Fact-checking in Europe is done mainly by national newsrooms such as CORRECTIV in Germany, Maldita.es in Spain and AFP across the continent, and more than 60 organisations are verified by the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN). To search what has already been published, use Google Fact Check Explorer or EDMO's repository; for images and clips, the InVID-WeVerify plugin; and for a claim nobody has checked yet, an automated AI tool such as Justifact or FactOS.
Last checked:
| The situation | What to use |
|---|---|
| You want to know whether a claim has already been checked | Search Google Fact Check Explorer and EDMO's repository, then the fact-checker for your country. Start here: a published check has an author and a method you can read. |
| A politician said something in public | The fact-checker for your country, listed below. They check only part of what is said, so if you find nothing, send them a suggestion. |
| The claim is new and you cannot find a check | An automated tool such as Justifact or FactOS gives you a first result. Treat it as a starting point and read the sources before you share it. |
| You have a suspicious photo or clip | The InVID-WeVerify plugin and a reverse image search, following our guide to photos and videos. |
| You suspect a disinformation narrative | EUvsDisinfo keeps a database of disinformation cases. It is run by the EU's diplomatic service, so read it as an institutional source. |
One or two organisations per country, not a full list: the EFCSN alone has more than 60 members. They publish checks written by people and choose what they check themselves. We found no active Dutch fact-checker in the EFCSN; AFP publishes in Dutch and Knack is based in Belgium.
| Country | Organisation | How to send a claim | Registers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Belgium | Knack Factcheck | Not confirmed: the site blocked our check. | EFCSN and IFCN |
| Czechia | Demagog.cz | EFCSN and IFCN | |
| France | AFP Factuel | Contact form or WhatsApp | EFCSN and IFCN, as AFP |
| France | Les Surligneurs | Online form or email | EFCSN and IFCN |
| Germany | CORRECTIV.Faktencheck | WhatsApp, online form or email | EFCSN and IFCN |
| Germany | dpa-Faktencheck | EFCSN and IFCN | |
| Hungary | Lakmusz | Facebook or email | EFCSN and IFCN |
| Italy | Pagella Politica | EFCSN and IFCN | |
| Italy | Facta | EFCSN and IFCN | |
| Poland | Demagog | Online form or email | EFCSN and IFCN |
| Poland | FakeNews.pl | Online form | IFCN |
| Portugal | Polígrafo | Not confirmed on its site. | EFCSN and IFCN |
| Portugal | Observador Fact Check | Not confirmed on its site. | IFCN, renewal in progress |
| Romania | Factual.ro | Email or Facebook | EFCSN and IFCN |
| Romania | AFP Verificat | AFP contact form | EFCSN and IFCN, as AFP |
| Spain | Maldita.es | WhatsApp chatbot | EFCSN; IFCN renewal in progress |
| Spain | Newtral | EFCSN and IFCN | |
| United Kingdom, outside the EU | Full Fact | Contact form; a request does not guarantee a check. | EFCSN and IFCN |
| Several countries | AFP Fact Check | Contact form | EFCSN and IFCN |
These do not check your claim for you, but they tell you who does and how they are assessed.
| Name | Who runs it | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| EFCSN | An association of fact-checking organisations | Verifies its members against a European code of standards and publishes the list. |
| IFCN | The Poynter Institute | Has signatories of a code of principles assessed externally and publishes each one's status. |
| EDMO | Hosted by the European University Institute in Florence, with EU funding | A network of regional hubs, with a public, searchable repository of fact-checks by its members. |
| EUvsDisinfo | The East StratCom Task Force of the European External Action Service | A database of disinformation cases. It is an EU institutional project, not an independent fact-checker, and it says its publications do not represent an official EU position. |
| EU DisinfoLab | A non-profit based in Brussels | Research and policy work on disinformation. It does not describe itself as a fact-checker. |
Here the answer does not come from a newsroom. You either search what others have published, analyse the material yourself, or get an automated result.
| Tool | Who runs it | What it does | Who decides | Cost | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Fact Check Explorer | Searches fact-checks already published by organisations around the world. It checks nothing itself. | The newsrooms that published the check | Free | Finds only what has already been checked and marked up with ClaimReview. Google is phasing this markup out of Search results but keeps it in the Explorer. | |
| InVID-WeVerify | AFP Medialab, from the European projects InVID, WeVerify and vera.ai | Browser plugin for clips and images: keyframes, magnifier, metadata, analysis filters. | You: the plugin gives you leads, not a verdict | Free. The advanced tools are reserved for journalists, fact-checkers and researchers. | Results need interpreting, so it takes some experience. |
| Justifact | Innops SRL | Takes text, a link, an image or a clip, extracts the claims, searches the web and gives a verdict with the sources displayed. | AI. Human review applies above a risk threshold, not to every analysis. | Free account with a daily limit; paid plans. | It can be wrong: the verdict assesses the public evidence found at that moment. It is not in the EFCSN or IFCN. It does not currently read Content Credentials. |
| FactOS | BetterQA | Checks articles and images with AI. Has a demo that needs no account. | AI. The site does not mention human review. | Free plan with credits; paid plans. | Not in the EFCSN or IFCN. |
The European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN) is the European association of fact-checking organisations, with more than 60 members verified against a code of standards. The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), at the Poynter Institute, assesses signatories of a code of principles and shows whether each one is active, in renewal or expired. Absence from a register does not mean a source is wrong: it may not have applied. It only means there is no external assessment for you to read.
We read each entry on its own site and in the EFCSN and IFCN registers, and listed only what we found there. We do not give scores or rankings. We are not neutral: Justifact is our product, so we described it by the same criteria and listed its limits too. If something is wrong or out of date, tell us.
Links: How Justifact works · Write to us
Europe's fact-checking organisations include CORRECTIV and dpa in Germany, AFP Factuel and Les Surligneurs in France, Maldita.es and Newtral in Spain, Pagella Politica and Facta in Italy, Demagog in Poland and Full Fact in the United Kingdom. The EFCSN publishes the list of more than 60 organisations it has verified.
To find out if a claim has already been fact-checked, search it in Google Fact Check Explorer or in EDMO's repository of fact-checks, then on the site of the fact-checker for your country. Both only show what has already been published, so finding nothing does not mean the claim is true.
Yes, automated tools such as Justifact and FactOS check claims with AI. Justifact takes text, links, images and clips, searches the web and shows the sources it consulted. An automated verdict is a starting point rather than expert judgement: it can be wrong, so read the sources before you rely on it.
Romania's fact-checking services include Factual.ro, run by the Funky Citizens association, and AFP Verificat, the Romanian-language desk of AFP; both appear in the EFCSN and IFCN registers. Veridica.ro also publishes checks and analysis on disinformation. InfoRadar is a portal of the Ministry of National Defence, so it is an institutional source rather than an independent fact-checker.