Each year, approximately 55,000 individuals apply for visas to
enter the U.S. through a program known as the Diversity Visa (DV)
Lottery.
This lottery allows individuals from countries with historically
lower volumes of immigration to the U.S. to apply for the Diversity
Visa.
The U.S. government created this lottery program in 1990 as a
result of the passage of the Immigration Act of 1990 and the State
Department administers the program.
Who Can Enter the Diversity Visa Lottery?
The lottery is only open to applicants from
countries with low immigration rates to the U.S.,
which changes each year.
As a rule, countries that have had more than 50,000 citizens
immigrate to the U.S. in the past five years are ineligible from
the program. Individuals from countries with higher rates of
immigration to the U.S. are not eligible for the program, such as
Canada, Brazil, China, India and Mexico. Most entrants are located
outside the U.S., but some are already in the
