DV Diversity Lottery

Green Card Lottery



Overview

In 1990, Congress introduced a visa lottery program known as the "Diversity Visa Lottery". This program is presently administered by the US Department of State.

These visas are only made available to applicants from "low admission" countries and distributed among six geographical world zones (Africa, Asia, Europe, South and Central America, Oceania and North America).

Qualified entries are randomly selected and there are no ways to increase the chances of winning.

Application page | More Info »

Quick Facts

  • Within each region, no one country may receive more than seven percent of the available Diversity Visas in any one year
  • The program is called DV-2006 because visas will be issued for qualified winners during the fiscal year 2006
  • A greater number of the 50,000 allocated applications are selected by the Department of State because some applicants are not eligible to receive Permanent Residence Status.