The two systems
The US State Department runs a four-tier ladder for every country:
- Level 1, Exercise Normal Precautions. The lowest tier, applied to the majority of stable countries. The advisory will still flag specific risks (pickpocketing, road accidents, particular regions), but the headline is 'go'.
- Level 2, Exercise Increased Caution. Elevated risk in some areas or for some travellers. France, Mexico, and the United Kingdom itself have spent most of the last decade here.
- Level 3, Reconsider Travel. Specific countries or regions where the State Department believes the risk to travellers is materially elevated. Algeria, Egypt, Jamaica, parts of Mexico, and Honduras have featured. Travel-insurance cover may be voided.
- Level 4, Do Not Travel. The strongest possible advisory. Active conflict zones (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus), countries with severe lawlessness (Haiti, Libya), and a small number of states where US citizens face elevated detention risk (Iran, North Korea, Venezuela). Travel insurance does not cover trips taken against a Level 4.
The UK FCDO runs a more granular system with two layers. The country-level page carries a colour-coded map showing four states across the territory:
- No advisory against travel. Implicit 'go'.
- Advise against all but essential travel to a specific area or region. Often applied to border regions, conflict areas, or specific cities. The rest of the country may be fine.
- Advise against all travel to a specific area. Stronger; effectively a do-not-go to that part of the country.
- Advise against all travel to the entire country. Reserved for active war zones (Ukraine, Russia in 2026), states with no British consular presence, and a handful of countries where the FCDO has lost confidence in the local security environment.
The advisories sit alongside a continuously edited body text covering local laws, scams, transport, health, and emergency contacts.
Where the two governments agree
On the bottom and the top, almost always. Both list Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Haiti, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, North Korea, and Iran as do-not-travel destinations as of mid-2026. Both treat Japan, Switzerland, New Zealand, and the Nordic countries as routine low-risk trips.
The differences mostly sit in the middle of the ladder, in countries that are stable enough to be fine for the average traveller but uneven enough that one government's threshold catches a risk the other waves past.
Where they disagree, and why
A few patterns recur.
- The US is more cautious about Latin America. Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Colombia routinely sit at Level 2 or Level 3 from the State Department while the FCDO restricts its warnings to specific border or cartel-active regions. The State Department is reacting to elevated travel-warning risk for US passport holders specifically (kidnapping for ransom, particular incidents against US tourists) which the UK does not face at the same rate.
- The UK is more cautious about specific African and Middle Eastern regions. FCDO advice against travel to northern Nigeria, the Sahel, parts of Mozambique, and the Sinai is often more granular and more current than the equivalent State Department guidance, partly because the British government maintains larger consular networks in those areas.
- Israel and the Palestinian Territories diverge by faction. The State Department applies a single Level 3 with carve-outs. The FCDO maintains separate advisories for Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, and updates them on different cadences. A traveller relying on one without the other risks missing a key update.
- Russia and Belarus get treated differently by passport. The State Department's Level 4 on Russia cites detention risk for US citizens specifically, including the wrongful-detention designation. The FCDO advises against all travel for general security reasons. Both are correct; the underlying risk profile differs by nationality.
Which one to weigh more heavily
The honest answer is: read both, and notice where they diverge. The combined signal is consistently better than either alone, which is the part the Warnely composite score is built to surface.
A few practical rules:
- If both governments say do not travel, do not travel. Trip insurance is voided, consular help is limited, and the cost of evacuation if something goes wrong falls entirely on you.
- If they disagree by one tier, look at the underlying paragraphs. The advisory text is more useful than the headline label. A Level 3 'crime' is a different risk from a Level 3 'civil unrest', and the right response differs.
- Check the dates. The FCDO refreshes country pages weekly to monthly. The State Department refreshes on a slower cadence (six months to a year between major reviews) plus event-driven updates. An advisory that hasn't been touched for nine months is signalling stability but not currency.
- Look for nationality-specific risks first. US passport holders face elevated kidnap and detention risk in certain countries (Mexico, Iran, Russia, North Korea, China). UK passport holders face different risks in different places. Both governments flag their own nationality's specific exposure more clearly than the other's.
Where Warnely sits
The composite Warnely score combines both feeds, weights them against the Global Peace Index and the World Governance Indicators, and adds a live-incident overlay from major news sources. The aim is to produce a single number a traveller can read in two seconds, with the underlying components transparent on the methodology page. For travellers who want to read the originals, every country guide on Warnely (see the directory) links direct to the live FCDO and State Department pages for that country, refreshed daily.
The two government feeds are the gold standard for travel advice. They are also written for different audiences. Knowing which is which is the difference between travel advice that helps and travel advice that confuses.