US Green Card Lottery Registration Period for DV-2026 Begins Tomorrow, October 2nd, 2024

Registration for US Green Card lottery (officially known as Diversity Visa) for fiscal year 2026 (DV-2026) begins tomorrow, Wednesday, October 2, 2024 at 12pm EDT.

The program, is run by the United States State Department and makes available on a lottery basis up to 55,000 green cards to nationalities of countries with history low rates of immigration to the United States.
For DV-2026, native of the following countries are ineligible to participate in the program because more than 50,000 of their natives migrated to the US in the previous five years: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, The People’s Republic of China (including mainland and Hong Kong born), Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Republic of Korea (South Korea), Venezuela, and Vietnam. Natives of Macau SAR and Taiwan are eligible.
To participate in the lottery, the entrant must be from an eligible country (countries that have more than 50,000 of their citizens immigrate to the US over the previous five years are excluded from participating in the program). The entrant must also have either at least a high school education or two years work experience in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience to perform.

Submissions are only accepted online at this link: https://dvprogram.state.gov. No “visa agents” or “visa consultants” are needed to participate in the lottery, and the US State Department urges entrant to do the submissions themselves. Additionally, the Department warns that submitting incorrect or incomplete applications will lead to disqualification.

Registration runs for one month and closes in Tuesday, November 5, 2024 at 12pm EST. Those selected in the DV-2026 lottery will undergo interviews at the US embassies located in their home country and be eligible to migrate to the US as permanent residents beginning in 2026.