Updated November 11, 2026

American lottery visa: how the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program works, who qualifies, and how to apply

The American lottery visa, known in government regulations as the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (DV Program), makes up to 50,000 to about 55,000 immigrant visas available each fiscal year by random selection to applicants from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States, according to USCIS. To enter, you must be a native of an eligible country (or qualify to charge your entry to a spouse's or parent's country) and have either a 12-year high school education or 2 years of qualifying work experience within the past 5 years. If selected, you must complete consular processing abroad or adjustment of status in the US by September 30 of the fiscal year the lottery applies to, because unused visas cannot carry over.

What is the American lottery visa?

The American lottery visa, also called the American visa lottery or green card lottery, is the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (DV Program). The Immigration Act of 1990 established the statutory baseline of 55,000 diversity visas each fiscal year. USCIS notes that temporary statutory offsets since fiscal year 1999 under the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA) and the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 adjust the annual pool, making up to 50,000 to about 55,000 visas available worldwide.

The U.S. Department of State (DOS) administers the annual registration and computer-generated random drawing. Most selected applicants live outside the United States and apply for an immigrant visa at a US embassy or consulate through consular processing. A smaller number of winners already reside legally in the United States and apply through USCIS to adjust status to lawful permanent resident using Form I-485.

Visas are distributed across six geographic regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, and South America, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. A greater share goes to regions with lower immigration totals, and no single country may receive more than 7 percent of the diversity visas available in any fiscal year.

Who is eligible for the American visa lottery?

To register for the DV Program, you must meet two core requirements set by immigration law: you must be a native of a qualifying low-admission country (or qualify for cross-chargeability), and you must meet either the education or work experience requirement.

First, the country rule. A low-admission foreign country is one from which the United States admitted 50,000 or fewer immigrants during the prior 5 fiscal years, as determined by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants in that 5-year window are high-admission countries, and their natives cannot enter unless they claim alternate chargeability. Before each registration period, DOS publishes the eligible country list by geographic region on its Diversity Visa Instructions webpage.

Second, the education or work experience rule. You only need one of the two, which an officer verifies when adjudicating your visa or adjustment application:

• High school education or its equivalent: Successful completion of a 12-year course of elementary and secondary education in the United States, or completion in another country of a formal course of elementary and secondary education comparable to a US high school education. Equivalency certificates, including the General Educational Development (GED) certificate, do not satisfy this requirement.
• Qualifying work experience: At least 2 years of work experience within the last 5 years before applying for a visa, in an occupation that requires at least 2 years of training or experience. USCIS and consular officers evaluate occupations using the Department of Labor's O*NET OnLine database, where a qualifying occupation must have a Specific Vocational Preparation (SVP) range of 7.0 or higher.

Can you apply if your birth country is not eligible? Cross-chargeability rules

In the DV Program, native normally means someone born within a DV-eligible country. However, immigration law allows cross-chargeability, which lets you charge (count) your visa entry to a spouse's or parent's birth country in specific situations.

You must properly identify the country of eligibility or chargeability on your initial entry. All members of a DV family are charged to the same geographic region as the principal applicant. The USCIS Policy Manual outlines five cross-chargeability scenarios:

Cross-chargeability scenarios from the USCIS Policy Manual

How registration, family listing, and selection work

DOS hosts an online registration for the DV Program each year. By regulation, the registration window must stay open for at least 30 days, usually between October and November of the fiscal year before the fiscal year in which visas are issued. For example, USCIS notes that registration for fiscal year 2023 diversity visas ran from October 6 to November 9, 2021.

When submitting an entry, you must follow strict rules regarding submissions, family listing, and status tracking:

• One entry per person: Each eligible person may submit only one entry per registration period. Submitting more than one entry during a single registration period voids all entries you submitted.
• List your spouse and all children: You must include your spouse existing at the time of registration and all natural-born children, adopted children, and stepchildren (unmarried and under 21) existing at registration. You must list their names, dates and places of birth, and photographs even if they do not live with you or do not plan to immigrate with you. You do not list a spouse or child who is already a US citizen or lawful permanent resident. Omitting a required spouse or child results in denial of both the principal and derivative applications.
• Check your own status in May: DOS runs a computer-generated random drawing once registration closes. Generally, beginning the May after the registration period, entrants check their status on DOS's Electronic Diversity Visa Program webpage to see if they were selected. DOS never notifies winners by hardcopy letter or email.

Why being selected does not guarantee a green card

An entrant chosen in the random drawing is called a selectee and receives a selection letter with a regional rank number on the Electronic Diversity Visa Program webpage. However, selection only makes you eligible to apply for a diversity visa. It does not guarantee that you will receive a visa or be granted adjustment of status.

Because some selectees will not qualify or will not finish processing in time, DOS selects more people each year than there are visas available to ensure every visa number is used. In the fiscal year 2018 DV Program cited in the USCIS Policy Manual, there were more than 14.6 million qualified entries, and DOS selected about 115,968 entrants for the 50,000 diversity visas available. By our calculation from the USCIS Policy Manual's FY 2018 figures, DOS selected about 2.32 entrants for every 1 available visa, and roughly 0.79 percent of qualified entries were selected in the drawing. In addition, derivative spouses and children who immigrate with a principal selectee count against the annual diversity visa limit.

Every diversity visa case faces a hard statutory cutoff: September 30, the final day of the federal fiscal year for which you were selected. Unused diversity visas cannot carry over to the next fiscal year. After September 30, a selectee is no longer eligible for a diversity visa and cannot adjust status.

How to read your DV rank number in the monthly Visa Bulletin

When DOS selects your entry, your selection letter assigns a numerical rank tied to your geographic region (for example, an entrant born in Albania receives a rank number for the Europe region). To apply for adjustment of status or have a visa allocated, your rank number must be below the cut-off number published in the monthly DOS Visa Bulletin.

Each monthly Visa Bulletin comes out in the middle of the month before it takes effect (for example, the March bulletin is published in mid-February) and includes two charts for diversity immigrants: Section B, which shows the current month's DV availability for visa allocation, and Section C, which provides advance notification of DV rank cut-offs for the following month.

If you are legally in the United States and applying for adjustment of status with USCIS, you may file Form I-485 as soon as your rank number is below the cut-off for your region in either the current month's chart (Section B) or the advance notification chart (Section C). Filing under Section C lets you submit Form I-485 up to 6 or 7 weeks before DOS can allocate a visa number, giving USCIS extra time to adjudicate your case before September 30. However, USCIS cannot approve your adjustment application until the month arrives when your rank number is below the cut-off in Section B and DOS allocates a visa number.

Your rank number must be strictly below the published cut-off. In the USCIS Policy Manual's March 2019 example below, a Europe allocation cut-off of 13,500 covered rank numbers 1 through 13,499, while the April advance notification cut-off of 18,500 allowed selectees with rank numbers 13,500 through 18,499 to file Form I-485 early:

Sample DV Visa Bulletin charts and filing windows from the USCIS Policy Manual (March 2019 example)

Checklist: Adjusting status in the US (Form I-485) vs. immigrating from abroad

Most diversity visa selectees reside outside the United States and immigrate through consular processing and the issuance of an immigrant visa by the Department of State. A consular officer confirms your eligibility for a diversity visa outside the United States at the time of your application, verifying that you meet the education or work requirements and that every required family member was included on your initial entry.

If you are already physically present in the United States in a nonimmigrant or other legal status after inspection and admission or parole, you can apply to adjust status with USCIS instead. DV adjustment applicants are exempt from the labor certification requirement and do not submit Form I-864 (Affidavit of Support). Submit Form I-485 with this supporting document checklist:

• Two passport-style photographs
• Copy of your birth certificate
• Form I-693, Report of Medical Examination and Vaccination Record
• Copy of your passport page with your nonimmigrant visa (if applicable)
• Copy of your passport page with your admission or parole stamp (if applicable)
• Form I-94, Arrival/Departure Record
• Certified copies of court records (if you have ever been arrested)
• Certified diploma or translated original school transcripts showing completion of a 12-year elementary and secondary course of study (or evidence of qualifying O*NET SVP 7.0 or higher work experience)
• Copy of the principal applicant's DV selection letter from the Department of State
• Copy of the receipt from the Department of State for the diversity visa lottery processing fee
• Form I-601, Application for Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility (if applicable)
• Applicable Form I-485 filing fees

Rules for spouses, children, and the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA)

Your spouse and unmarried children under 21 may accompany or follow to join you as derivative applicants, even if born in a country ineligible for the DV Program. However, derivative family members can only receive diversity visas during the same fiscal year in which the principal applicant is admitted or adjusts status.

If you marry, have a child, acquire a stepchild, or adopt a child after submitting your online entry but before becoming a permanent resident, that spouse or child remains eligible to accompany or follow to join you before September 30. If you marry or adopt after adjusting status, you must petition for them through the separate family-based immigration process instead. If the principal selectee dies before adjusting status, surviving relatives cannot adjust status, because survivor relief provisions under the Immigration and Nationality Act do not apply to diversity visa cases.

For children turning 21 while waiting for a visa number, the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) provides age-out protection. USCIS determines CSPA age by taking the child's biological age on the first day of the month the visa becomes immediately available for allocation in Section B of the Visa Bulletin (not the advance notification chart), and subtracting the pending time (the number of days from the start of the registration period to the date of the selection letter). If the calculated CSPA age is under 21 and the child remains unmarried, the child still qualifies as a derivative:

Worked example from the USCIS Policy Manual: The registration period opens on October 1, 2017, and DOS publishes selection letters on May 1, 2018, creating 7 months of pending time. On November 1, 2018, a visa number becomes available in the Visa Bulletin allocation chart for the principal's rank number, at which point the derivative child is 21 years and 4 months old. Subtracting the 7 months of pending time yields a CSPA age of 20 years and 9 months. Because that result is under 21, the child remains eligible to adjust status.

Paying the USCIS Immigrant Fee and avoiding DV lottery scams

If you immigrate through consular processing abroad, the US embassy or consulate gives you a sealed immigrant visa packet, an Immigrant Data Summary, your Alien Number (the letter A followed by 8 or 9 numbers), and your DOS Case ID. For a Diversity Visa immigrant, USCIS states that your DOS Case ID has a specific 11-character format: 4 numbers, followed by 2 letters, followed by 5 more numbers (for example, 0000AB01234).

Consular immigrants must pay the USCIS Immigrant Fee online so USCIS can process the immigrant visa packet and produce and mail the physical Permanent Resident Card (Green Card). USCIS strongly encourages paying this fee online after you pick up your immigrant visa from DOS and before you depart for the United States, using a credit card, debit card, single pre-paid debit card, or US bank checking and routing number. A family member, friend, employer, or attorney can also pay it for you using your A-Number and DOS Case ID. If you enter the United States before paying, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) places a temporary I-551 stamp in your passport that serves as proof of permanent resident status for 1 year, and USCIS will mail you a payment notice, but USCIS will not mail your physical Green Card until the fee is paid. If your card does not arrive within 90 days of paying the fee or entering the United States (whichever is later), you can submit an inquiry through the USCIS online help form or e-request tool.

Finally, protect yourself from lottery scams. Both USCIS and the Department of State warn that fraudsters regularly send emails and letters claiming you have won the Diversity Visa (Green Card) lottery and asking for money. DOS never notifies winners by email or paper mail. The only way to see if you were selected is by checking your status yourself on the DOS Electronic Diversity Visa Program webpage starting in May, and you should never send money to anyone who emails or writes to you claiming you won.

Practice example

How do you meet the education or work experience requirement for the Diversity Visa, and did you list all of your family members on your initial lottery entry?

State clearly whether you qualify through education or through work experience, and hand over the exact record that proves it. If you qualify by education, name the school where you completed a 12-year course of elementary and secondary study comparable to a US high school diploma, state your graduation year, and have your certified diploma and translated original school transcripts ready. Keep in mind that equivalency certificates like a GED do not qualify. If you qualify by work experience instead, name the occupation you worked in for at least 2 of the last 5 years, state your exact employment dates, and bring employer letters and records showing the role requires at least 2 years of training or experience with a Specific Vocational Preparation (SVP) range of 7.0 or higher on the Department of Labor's O*NET OnLine database. For the family part of the question, confirm that every spouse and unmarried child under 21 who existed when you entered the lottery was listed on your initial entry, or clearly state the date of any marriage or birth that happened after you registered, with original marriage or birth certificates in hand.

Consular and USCIS officers confirm your DV eligibility at the time of adjudication by checking that you meet either the 12-year diploma or the O*NET SVP 7.0 work standard, and by verifying that every required spouse and child was disclosed on the initial online entry.

This is interview practice, not legal advice. For questions about your own case, talk to an immigration attorney. Visaful is not affiliated with the U.S. government or the Department of State.