one

A remote job, a ski season and a sponsored move to Berlin all serve location independence, but through completely different mechanisms. Scoring them on a single scale would rank two of them as failures for not being the third. So each job is scored against the question that actually applies to it.

A visa-sponsored role is tied to one country by definition. It is never marked down for that — being tied to a country is the entire point of a sponsored move. It is scored on how well it gets you there and what your life looks like once you arrive.

What goes into each score

Location freedom — remote roles

• Where you can live

  45 pts

  Worldwide beats several regions, which beats one region, which beats a list of countries, which beats a single country — and a single country with a named city is the tightest of all.

• When you must be online

  25 pts

  Fully asynchronous work is the most geo-flexible thing a job can offer. A wide timezone band is next, then a required overlap window, then fixed core hours in someone else’s timezone.

• What you must be

  20 pts

  Contract and freelance roles are invoiced rather than payrolled, so they travel further. Employee roles often fix a payroll country. A residency requirement is the hardest constraint here.

• Where you must show up

  10 pts

  No travel obligation scores full marks. Optional retreats barely count against it. Quarterly on-sites cost real freedom, and monthly office attendance is not geo-flexible at all.

Traveller mobility — seasonal and work exchange

• Whether you can take it up

  40 pts

  Whether there is a visa or working-holiday route, or whether it is limited to people who already hold the right to work.

• What is provided

  25 pts

  Accommodation and board change the economics of a season abroad more than the wage does.

• How long you commit

  20 pts

  A defined stint fits a travel plan. An open-ended one does not.

• Where it takes you

  15 pts

  The country the work is in.

Relocation — visa-sponsored roles

• Sponsorship offered

  45 pts

  Whether the employer actually sponsors, and how wide the net is on nationality.

• Help getting there

  25 pts

  A named relocation package scores well above a listing that merely uses the word.

• Who can come with you

  15 pts

  Whether a partner or dependants are covered.

• Flexibility once there

  15 pts

  Whether the role is remote or hybrid after you have moved, or tied to a desk.

Why some jobs have no score

A score is only calculated from the factors a listing actually gives evidence for, then scaled across those. Assuming the worst about a factor nobody mentioned would punish a short job ad; assuming the best would flatter it. Neither would be a measurement.

So a job needs at least two measurable factors before it gets a number at all. One is not enough: “this listing says remote and names no country” is a single observation, and dressing it up as a score would be exactly the binary thinking this is meant to replace.

Right now 193 of 194 live listings carry a Geo-Flex score. The rest do not say enough for us to measure honestly, and we would rather show you nothing than a number we made up.

Where the evidence comes from

1. 1. What the employer told us. Stated remote policy, timezone rules and eligibility. The strongest evidence, and what we ask for when a company posts directly.
2. 2. The listing’s own fields. Job type, countries, contract type.
3. 3. The job description. Read for specific phrases — “fully async”, “quarterly on-site”, “must remain a tax resident”. Deliberately literal, so it can be checked.

Each factor on a listing shows which of these it came from, so you can weigh a stated policy differently from a phrase we read in a description.

What it does not do

It does not compare across tracks. A traveller-mobility 72 and a location-freedom 72 are answers to different questions, and putting them in one ranking would be meaningless.

It does not measure whether a job is good. A brilliant role can be location-tied and a mediocre one can be worldwide. This scores one axis, and it is the axis this site exists for.