Short answer first. A visa application tracker needs fourteen fields, not forty, and each one is on this list because a counted fact about the process breaks when it is missing. The template below is the applicant-side version of the tracker templates sold to immigration firms, rebuilt from this site's own records and lifecycle guides.
The template: 14 fields
| Field | Why it earns its place |
|---|---|
| Destination and passport | The pair decides everything: the same destination runs two systems for different passports |
| Application reference | The only status that exists lives on the official portal, behind this number |
| Date submitted | Every wait is measured from here, and only 50 of 412 records hint how long it runs |
| Fee actually paid | Only 158 of 412 records state a fee in advance, so yours is the record that matters |
| Official portal link | Status lives there, not in your inbox |
| Expected wait, your estimate | From minutes (UK ETA) to about 8 weeks (Ireland) in the stated records |
| Photo file used | 264 of 412 records require one; keep the exact file that passed |
| Passport expiry date | A separate clock from the visa, and the one that stops trips at check-in |
| Validity months required | 399 of 412 records require 6; Qatar asks 3, Sao Tome and Principe 12 |
| Approval PDF location | Border officers ask for it where roaming fails; save it offline |
| Enter-by date | An approval expires on its own schedule whether you travel or not |
| Stay limit in days | Validity and stay are different numbers, and confusing them overstays you |
| Single or multiple entry | It decides whether a side trip ends the visa |
| Calendar check date | Watch the calendar rather than the inbox; set the reminder when you submit |
Two fields do most of the work. The reference number is the application, for status purposes: without it there is nothing to check, only an inbox to refresh. And the passport pair of fields, expiry date plus the months the destination requires, catches the failure that has nothing to do with the visa at all. The distribution below is why the required-months field cannot be a fixed default.
The field everyone defaults wrong
Six months is the right default 399 times out of 412, and the exceptions are not trivia: Qatar's records ask for three months, which rescues a passport a six-month rule would strand, and Sao Tome and Principe asks for twelve, which strands one a six-month rule would wave through. Our passport validity explainer covers the rule family in full, and the validity and stay guide covers the enter-by and stay-limit fields. Copy the fourteen rows into any notes app or spreadsheet; the tool is the habit of filling them in at submit time, not the software.
Sources: template format modeled on Torly, The Ultimate AI-Powered Visa Application Tracker Template. Counts from this site's e-visa records collection (412 records), harvested from its public search index November 5, 2026.