Application Form for Grant of a Visa and Permit for Return to Ghana

This file is the source-review record for this document version, per the manual-source-review-v1 practice. It documents the provenance of the published fields and states the current verification claim honestly.

Current claim

• status: draft
• verification.method: manual-source-review-v1
• verification.lastVerifiedAt: 2026-07-13

This is a GovSchema Standard Research cycle (GOV-2698), continuing Ghana's research thread from GOV-2695 (the parent research issue), which scouted all 5 of Ghana's remaining open verticals in parallel following GOV-2510's opening of Ghana as the registry's 41st jurisdiction (via National ID & Civic Documents).

Why this candidate

Ghana stood at 1 of 6 verticals (National ID & Civic Documents) entering this cycle. GOV-2695's own research pass found the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS)'s forms library at gis.gov.gh/gis-forms/ — an unauthenticated HTML index — linking directly to a downloadable "Application Form for Grant of a Visa/Permit for Return to Ghana" PDF. This cycle authors the schema and independently re-verifies the cited source rather than trusting the issue's citation at face value.

Source examined

• Authority: Ghana Immigration Service (GIS).
• Document: "APPLICATION FORM FOR GRANT OF A VISA/PERMIT FOR RETURN TO GHANA"
• URL (directly retrieved, HTTP 200, no login): https://gis.gov.gh/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/APPLICATION-FORM-FOR-GRANT-OF-A-VISA-and-PERMIT-FOR-RETURN-TO-GHANA.pdf
• File identity: sha256:14bdb332f24b1fd172db3b851fa369b2235d9ba9710f58cbbc545b5f9fdc470b, 1,500,822 bytes, Content-Type: application/pdf, Last-Modified: Fri, 13 Jun 2025 11:12:54 GMT. Byte count and hash match the GOV-2698 issue's own citation exactly.
• Structure: 2 pages. Page 1 carries the 14 numbered items plus an "ATTACHMENTS" note; page 2 is a "FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY" block.
• Retrieved / reviewed: 2026-07-13

Extraction method

pdfjs-dist (v4, legacy build) page.getAnnotations() confirms 0 Widget annotations on both pages, and page.getTextContent() confirms 0 extractable text items on both pages — this is a genuinely scanned specimen (a raster image embedded in the PDF, not a text or form layer), a different tier from this registry's flat-but-text-extractable specimens (e.g. ng/nis, rw/dgie).

With no text layer to extract, the page was rendered directly: a custom NodeCanvasFactory (backed by node-canvas) was passed to page.render() at 2.5x scale, producing a 1487×2105px PNG per page, which was then read visually. Every numbered item was cross-checked with a targeted crop (e.g. items 1–2, items 3–5, items 6–12, item 13's row specifically) to rule out any small print missed at full-page zoom. No hidden or overlapping text was found; the faint mirrored content visible on page 2 is print bleed-through from page 1's ink, not a second layer of genuine page-2 content.

Field inventory

33 fields[] entries, referenced by item number:

| Item | Printed content | Schema field(s) | |---|---|---| | 1 | Name (in full) Mr./Mrs./Miss | title, fullName | | 2 | Previous Name (if any) | previousName | | 3(a) | Nationality | nationality | | 3(b) | Date & Place of Birth | dateOfBirth, placeOfBirth | | 4(a) | Passport No. | passportNumber | | 4(b) | Date & Place of Issue | passportIssueDate, passportPlaceOfIssue | | 4(c) | Date of Expiry | passportExpiryDate | | 5 (header) | Address in Ghana (in full) | addressInGhana | | 5(a) | Postal (Office/Business), Tel | postalAddressGhana, postalTelephoneGhana | | 5(b) | Residential (H/No.), Tel | residentialAddressGhana, residentialTelephoneGhana | | 6 | Address Overseas, Tel | overseasAddress, overseasTelephone | | 7 | Educational Qualifications, Occupation | educationalQualifications, occupation | | 8(a) | How long resident in Ghana | residencyDurationGhana | | 8(b) | Date of first arrival | dateOfFirstArrival | | 8(c) | Date of latest arrival | dateOfLatestArrival | | 9 | Destination abroad (give full address) | destinationAbroad | | 10 | Date of departure | dateOfDeparture | | 11 | Object of journey and proposed length of stay abroad | objectOfJourneyAndProposedStay | | 12 | Reasons for wishing to return to Ghana (to be supported by documentary evidence) | reasonsForReturn (+ reasonsForReturnEvidence document) | | 13 | Marital Status | maritalStatus | | 14 | Name of Spouse, Nationality | spouseName, spouseNationality | | (declaration) | Date, beside the signature/thumbprint line | signatureDate |

documents[] (3 entries):

• applicantPhotographs — the empty, uncaptioned photo-affixing box printed on page 1's top-right, read together with the "ATTACHMENTS: 1. TWO (2) CURRENT PASSPORT SIZE PHOTOGRAPHS" note as the same requirement.
• reasonsForReturnEvidence — item 12's own printed instruction "(TO BE SUPPORTED BY DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE)".
• applicationDeclaration — the solemn-declaration statement printed immediately above the signature/thumbprint line, quoted verbatim.

The page-2 "FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY" block (Fee paid, Receipt No., Signature of Cashier, Stamp) is excluded as staff-populated, consistent with this registry's established convention (cf. gh/nia's excluded MRW Number/Registration Centre Number/Interviewer NID No. widgets). No raw signature/thumbprint capture field is modelled, for the same reason.

Access notes and judgment calls

1. Item 5 carries its own header-level blank before its lettered sub-items, unlike items 3 and 4. Items 3 ("(a) Nationality... (b) Date & Place of Birth...") and 4 ("(a) Passport No... (b)... (c)...") go straight from the item number into lettered parts with no preceding header blank. Item 5 uniquely prints "ADDRESS IN GHANA (IN FULL)..." with its own dotted blank before "(a) POSTAL..." and "(b) RESIDENTIAL...". This schema treats that header blank as a genuine, separate general-address field (addressInGhana), rather than silently discarding it as decorative — it is a real structural difference from items 3/4, not an extraction artifact.
2. maritalStatus is modelled as free text, not an enum. A targeted crop of item 13's row (crop-marital.png during this session) confirms the specimen prints only a bare dotted blank — "13. MARITAL STATUS........................." — with no enumerated options anywhere on either page. This is a deliberate departure from this registry's other maritalStatus fields (e.g. ng/nis, ng/nimc), which are modelled as enums because their own specimen (or a corroborating edition) prints explicit options; no such corroborating edition was found for this form.
3. spouseName/spouseNationality (item 14) are not requiredWhen-gated on maritalStatus. Since maritalStatus is free text with no reliable machine match against "married", gating would require inventing a pattern match this specimen's own text does not support. The conditional relationship is documented in each field's description only, matching this registry's established free-text-gated-conditional practice (cf. ng/nis's employmentEmployerName).
4. postalAddressGhana/postalTelephoneGhana (item 5(a)) are optional; residentialAddressGhana/residentialTelephoneGhana (item 5(b)) are required. An applicant without an office or business has nothing to declare in 5(a), matching this registry's officeAddress-is-optional / residentialAddress-is-required convention (cf. ng/nis).
5. overseasAddress/overseasTelephone (item 6) and destinationAbroad (item 9) are modelled as two distinct required fields, even though both concern an address abroad. The specimen prints them as two separate numbered items with no cross-reference between them, and this schema does not assume they are always identical (an applicant may maintain an overseas residence distinct from a specific trip's destination) — faithfully kept separate per this standard's source-of-truth-fidelity principle.
6. Items 9, 11, and 12 each print a multi-line ruled blank (one continuation line for item 9, one for item 11, two for item 12) with no separate lettering or numbering. Each is modelled as a single free-text field with a maxLength sized to the visible ruled space, not as separate fields — consistent with how a single free-text answer spanning multiple ruled lines is modelled elsewhere in this registry.
7. applicantPhotographs reconciles two printed cues to the same requirement: the empty, uncaptioned box on page 1 (which a completed specimen would show a photo affixed to) and the page-1 "ATTACHMENTS" note requiring two passport-size photographs. Neither is modelled as a second, independent document, since the specimen gives no indication these are two different photographs beyond the same two-photograph requirement.
8. Scoping: this is GIS's Re-Entry Visa/Permit pathway, not the first-time tourist e-Visa. A fresh check of gis.gov.gh/visas/ confirms this specimen corresponds to the site's listed "Re-Entry Visa" service (obtained before departure so a Ghana resident may re-enter on return), distinct from the first-time tourist e-Visa, which remains a login-gated online application portal with no downloadable blank specimen found at any tier this cycle. This scoping is disclosed here and in schema.json's description rather than silently conflating the two pathways, matching this registry's rw/dgie and uy/mrree visa-scoping precedent.

Test run (Phase 4)

No live submission was attempted: Ghana's Re-Entry Visa/Permit channel is a printed, hand-completed application submitted in person or via a Ghanaian diplomatic mission together with photographs and supporting documentary evidence, not a portal accepting programmatic submissions, and submitting fabricated identity data against a foreign government's immigration process is not a safe or reversible action — the same reasoning already documented for this registry's other consular/immigration schemas (e.g. rw/dgie/visa-application, ng/nis/application-for-visa-entry-permit).

Instead, two independent worked mock records were built from this document's own field inventory and checked with a purpose-written script (validate_instance.mjs, mirroring the approach used by rw/dgie and ng/nis): compiles schema.json's fields[] into a JSON Schema document checked with ajv (+ajv-formats for date), plus a from-scratch evaluator for requiredWhen/documents[] conditional requiredness.

``` $ node validate_instance.mjs registry/gh/gis/application-for-grant-of-visa-and-permit-for-return-to-ghana/1.0.0/schema.json \ conformance/gh/gis/application-for-grant-of-visa-and-permit-for-return-to-ghana/1.0.0/married-applicant-with-spouse.json Static (required/type/pattern/enum) validation: PASS requiredWhen/documents[] conditional validation: PASS

OVERALL: PASS

$ node validate_instance.mjs registry/gh/gis/application-for-grant-of-visa-and-permit-for-return-to-ghana/1.0.0/schema.json \ conformance/gh/gis/application-for-grant-of-visa-and-permit-for-return-to-ghana/1.0.0/single-applicant-no-office-address.json Static (required/type/pattern/enum) validation: PASS requiredWhen/documents[] conditional validation: PASS

OVERALL: PASS ```

Mutation controls — five negative fixtures, each targeting a distinct validation rule:

``` $ # mutation-control-missing-required-field.json: 'passportNumber' (required: true) removed Static (required/type/pattern/enum) validation: FAIL - (root) must have required property 'passportNumber' requiredWhen/documents[] conditional validation: PASS OVERALL: FAIL

$ # mutation-control-invalid-date-format.json: 'dateOfBirth' set to 'not-a-date' Static (required/type/pattern/enum) validation: FAIL - /dateOfBirth must match format "date" requiredWhen/documents[] conditional validation: PASS OVERALL: FAIL

$ # mutation-control-invalid-enum-value.json: 'title' set to 'dr' (not in enum) Static (required/type/pattern/enum) validation: FAIL - /title must be equal to one of the allowed values requiredWhen/documents[] conditional validation: PASS OVERALL: FAIL

$ # mutation-control-maxlength-violation.json: 'fullName' set to 250 characters (maxLength: 200) Static (required/type/pattern/enum) validation: FAIL - /fullName must NOT have more than 200 characters requiredWhen/documents[] conditional validation: PASS OVERALL: FAIL

$ # mutation-control-missing-required-document.json: 'applicantPhotographs' removed from documents[] Static (required/type/pattern/enum) validation: PASS requiredWhen/documents[] conditional validation: FAIL - document 'applicantPhotographs' is required but not marked provided OVERALL: FAIL ```

Both meta-schema validators were run against the finished document and pass clean:

``` $ node tools/validate.mjs registry/gh/gis/application-for-grant-of-visa-and-permit-for-return-to-ghana/1.0.0/schema.json ok registry/gh/gis/application-for-grant-of-visa-and-permit-for-return-to-ghana/1.0.0/schema.json

1/1 document(s) passed.

$ node tools/validate-ajv.mjs registry/gh/gis/application-for-grant-of-visa-and-permit-for-return-to-ghana/1.0.0/schema.json ok registry/gh/gis/application-for-grant-of-visa-and-permit-for-return-to-ghana/1.0.0/schema.json [v0.3]

1/1 document(s) validated against the meta-schema (ajv 2020-12). ```

A full-registry run of both validators was also run after adding this document, and tools/govschema-client/registry-index.json was regenerated via npm run build-index (in tools/govschema-client/, after npm ci --include=dev since a plain npm ci under a local NODE_ENV=production skips ajv's devDependency install) to include this document's entry.

Ghana's other open verticals

Ghana now stands at 2 of 6 verticals (National ID & Civic Documents, Visa). GOV-2695's parallel scouting pass found candidates in Passport, DMV, Business Formation, and Taxes as open backlog for future cycles.