We are a global advisory helping ambitious students, professionals, and families navigate study, work, and migration with clarity, dignity, and a plan that actually fits.
1 Overseas began in 2014 in a small office in Bengaluru, where our founder Aanya Rao spent her evenings advising friends and cousins on Canadian study permits, German language visas, and the bewildering paperwork of the UK Graduate route. There was no shortage of agents, but there was a shortage of honesty. People were being sold programmes they didn't qualify for, fees that inflated the real cost, and timelines no one had verified.
Aanya started writing a single-page guide. That guide became a ten-person team, then a registered advisory with offices in three continents. Today, 1 Overseas supports more than 4,200 clients a year across 18 countries — but the founding principle has not changed. We tell you what is true, what is likely, and what to do next. No commissions from universities. No hidden service fees. No false promises about easy pathways.
We believe a border should never decide what a person can become — and that the right guidance, given early and given well, can change the arc of a life.
Read the founder's full noteThree commitments shape every conversation we have with a client. They are simple, and we hold ourselves to them even when they cost us a sale.
If your profile doesn't fit a programme, we will say so in the first meeting — and we will suggest a route that does. We do not take commissions from universities, employers, or immigration lawyers, so our advice is never for sale.
Policy in Ottawa, hiring trends in Berlin, student visa caps in Dublin — our advisors track them in real time across 18 countries. You get one plan, drawn from the full map, not a single country's playbook.
A visa is a means, not the goal. We start every engagement by understanding your life — your family, your work, your risk tolerance — and work backwards to the document. The plan is yours to keep, in full, even if you never use us again.
We are not the largest advisory in the field, and we never aim to be. We aim to be the one that clients recommend to their younger siblings — and the data has held steady since 2014.
More than 70% of our senior team have themselves studied, worked, or migrated across at least two countries. The other 30% are former caseworkers at high commissions, who joined us because they were tired of quotas.
Started 1 Overseas after eight years in compliance at a Big Four firm. Still takes the hardest cases personally.
Former case officer at the BAMF. Leads our Germany, Netherlands, and Ireland practice from a quiet corner of Kreuzberg.
Immigration barrister turned advisor. Specialises in Skilled Worker refusals and complex family reunion cases.
Spent a decade at Navitas before joining us. Runs our university matching engine and scholarship intelligence.
We maintain staffed offices or partner desks in twelve cities. The remaining six countries are covered by senior advisors who travel quarterly. The point is the same in both cases: real people, with local context, who can answer the phone.
We don't pitch stories. The mentions below came from journalists who found a story worth telling — a refusal rate that explained something, a cohort of nurses we helped move, a small study that landed at the right moment.
"Among the quietly effective advisories reshaping how Indian students approach the post-study work market in Europe — 1 Overseas is the name that keeps coming up in admissions offices."
"Their Germany desk is unusually candid about which pathways are realistic in 2025, and which are not. Clients we spoke to described a 'first honest conversation' they'd been waiting years for."
"Aanya Rao's firm has built a reputation for telling prospective immigrants what their PR chances actually are — sometimes in the first five minutes. The approach is unfashionable. The results are not."
Aanya writes a 12-page PDF for friends. It circulates. Within six months, 80 paying clients have asked for help.
Berlin office launches with three advisors, all former case officers. Germany becomes our second-largest corridor.
We publish a public pledge: no commissions, no third-party referral fees, full refund if a case is mishandled.
Cross-border pathways — Canada via German study, Ireland via UK graduate route — become our fastest-growing service.
The first 30-minute consultation is free and carries no obligation. If we are not the right fit, we'll suggest two or three advisors who are.