Official DV Lottery Green Card Program

US DV Lottery 2026 Program

Application Deadline: Oct. 20th, 2024!

Only until Oct. 20th, 2024, you can apply for the official DV Lottery 2026!

Select one of the following languages to start your entry:

+ BREAKING NEWS +

For the first time ever, applicants born in the United Kingdom and its dependent territories are eligible!

Learn more

What is the DV Lottery?

The Diversity Visa Program (DV Lottery) is congressionally-mandated and allows up to 55,000 persons from nations that are historically underrepresented in terms of migration to the United States of America to qualify each year for immigrant visas, which are also known as Green Cards.

The program is called the “Green Card Lottery” or "dvlottery" because the winners are determined through a random drawing from among the 10–12 million people who enter each year worldwide.

The US is proud to be a country of immigrants. However, far more people are coming to the USA from certain countries than from others. For example, just those immigrating from Mexico, China, and the Philippines are by far outnumbering those from most of the other countries accumulated. In order to maintain diversity in the population, US laws regulate immigration from particular regions of the world.

For this reason, the USA has randomly distributed 55,000 so-called Green Cards in the DV Lottery every year since 1994.

You can enter the U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery for free at www.state.gov or use our service if you need any help with the application process. www.dvlottery.com is powered by The American Dream - US GreenCard Service GmbH, a government-licensed immigration consultancy. We are not affiliated with the U.S. Government or any government agency. 

US DV Lottery -Are you eligible?

Am I eligible for DV Lottery 2026?

Almost everyone can apply for the Diversity Visa Lottery! There are only two requirements to qualify for a U.S. Green Card:

  • Country of birth in accordance with current world political maps
  • education and/or working experiences

Use the DV Lottery Check to find out with just a few clicks if you qualify for the DV Lottery 2026!

How can I apply for the DV Lottery?

Participation in the annual DV Lottery is basically free of charge, and all eligible persons can register for it on the website of the U.S. Department of State. However, what many do not know is: In every lottery up to 40 % of all participants are disqualified because of formal or deadline errors in their application!

The admission or rejection of applications for the Diversity Visa Lottery is an electronic process, but participants are not informed about the outcome.  Whether the application will end up in the lottery or not won’t be communicated.

However, the Green Card service agency The American Dream guarantees your participation in the official DV Lottery!

Each application is individually checked by state-approved emigration consultants and is submitted to the US authorities in due form and time.

With their expert knowledge, our team has already accompanied more than 21,000 Green Card winners on their way to the USA!

Apply now & win a Green Card

Advantages of a US Green Card

A US Green Card gives you the legal right to live and work permanently in the United States. In addition, you have almost all the rights of a US citizen!

>>> Learn more about the benefits

DV Lottery Status Check

Since May 2023, you can check your result for DV-2024 with the entrant status check - are you a winner of the DV Lottery?

Go to DV Lottery Check

You can access the results of DV-2025 in May 2024. Subscribe to our newsletter for reminders and the latest news about the DV Lottery!

Note: You can only check your DV-2025 Green Card Lottery result if you have applied until November 7th, 2023.

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History of the DV Program

The famous immigrant visa was first introduced in the 1940s as the “Alien Registration Receipt Card.” The first of these credit card-sized IDs bore green writing and a greenish photo. Thus, the expression “Green Card” was coined and quickly became common. Meanwhile, the Green Card has changed its color several times. For a while, it had even been pink, since 1999 a light green shade is used again. More than 10 million foreigners are currently living in the USA with a Green Card.

Since 1994 the DV program has already been executed three times in February, once in November, and several times in October. The responsible institution changed in 2000. The formerly appointed National Visa Center in Portsmouth had to hand the processing over to the Kentucky Consular Center, which since then has been in charge of the receipt and evaluation of the applications.

In the first year, it was still possible to enter several applications per person into the DV lottery. This led to a few persons applying hundreds of times and, thus, most probably receiving a Green Card. The effects were a completely overloaded institution and injustices in the distribution, as better-off persons could file more applications. Since then, each person is only entitled to submit one application per year and has to trust Fortuna. 

The Diversity Visa (DV) or DV Lottery Program is based on §201 to 204 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) determines the eligible countries and application rules based on a calculation laid down in law. These rules can change from year to year.

DV Lottery Instructions

Do you have questions about submitting your DV-2026 online registration?

The video below uncovers the most important DV Program instructions and shows you step-by-step how to register successfully for the official US Green Card Lottery. This guidance video is, therefore, very helpful to DV-2026 applicants.

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The congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State and conducted under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Section 131 of the Immigration Act of 1990 (Pub. L. 101-649) amended INA 203 to provide for a new class of immigrants known as "diversity immigrants" (DV immigrants). The Act makes available 50,000 permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.

From the State Department: "Alien petitioners for the Diversity Visa Program will no longer be permitted to submit a petition by mail. Instead, the Department will require that all petitions be submitted to it in an electronic format, using an Internet website dedicated specifically to the submission and receipt of Diversity Visa."