Jamaica Visa Application Form (Form J)

Candidate selection

GOV-4390 ("GovSchema Standard Research"), authored per the GOV-4360 cycle's own banked Jamaica backlog entry (see CATALOG.md's Known Gaps entry 0f), most recently re-scouted (but not authored) by the GOV-4376 cycle. Closes the last open Jamaican vertical of the six originally scouted: Business Formation (jm/orc), Passport (jm/pica), and DMV (jm/taj) were authored in prior cycles, Taxes (jm/taj/individual-income-tax-return) is authored and pending merge, and National ID is a confirmed dead end (the GOV-4360 cycle's own screening).

Reaching the live source

Target: https://embwashington.mfaft.gov.jm/pdf/Visa-Application-Form.pdf.

• Independently re-fetched and re-hashed rather than trusted from the GOV-4376 cycle's own report alone: HTTP 200, Content-Type: application/pdf, 525,611 bytes (byte-for-byte match with the GOV-4376 cycle's own reported size), Last-Modified: Fri, 07 Nov 2025.
• sha256 of the retrieved bytes: b89d32efbf3f1ac3698704b47981a856e93700107eba4e14675f541c23627fa4.
• No login/CAPTCHA/WAF gate; a plain unauthenticated curl with a realistic desktop User-Agent reached it cleanly.
• The originally-banked embassyofjamaica.org host (recorded in the GOV-4360 cycle's own note) now redirects to this current embwashington.mfaft.gov.jm domain, the embassy's current one.

Extraction method

pdfjs-dist (vendored at /tmp/node_modules/pdfjs-dist) getAnnotations() confirmed zero /Widget annotations on the document's single page — a genuine flat specimen, not a fillable form. getTextContent() then read every text item's raw string and its transform x/y position to reconstruct line-by-line layout; the document's own character set carries no checkbox/radio glyph anywhere (confirmed by enumerating every distinct Unicode code point present across the page), so every field on this form is a ruled fill-in-the-blank line, not a tick-one-of-many selection.

Document structure

A single page: a consular-post office-stamp box (top, excluded); the "FORM J / VISA APPLICATION" heading; 17 numbered items (1-17) covering the applicant's particulars, travel history, address, marital status, purpose/duration of visit, passport particulars, and a prior/return visa line; an unheaded "References in Jamaica" block with two side-by-side reference slots; a signature/date line; and a "FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY" strip at the very bottom (excluded, consular-staff-completed).

Disclosed findings and interpretation choices

1. sex (item 4) is modelled as a required enum (MALE, FEMALE) despite the source printing a plain blank ("Sex.............") with no option list at all — the same no-printed-option-list convention this registry's mx/ine/credencial-para-votar-application already applies to its own analogous blank "Sexo" field, since no other value appears anywhere else on this form.
2. maritalStatus (item 9) is modelled as a required enum with exactly the three values the source itself prints in parentheses — "Marital Status (Married, Single, Divorced)" — rather than a free-text field, since the form explicitly enumerates the intended answer set even though the entry itself is a blank line, not a tick-box.
3. Item 5 ("Arrived in ... on ... coming from ...") is modelled as three independent, unconditionally optional fields (arrivalLocation, arrivalDate, arrivalOrigin), since the item's meaning (most plausibly: the applicant's most recent arrival at their current, non-Jamaican location, relevant to a consular post processing an application from someone already abroad) is not explained anywhere on the form, and not every applicant necessarily has a prior arrival to report (e.g. someone applying from their own country of residence). Disclosed rather than fabricating a firmer interpretation.
4. Item 6 ("Name(s), date(s) and place(s) of birth of minor child(ren) accompanying you") is modelled as two independent, unconditionally optional combined free-text fields (accompanyingChild1Details, accompanyingChild2Details), one per the two ruled blank lines the source prints beneath the header — matching this registry's established convention for an unlabelled repeatable block (e.g. bw/dic/visa-application's own reference1Details/reference2Details, pa/migracion/tourist-visa-application's own relative1NameRelationAddress/relative2NameRelationAddress), since the header covers all three attributes (name, date, place of birth) without any further column sub-division.
5. telephoneNumber (item 7) is modelled as optional, while presentAddress on the same numbered item is modelled required. The item prints both on one line ("Present Address... Telephone No...") with no distinguishing marker between them, but a present address is core identifying information for any visa applicant while a telephone number is ordinary optional contact information, the same disclosed judgment call this registry's Botswana/Zambia consular forms apply to comparable unmarked contact-detail pairs.
6. permanentAddress (item 8) is modelled optional, per the source's own qualifier "(if different from above)" — the field is only completed when it differs from the required presentAddress (item 7), the same qualifier-anchored-to-the-conditional-field convention this registry's jm/taj/individual-income-tax-return (Finding 4) already applies to its own analogous Home/Business Mailing Address pair.
7. Item 11 ("Date(s) of previous visit(s) to Jamaica and address(es) at which stayed") is modelled as a single, unconditionally optional combined free-text field (previousVisitDetails), since the source prints only one ruled blank line beneath the header (confirmed via each text item's own y-coordinate), not a repeatable block — not every applicant has previously visited Jamaica.
8. meansOfDisposalForVisit (item 15) is modelled as a single required free-text field, transcribing the source's own literal (if awkwardly phrased) caption "Means of Applicant's disposal for visit" without attempting to normalize or reinterpret its wording.
9. Item 17 ("Return visa to ... valid until ...") is modelled as two independent, unconditionally optional fields (returnVisaDestination, returnVisaValidUntil), since neither the source's own wording nor any other item on the form clarifies whether this refers to a distinct return-trip visa request or something else — not every first-time applicant will have an answer for it, and the item carries no explicit conditional marker either way. Disclosed rather than fabricated.
10. "References in Jamaica" (two side-by-side slots, each with its own printed "Name"/"Address" sub-labels) is modelled as four independent, unconditionally optional free-text fields (reference1Name, reference1Address, reference2Name, reference2Address) — each address collapses the block's own multiple ruled continuation lines (confirmed via y-coordinate: three stacked lines per reference) into one generously-sized field, the same multi-line-collapse convention this registry's AcroForm passport schemas (e.g. jm/pica/passport-application Finding 4) already use for stacked same-label widgets. Both references are modelled optional since the source prints no marker distinguishing either as mandatory, the same disclosed judgment call bw/dic/visa-application Finding 4 applies to its own analogous reference block.
11. Excluded as office/consular-staff-completed, not applicant-supplied data: the top-of-page office-stamp box ("Consular Post or High Commissioner's Office (to affix office stamp here)") and the bottom "FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY" / "DATE" / "REMARKS" strip.

Conformance

3 valid mock scenarios — valid-tourist-first-time-applicant (a first-time tourist applicant with no accompanying children, no prior Jamaica visits, and both references supplied); valid-business-applicant- with-prior-visit (a business-purpose applicant declaring a prior visit to Jamaica and a different permanent address from their present one); and valid-family-visit-with-accompanying-children (an applicant travelling with two minor children, requesting a return visa) — plus 12 mutation-control fixtures (one missing statically-required field from each of surname, firstNames, nationalityPresent, dateOfBirth, placeOfBirth, sex, presentAddress, maritalStatus, destinationInJamaica, occupation, passportNumber, applicantSignature) and one unknown-field-rejected fixture, committed under conformance/jm/mfaft/visa-application/1.0.0/.

An ephemeral, from-scratch conformance checker (deriving required rules directly from this schema's own fields[], discarded after use, not committed) ran all 16 fixtures: all 3 valid scenarios at 0 errors, all 12 mutation controls each raising exactly 1 error, and the unknown-field fixture correctly rejected. Validated clean with node tools/validate.mjs and node tools/validate-ajv.mjs, individually and as part of the full registry run. registry-index.json regenerated via npm run build-index in tools/govschema-client/.