How can I find out more about honorary consuls from my country?

ICIJ analyzed the level of transparency provided by countries about honorary consuls residing in their territory, and the honorary consuls that are representing their countries abroad.

As part of the Shadow Diplomats investigation, ICIJ researched which countries host and appoint honorary consuls, and established a transparency index that measures how easy or difficult it is to access this information for each.

ICIJ found that 78 of the countries did not make public the names of their honorary consuls.

Browse the list below, or click to see the full dataset, including whether or not your country publishes easily-accessible information about the honorary consuls they appoint abroad or host at home.

ICIJ’s data and research team analyzed the level of transparency provided by countries about honorary consuls residing in their territory, and the honorary consuls that are representing their countries abroad. To do so, ICIJ reviewed information published on the websites of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of each country listed.

ICIJ then compared the information based on six criteria:

1) Updated – ICIJ checked if the information is updated, including if there is evidence that some information on the honorary consuls was published on the websites of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of each country in 2022.
2) Website – ICIJ checked if the website from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs providing information on the honorary consuls is accessible.
3) Dates – ICIJ checked if the dates of the honorary consuls’ appointments are available.
4) Available info – ICIJ checked if there is information available both for honorary consuls appointed abroad to represent the country (“appointed”) and consuls residing in the country and representing foreign countries’ interests (“hosted”).
5) Names – ICIJ checked if the honorary consuls’ names are visible on the website.
6) List format – ICIJ checked if the information is displayed in a list format that is easy to access (if not, it means for example that it can be located on different embassies’ websites and the information is more difficult to locate).