Film Permits Nepal is an independent, privately owned production-support service based in Kathmandu. We are not a government office and we do not issue permits. What we do is help international productions prepare, organise, and review the paperwork that a filming project in Nepal typically needs, and coordinate the practical steps around it. Because much of that work touches regulatory matters that can change, the quality of our guidance depends entirely on the quality of the sources behind it.
This Source and Verification Policy explains, in plain terms, how we decide what to tell you, how we check it, how we label our confidence in it, and what we do when something turns out to be wrong or out of date. It is written so that a producer, line producer, or production coordinator can understand exactly how much weight to place on any statement we make, and where the boundaries of our knowledge sit.
The policy rests on a simple principle: we would rather tell you honestly that a specific fee, timeline, or authority still needs to be confirmed against a current official source than assert a number that looks precise but may be stale. Regulatory details in any country move over time, and Nepal is no exception. Names of responsible offices, published charges, and procedural steps can be revised, and a figure that was accurate last season may not hold this season.
Throughout this page we describe our source hierarchy, the difference between official and supporting sources, how we date everything, who reviews what, the confidence labels we use, and how corrections and public citations work. The aim is transparency. You should always be able to ask us where a particular statement came from, when it was last checked, and how confident we are in it, and receive a clear answer.
Why we publish a source and verification policy
Most productions that contact us are planning a shoot in an unfamiliar regulatory environment, often from another country and another time zone. They need to make budgeting and scheduling decisions early, sometimes before a single document has been prepared. That creates pressure to accept confident-sounding answers quickly. We think the responsible response to that pressure is the opposite of vague reassurance: it is to be explicit about how we know what we claim to know.
A published policy holds us to account. When our method for sourcing and checking information is written down and visible, we can be measured against it, both by clients and by our own reviewers. It also protects you. If you can see that we distinguish between a fact we have confirmed against a current official source and a general pattern we have observed across past productions, you can plan accordingly and avoid treating an illustration as a guarantee.
There is a second reason. The regulatory picture for filming in Nepal is not a single, static rulebook. Which office is responsible for a given approval can depend on where you film, what you film, and what activities are involved, such as drone flights, work inside protected or heritage areas, or the temporary import of equipment. In that setting, a policy that simply promised certainty would be misleading. What we can promise is a disciplined process: clear sourcing, honest labelling of confidence, dated records, independent review of higher-risk topics, and a fast route to correct anything found to be wrong.
This policy also sets expectations about what verification is not. It is not a substitute for the decisions of the authorities themselves. No amount of careful sourcing on our part can bind an official body or predict its decision. Verification, as we use the term, means that a statement is traceable to a credible source, dated, reviewed where appropriate, and labelled with an honest level of confidence. It does not mean the statement is beyond change, and it never means we can guarantee an outcome, a timeline, or an approval on your behalf.
What this policy promises and what it does not
It helps to state the boundaries at the outset, because the value of everything that follows depends on them being clear.
What this policy promises is a method. Every regulatory statement we make to you can be traced to a source. Anything specific and consequential, such as which office may be involved, what a document must contain, or how a step tends to sequence, is dated and, for higher-risk topics, independently reviewed. Where we are confident, we say so plainly. Where we are not, we say that too, and we tell you what would need to be confirmed and by whom before you rely on it.
What this policy does not promise is certainty about matters that lie outside our control. We do not set fees, so we never present a fee as fixed or guaranteed; we describe how charges are typically structured and confirm the current position against official sources during your review. We do not issue permits, grant location access, authorise drone flights, or clear equipment through customs, so we never promise any of those results. We do not control processing times, so we avoid stating exact durations as if they were assured, and instead help you build a schedule with sensible buffers.
We also do not assert a single named authority as the definitive current issuer for your project as though that were a settled fact independent of your circumstances. Which body applies depends on your locations and activities, and the responsible office for a given approval can change. When a specific authority matters to your plan, we confirm the applicable one against current official sources at the time of your review rather than repeating a name from memory or from an old document.
Finally, this policy does not replace your own professional advisers. For legal questions, tax positions, insurance adequacy, or contractual risk, you should take specialist advice. Our verification method makes our production-support guidance more reliable and more transparent. It does not convert that guidance into legal, financial, or regulatory authority, and nothing on this page should be read as a warranty of any regulatory result.
The source hierarchy we follow
When we prepare or check a statement, we do not treat all information as equal. We work down a hierarchy, always preferring the most authoritative source available for the point in question, and being transparent when only a lower tier is available.
At the top sit primary official sources: current published material from the relevant government or authority, official notices, and direct written confirmations obtained through proper channels. These carry the most weight because they come from the bodies that actually make and apply the rules. Where a point can be grounded in a primary official source, that is what we rely on, and that is what we cite internally against the statement.
Below that sit official but secondary materials, such as general guidance published by an official body that summarises a process without being the operative rule itself. These are useful for orientation and for understanding intent, but we treat them as pointers toward the primary position rather than as the final word, and we check them against the primary source where a decision depends on the detail.
Next come credible supporting sources: established industry references, reputable reporting, and professional bodies. We use these to understand context, to notice that something may have changed, and to cross-check, but we do not present a supporting source as if it were an authority. If a supporting source is the only basis for a point, we say so and we label our confidence accordingly.
At the base sits practical experience, meaning patterns we have observed across the productions we have helped. This is genuinely valuable for planning, sequencing, and anticipating friction, and we draw on it openly. But we are careful never to dress up an observed pattern as a regulatory certainty. Experience tells you what has tended to happen; it does not tell you what an authority must do in your case.
The rule that ties the hierarchy together is simple. The more consequential a statement is to your budget, schedule, or legal exposure, the higher up the hierarchy its support must sit before we present it with confidence. For a decision that could move money or dates, an observed pattern is a prompt to verify, not a basis to proceed.
Official and primary sources
Primary official sources are the foundation of anything we say about the regulatory side of a shoot. In practice these are the current published positions of the relevant Nepali authorities, official notices and circulars, and written confirmations obtained through the correct channels for a specific question.
We treat these sources with particular care for three reasons. First, they are operative rather than descriptive: they are the actual position, not a summary of it. Second, they are the sources an authority itself will act on, so aligning your paperwork with them reduces the risk of avoidable friction. Third, they are the sources most likely to reveal a recent change, because official notices are where revisions to process, responsibility, or charges usually surface first.
Because official sources can be revised, we do not treat a primary source as valid forever once we have seen it. Each primary source we rely on is recorded with the date we accessed it, so that its currency can be judged later. When a topic is time-sensitive, such as anything touching fees, drone permissions, or protected and heritage areas, we re-check the primary source close to the point where you will rely on it rather than assuming an earlier reading still holds.
We are also careful about interpretation. An official source can be clear on its face and still leave room for judgement about how it applies to an unusual production. Where that happens, we distinguish between what the source plainly states and how we read it in your context. The first we can present as sourced; the second we present as our informed reading, labelled as such, and we flag where a direct confirmation from the relevant office would remove the uncertainty.
Finally, we do not manufacture official certainty we do not have. If a specific figure, provision, or responsible office is not something we can ground in a current primary source at the time of your review, we will not assert it as verified fact. We will tell you it needs confirmation, describe how that confirmation is obtained, and, where useful, help you obtain it, rather than filling the gap with a plausible but unverified number or name. Honest absence of a fact is safer for your production than a confident guess.
Supporting and secondary sources
Not every question can or should be answered from a primary official source alone, and supporting sources have a legitimate and useful role, provided we are honest about what they are.
Secondary official materials, such as general explanatory guidance published by an official body, help us and you understand the shape and intent of a process. They are excellent for orientation, for explaining why a step exists, and for spotting that a change may have occurred. We use them freely for context. What we do not do is let a summary stand in for the operative rule when a decision turns on the detail. In those cases we go back to the primary position and confirm.
Credible third-party sources, including established industry references, professional associations, and reputable reporting, serve a different purpose. They are how we stay alert. A well-sourced report that a process has changed, or that a charge has been revised, is a valuable early signal even though it is not itself an authority. We treat such signals as prompts to verify against a primary source, not as conclusions. If a point rests only on a supporting source and we have not been able to confirm it against something more authoritative, we say so explicitly and we lower the confidence label we attach to it.
We apply a few consistent tests to supporting sources. Is the source identifiable and reputable, or anonymous and unaccountable? Is it current, or is it old material that may describe a superseded position? Is it consistent with what other credible sources and our own experience suggest, or is it an outlier that needs more scrutiny before we rely on it? A source that fails these tests does not disappear from view, but it does not get to drive a consequential statement on its own.
We are especially cautious with informal online material and second-hand accounts. They can be useful for understanding practical experience and for generating questions, but the internet is full of confident, out-of-date, and location-specific advice presented as universal. We will happily use such material to sharpen the questions we ask, and we will not use it as the basis for a claim about your obligations. Anything that could affect your budget, schedule, or compliance is checked against a higher tier before we present it with confidence.
Effective dates and access dates
Dating is central to honest verification, because a regulatory fact is only as good as the moment it was last confirmed. We work with two kinds of date, and we keep them distinct because they answer different questions.
The access date records when we last looked at a source. It answers the question, how fresh is this reading? A statement supported by a source we accessed recently deserves more trust, all else equal, than one supported by a source we last looked at long ago. Because official positions can change, the access date is what lets us and you judge whether a re-check is due before you rely on a point.
The effective date, where one is knowable, records the period for which a position is understood to apply. Some official materials carry their own dates or indicate when a change takes effect. Where that information exists, we capture it, because it tells you not just when we looked but when the underlying position is understood to have been in force. Where it does not exist, we do not invent one; we rely on the access date and treat the position as current as of that reading, subject to re-check.
We use these dates practically. For stable, general explanations of how the preparation process tends to work, a slightly older access date is usually fine, because the shape of the workflow changes slowly. For time-sensitive specifics, particularly anything touching charges, drone permissions, protected or heritage areas, or the responsible office for an approval, we treat older access dates as a trigger to re-verify before you act. The more a statement could move money or dates, the shorter the acceptable gap since it was last confirmed.
This is also why we avoid presenting any specific fee, duration, or named issuing authority as a timeless fact. Such specifics are exactly the things most likely to change, so we tie them to the date they were confirmed and re-confirm them against current official sources during your review rather than carrying an old figure forward. When you receive guidance from us on a time-sensitive point, you should expect it to be anchored to a confirmation date, so that you always know how current it is and when it should be checked again.
How we record where a fact came from
Verification only means something if it can be traced. For that reason, when we prepare guidance for a production, we keep an internal record of what each consequential statement rests on. The record is not a public document, but its existence is what allows us to answer, honestly and quickly, the question every careful producer should ask: how do you know that?
For a given regulatory statement, the record captures the type of source it rests on and its place in our hierarchy, the date we last accessed that source, the reviewer or reviewers who checked it where review applied, and the confidence label we attached. Where the statement is our informed reading of a source rather than a direct quotation of it, the record notes that distinction, so that interpretation is never silently presented as fact.
This internal traceability has several benefits. It lets a second reviewer re-examine a point without starting from scratch. It lets us re-verify efficiently when time passes, because we already know what the statement depends on and where to look again. It lets us respond precisely to a correction, because we can find every place a superseded fact was relied upon rather than guessing. And it disciplines us at the point of writing, because knowing that a statement must be traceable discourages the confident, unsourced assertion.
Because productions share sensitive material with us, this record-keeping sits inside our confidentiality and document-handling practices. Sourcing records about regulatory points are kept separate from, and are far less sensitive than, the production documents you entrust to us, and both are handled with appropriate care. We do not expose one client's material to another, and our internal sourcing notes are just that: internal working records that support the guidance you receive.
You are always entitled to ask about the basis of any statement we make. If we tell you that a particular office is likely to be involved, that a document should contain particular elements, or that a step usually precedes another, you can ask what that rests on and when it was last checked, and we will tell you plainly, including telling you when the honest answer is that a point still needs to be confirmed against a current official source before you rely on it.
Reviewer assignment and separation of duties
Not every statement carries the same risk, so not every statement receives the same level of scrutiny. We assign review effort in proportion to how consequential a point is and how likely it is to have changed.
Routine, stable explanations of how the preparation workflow generally proceeds are drafted and checked with ordinary care, because they change slowly and carry limited risk if slightly dated. Higher-risk topics receive additional review. In practice, the topics we treat as higher-risk are the ones most likely to move money, dates, or compliance, and most likely to change: charges of any kind, drone-related permissions, protected-area and heritage-area requirements, equipment import and re-export, and any point that turns on which authority is responsible for an approval.
For those higher-risk topics, we apply a separation of duties. The person who prepares a statement is not the only person who signs off on it. A second reviewer checks that the statement is properly sourced, that its access date is current enough for the decision it will inform, that its confidence label is honest, and that any interpretation is clearly distinguished from what the source actually says. This second look is deliberately sceptical; its job is to catch confident errors, not to confirm them.
Reviewers work to the same standards this policy describes, and they are empowered to downgrade a confidence label, to require re-verification against a primary source, or to hold a statement back entirely if it cannot be properly grounded. A reviewer who concludes that a point cannot be verified in time will say so rather than approving it, and we will then present the point to you honestly as unverified, with a plan to confirm it.
We are candid about the limits here. Review reduces the chance of error; it does not eliminate it, and it cannot make an uncertain regulatory matter certain. What it does is ensure that the higher the stakes of a statement, the more independent scrutiny it has passed before you see it, and that no consequential regulatory claim rests on a single person's unchecked recollection. Where a matter genuinely requires specialist input beyond our scope, such as customs specifics or a legal question, our reviewers are instructed to say so and to direct you to the right specialist rather than to improvise an answer.
Confidence labels we attach to regulatory statements
Because certainty varies, we attach an honest confidence label to consequential regulatory statements, so that you can weight each one appropriately. We would rather tell you our confidence is limited than imply a uniform certainty we do not have.
At the confident end sit statements grounded in a current primary official source, recently accessed and, for higher-risk topics, independently reviewed. These are the statements you can plan around with the least hesitation, though even here we note that any official position can change and that re-checking near the point of reliance is prudent for time-sensitive items.
In the middle sit statements that are well supported but carry a known caveat: perhaps the primary source is clear on its face but its application to your unusual circumstances involves judgement, or perhaps the point rests on solid secondary material that we have not yet confirmed against the primary position. For these, we tell you what the caveat is and what would raise our confidence, typically a direct confirmation from the relevant office.
At the cautious end sit statements based mainly on observed patterns or supporting sources, useful for planning but not yet verified against an authority. We present these openly as provisional. They are good enough to shape a draft schedule or a preliminary budget line, and they are not good enough to treat as settled obligations. For anything in this band that could affect money or dates, we recommend verification before you commit.
Separately, we mark statements as unverified when we simply cannot ground them in an adequate source at the time of writing. An unverified point is not hidden from you; it is flagged, together with what needs to be confirmed and how. This matters most for the specifics we are careful never to fabricate: exact fees, exact durations, and the specific authority responsible for a given approval. Rather than assert a number or a name to appear precise, we label the point unverified and confirm it against current official sources during your review.
The purpose of labelling is to move decision-making onto honest ground. A confident label invites reliance; a cautious or unverified label invites confirmation before reliance. Used consistently, the labels let you allocate your own checking effort where it matters and avoid being surprised by a figure that was never as solid as it sounded.
Handling regulatory facts we cannot verify
A policy is only credible if it says clearly what happens when verification fails, because in a changing regulatory environment it sometimes will. Our rule is simple: when we cannot verify a specific regulatory fact against an adequate source, we do not invent one.
This applies with particular force to the details that are easiest to fake and most damaging to get wrong: specific government or authority fees and amounts, exact processing times and timelines, the specific named authority asserted as the current issuer for a project, particular legal provisions, and statistics. For each of these, a confident-sounding but unverified answer is worse than no answer, because it can drive a budget or a schedule onto false foundations. So we decline to assert them as fact when we cannot ground them.
Instead, we do three things. We tell you plainly that the point is not verified. We tell you what the point actually depends on, for example that which authority applies depends on your locations and activities, or that the exact charges are confirmed against current official sources at the time of your review. And, where it is useful, we help you obtain the confirmation, by identifying the right source or channel and, within our production-support role, assisting you to get a current answer rather than a remembered one.
We frame illustrations carefully for the same reason. When we describe how a situation has tended to unfold, or sketch a scenario to help you picture a process, we present it explicitly as an illustration of a pattern, not as a prediction or a promise about your case. An example of how equipment import has typically been organised, or how a heritage-area request has usually sequenced, is meant to orient you, not to guarantee that yours will match.
We also never convert an inability to verify into an implied guarantee. We do not promise approval, timing, drone permission, location access, or customs clearance under any circumstances, and least of all to paper over an unverified point. If a matter is genuinely uncertain, the honest and useful thing we can offer is a clear statement of the uncertainty, a plan to resolve it against a proper source, and a schedule and budget built with enough flexibility to absorb the answer once it is confirmed. That is more valuable to a production than a reassuring number that cannot be relied upon.
Expiry, review cycles and superseded records
Verified information does not stay verified indefinitely. Because official positions can change, we treat every time-sensitive statement as having a natural shelf life and we manage that life deliberately rather than letting old facts quietly go stale.
Each consequential statement is anchored to the date it was last confirmed. For time-sensitive topics, that anchor is also a prompt: as the gap since the last confirmation grows, the statement moves from confident toward due-for-review, and eventually toward expired if it has not been re-checked. Expired does not mean wrong; it means unconfirmed as of now, and therefore not to be relied upon for a live decision until it has been re-verified against a current source.
When we do re-verify and find that a position has changed, we do not simply overwrite the old one and move on. We mark the earlier position as superseded and record what replaced it and when. Keeping a superseded record, rather than erasing it, matters for two reasons. It lets us trace every place the old position was relied upon, so that we can update guidance we previously gave you. And it lets us be honest with you if you are working from earlier material, because we can say precisely what has changed since you last received advice from us.
We pay closest attention to the topics most prone to change: charges, drone permissions, protected-area and heritage-area requirements, equipment import and re-export, and the question of which authority is responsible for a given approval. For these, we assume change is possible and we re-check near the point where you will rely on the information, rather than assuming an earlier reading still holds. For stable, general descriptions of how the preparation workflow proceeds, review can be less frequent, because the shape of the process moves slowly.
For you as a client, the practical takeaway is this. If you received guidance from us some time ago and are only now acting on it, tell us, and we will confirm whether any time-sensitive point has been superseded before you rely on it. A figure or a responsible office that was accurate when we last confirmed it may have moved, and it is far cheaper to re-check than to build a plan on a superseded fact. We would always rather re-verify a point for you than have you commit budget or schedule to something that has quietly expired.
Corrections and error handling
No verification method is perfect, and we would rather be quick and transparent about error than defensive about it. If something we have published or told you turns out to be wrong, out of date, or misleading, we want it corrected fast and we want the correction to reach anyone it affected.
Anyone can raise a correction with us, whether you are a current client, a past client, or a reader who has spotted something that looks inaccurate. When a correction comes in, we assess it against our source hierarchy. If it points to a more authoritative or more current source than the one behind our statement, that is exactly the signal we want, and we act on it. If it conflicts with a primary source we hold, we re-check both before concluding, because a correction can itself be based on outdated or location-specific information.
We prioritise corrections by consequence. An error that could affect a production's budget, schedule, or compliance is treated as urgent, because the cost of leaving it in place is high. A minor inaccuracy that does not change any decision is still fixed, but it does not jump the queue ahead of something that could cause real harm. In every case, once we confirm an error, we update the statement, adjust its confidence label and date, and mark the previous version as superseded so the record is honest about what changed.
Crucially, we do not only fix the statement in isolation. Because we keep internal records of what each consequential statement rests on, we can find the productions and the guidance that relied on the erroneous point and let the affected clients know, rather than silently editing and hoping no one built a plan on the old version. If you received advice from us that we later find to be wrong on a consequential point, you should expect to hear from us about it.
We also treat corrections as learning. A recurring error usually points to a weak source or a gap in our review, and we adjust accordingly, whether that means re-checking a topic more often, raising its review level, or being more explicit about a caveat. The goal is not merely to patch individual mistakes but to reduce the chance of the same class of mistake happening again. If you ever believe something we have told you is inaccurate, please raise it; a good correction is a favour to us and to every production that relies on our guidance.
How verification shows up in your production review
This policy is not an abstract statement of principle; it shapes what you actually receive when you engage us for a permit-support review. Understanding how it appears in practice helps you get the most from the process.
When you bring us a production, we work through the regulatory and documentary considerations relevant to your locations, your production type, and your planned activities. As we do, we separate three kinds of statement, and we make the separation visible to you. First, the stable, well-understood elements of how preparation generally proceeds, which we can present with confidence. Second, the points that depend on your specific circumstances and need confirmation against current official sources, which we flag together with what needs checking. Third, the specifics we will not fabricate, such as exact fees, exact durations, and the particular responsible authority, which we confirm against current sources during the review rather than asserting from memory.
That means a good review from us is partly a map of certainty and uncertainty. We tell you what you can rely on now, what still needs confirmation before you commit budget or dates, and how each of those uncertain points will be resolved. This is deliberately less tidy than a document that states every fee and timeline as a fixed number, and it is far more useful, because it does not invite you to build a plan on figures that were never solid.
We also build your schedule and budget planning around honest confidence. Where a point is confident, we plan around it. Where a point is provisional or unverified, we help you carry sensible buffers and contingencies, so that the answer, once confirmed, can be absorbed without derailing your production. We would rather you plan with realistic flexibility than with false precision that shatters the first time a real figure comes back different from a guessed one.
Finally, the review is a conversation, not a one-way pronouncement. You are encouraged to ask, for any statement, where it came from, when it was last checked, and how confident we are. Those questions are exactly the ones this policy is designed to answer, and asking them is the best way to make sure that what you take away from a review is grounded, dated, and honestly labelled rather than merely reassuring.
Public citations and how we reference sources
Where we publish general guidance, we aim to reference sources in a way that is honest about their nature and helpful to a reader trying to judge how much weight a statement carries. Citation, for us, is not decoration; it is part of the same verification discipline that governs our client work.
Our guiding principle is that a citation should make a claim more checkable, not merely more impressive. So we reference sources that a reader can actually evaluate, we are clear about whether a source is a primary official position or a supporting reference, and we avoid citing a source in a way that implies more authority than it has. A supporting source cited to add context is presented as context; it is not dressed up as the operative rule.
We are also careful not to imply official endorsement we do not have. We are an independent private service, not a government body, and nothing we publish should read as though an authority has approved or authored it. When we describe an official position, we describe it as the position of that body as we understand it on a given date, and we keep our own commentary distinct from the source. We do not reproduce official materials in a way that could be mistaken for an official publication, and we do not present our summaries as if they were the authorities' own words.
Because public guidance ages, we treat dating as part of citation. General guidance is written to be broadly durable, and we still avoid stating time-sensitive specifics, such as exact fees, exact timelines, or a fixed responsible authority, as though they were permanent facts on a public page. Instead we describe how such matters are typically structured and direct readers to confirm the current position against official sources, or to ask us for a review that confirms it for their specific project. This keeps public content useful without turning it into a source of stale, misleading precision.
If you are reading our public guidance and want to know the basis for a particular point, or you believe a cited source no longer reflects the current position, you are welcome to raise it with us through our corrections process. We would rather update a public statement promptly than leave a reader relying on something that has moved on. The same honesty we apply privately to a client's review is the standard we hold ourselves to in anything we publish.
Your role in verification and where specialist confirmation is needed
Verification is most reliable when it is a shared effort. There are things only you can supply and things only certain specialists or authorities can confirm, and being clear about those boundaries protects your production from both delay and false confidence.
The accuracy of our guidance depends heavily on the accuracy of what you tell us. Which authority may be involved, what a document should contain, and how steps are likely to sequence all depend on the specifics of your production: your exact locations, your production type, your crew and equipment, and any activities that trigger additional permissions, such as drone flights or filming in protected or heritage areas. If those inputs change, the verification attached to earlier guidance may no longer hold, so it is in your interest to keep us informed as your plan evolves and to tell us when you are acting on older advice.
Some confirmations sit with specialists rather than with us. Customs specifics for equipment import and re-export, for instance, are often best confirmed with a customs specialist, and we will say so rather than improvise a definitive answer. Legal questions, tax positions, and insurance adequacy call for your own professional advisers. Our verification method makes our production-support guidance more reliable; it does not turn us into a substitute for a customs broker, a lawyer, or an insurer, and we are clear about that boundary rather than blurring it to seem more comprehensive.
And some confirmations sit only with the authorities themselves. No amount of careful sourcing on our part can bind an official body or predict its decision. We can help you present well-prepared, well-organised paperwork that aligns with the current published position as we understand it, and we can help you seek confirmation through proper channels, but the decision remains the authority's. That is why we never promise approval, timing, drone permission, location access, or customs clearance: those outcomes are not ours to guarantee, and any service that guaranteed them would be misrepresenting how the process works.
Understood together, these boundaries are not limitations on the value we add; they are what makes that value trustworthy. By being honest about what you must supply, what specialists must confirm, and what only the authorities can decide, we keep our verified guidance grounded and useful, and we help you plan with realistic confidence rather than with precision that would not survive contact with the real process.
| Source tier | Examples | How we use it | Confidence it can support |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary official | Current published official positions, official notices, direct written confirmations through proper channels | Preferred basis for any consequential regulatory statement; recorded with access date and, for higher-risk topics, independently reviewed | Can support a confident label when recent and reviewed |
| Secondary official | General explanatory guidance published by an official body | Used for orientation and intent; checked against the primary position where a decision turns on detail | Supports a well-caveated label; confirmed before high-stakes reliance |
| Credible supporting | Established industry references, professional bodies, reputable reporting | Used to stay alert to change and to cross-check; treated as a prompt to verify, not a conclusion | Supports a provisional label until confirmed against a higher tier |
| Observed experience | Patterns across past productions we have supported | Used for planning, sequencing, and anticipating friction; never presented as a regulatory certainty | Supports planning illustrations only, clearly labelled as such |
| Unverified | Points we cannot currently ground in an adequate source | Flagged openly with what needs confirming and how; never asserted as fact | Not relied upon until verified during your review |
How we classify and handle the sources behind a statement. This describes our method and does not assert any specific fee, timeline, or authority as verified fact.
What this includes
- Explanation of our source hierarchy from primary official sources down to observed experience
- Clear labelling of confidence on consequential regulatory statements
- Access dates on time-sensitive guidance, with re-verification near the point of reliance
- Independent review of higher-risk topics under a separation of duties
- Honest flagging of points we cannot verify, with what needs confirming and how
- A corrections process that updates statements and notifies affected clients
- Confirmation of time-sensitive specifics against current official sources during your review
- Traceability, so you can ask where any statement came from and when it was last checked
What this does not include
- Issuing permits, approvals, or any regulatory decision
- Guarantees of approval, timing, drone permission, location access, or customs clearance
- Assertion of specific fees, exact durations, or a fixed responsible authority as verified fact
- Legal, tax, insurance, or personalised financial advice
- Customs determinations that properly sit with a customs specialist
- Any claim that we are a government body or officially endorsed
- Predicting or binding the decision of any authority
- Reproducing official materials as if they were an official publication
Frequently asked questions
No. Film Permits Nepal is an independent, privately owned production-support service based in Kathmandu, and we are not a government office of any kind. We do not issue permits, grant approvals, or make regulatory decisions, and nothing in this policy should be read as suggesting otherwise. Verification, as we use the term, means that our guidance is traceable to credible sources, dated, reviewed where appropriate, and honestly labelled for confidence. The actual decisions always rest with the relevant authorities, not with us.
Because presenting a specific fee as a fixed fact when we cannot ground it in a current official source would be misleading, and a stale figure can send a budget in the wrong direction. Charges are among the details most likely to change, so we treat them as time-sensitive and confirm the current position against official sources during your review rather than repeating a remembered number. We are very happy to explain how charges tend to be structured so you can build a realistic budget with sensible contingencies. What we will not do is assert a precise amount as guaranteed, because we do not set fees and cannot promise them.
Every consequential statement we prepare is anchored to the date it was last confirmed, which we call the access date, and where an official position carries its own effective date we capture that too. You are entitled to ask, for any statement we make, when it was last checked and what it rests on, and we will tell you plainly. For time-sensitive topics such as charges, drone permissions, or protected-area requirements, an older date is a prompt for us to re-verify before you rely on the point. If you are acting on older advice, tell us and we will confirm whether anything has been superseded.
They tell you how much weight to place on a statement. A confident label means the point is grounded in a current primary official source and, for higher-risk topics, independently reviewed, so you can plan around it with the least hesitation. A caveated or provisional label means the point is useful for shaping a draft schedule or budget but should be confirmed before you commit money or dates. An unverified label means we cannot yet ground the point and are flagging it openly, together with what needs checking. The labels exist so you can direct your own confirmation effort where it matters most.
That depends on the specifics of your production, and it is not something we assert as a fixed fact independent of your circumstances. Which body is responsible for a given approval can depend on where you film, what you film, and what activities are involved, such as drone flights or work in protected or heritage areas, and the responsible office can change over time. When the applicable authority matters to your plan, we confirm it against current official sources at the time of your review rather than repeating a name from memory. We will never guarantee that a particular body will approve your project.
We correct it quickly and we tell you. Because we keep internal records of what each consequential statement rests on, we can find the guidance that relied on the erroneous point and notify the affected clients rather than silently editing it. We prioritise corrections by consequence, so anything that could affect a production's budget, schedule, or compliance is treated as urgent. Once confirmed, we update the statement, adjust its date and confidence label, and mark the previous version as superseded so the record stays honest. If you ever think something we told you is inaccurate, please raise it, because a good correction helps every production that relies on our guidance.
No, and we would be misrepresenting the process if we did. We do not issue permits, authorise drone flights, grant location access, or clear equipment through customs, so those outcomes are not ours to promise. What we can do is help you prepare and organise well-structured paperwork that aligns with the current published position as we understand it, and help you seek confirmation through proper channels. The decision always remains with the relevant authority. Any service that guarantees approval or a specific timeline is not describing how the process actually works.
With caution, and never as the sole basis for a consequential claim. Informal online material and second-hand accounts can be genuinely useful for understanding practical experience and for sharpening the questions we ask, but the internet is full of confident, out-of-date, and location-specific advice presented as if it were universal. We use such material to generate questions, not to answer them definitively. Anything that could affect your budget, schedule, or compliance is checked against a higher tier in our source hierarchy, ideally a current primary official source, before we present it with confidence.
The access date records when we last looked at a source, and it tells you how fresh our reading is. The effective date, where one is knowable, records the period for which a position is understood to apply, and some official materials carry their own dates or indicate when a change takes effect. We keep the two distinct because they answer different questions: one is about the currency of our check, the other about the currency of the underlying rule. Where no effective date exists, we do not invent one; we rely on the access date and treat the position as current as of that reading, subject to re-check for time-sensitive points.
No, we assign review effort in proportion to risk. Routine, stable explanations of how the preparation workflow generally proceeds are checked with ordinary care because they change slowly. Higher-risk topics, such as charges, drone permissions, protected-area and heritage-area requirements, equipment import and re-export, and any point turning on which authority is responsible, receive additional review under a separation of duties, meaning a second reviewer checks the sourcing, dating, and confidence label. Reviewers can downgrade a label, require re-verification, or hold a statement back if it cannot be properly grounded. Review reduces the chance of error but cannot make an uncertain regulatory matter certain.
It may be, but for time-sensitive points you should let us confirm before you act on it. Verified information does not stay verified indefinitely, because official positions can change, so we treat charges, drone permissions, protected-area and heritage-area requirements, equipment matters, and questions of responsible authority as things to re-check near the point of reliance. Stable, general descriptions of how preparation proceeds age more slowly. If you tell us you are only now acting on older advice, we will check whether any consequential point has been superseded and update you. Re-checking is far cheaper than building a plan on a fact that has quietly expired.
Request a permit-support review and give us accurate, complete details about your locations, production type, crew, equipment, and any activities that trigger additional permissions, such as drone flights or filming in protected or heritage areas. The accuracy of our verified guidance depends heavily on the accuracy of those inputs, so keeping us informed as your plan evolves matters. During the review we will separate what you can rely on now, what needs confirming against current official sources, and how each uncertain point will be resolved. Where a matter sits with a specialist, such as customs specifics, or with your own legal or insurance advisers, we will say so rather than improvise a definitive answer.
Where we publish general guidance we aim to reference sources honestly, making a claim more checkable rather than merely more impressive, and being clear about whether a source is a primary official position or a supporting reference. We are careful not to imply official endorsement we do not have, since we are an independent private service and nothing we publish should read as though an authority approved or authored it. Because public content ages, we avoid stating time-sensitive specifics such as exact fees, exact timelines, or a fixed responsible authority as though they were permanent facts, and instead direct readers to confirm the current position. If you think a cited source no longer reflects the current position, you can raise it through our corrections process.
Tell us which points are decision-critical for you, and we will focus verification effort there and confirm them against current official sources as part of your review rather than leaving them provisional. For anything we genuinely cannot verify in time, we will say so honestly and help you plan with realistic buffers and contingencies so the confirmed answer can be absorbed without derailing your schedule. We would rather you commit budget on the basis of confirmed points, and carry sensible flexibility on the rest, than on precise-looking figures that were never solid. Honest uncertainty with a plan to resolve it is more useful to a production than false precision.