Diversity Lottery Green Card: Eligibility, Entry, and DS-260 Steps

A diversity lottery green card is a U.S. permanent resident visa awarded through the annual Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, a random drawing that makes up to 55,000 visas available each year to natives of countries with historically low immigration to the United States. Winning the drawing doesn’t give you a green card. It gives you permission to apply for one, and the whole application has to finish before a hard fiscal-year deadline.

For the DV-2026 cycle, more than 20.8 million qualified entries came in, and about 129,500 people (including family members) were notified of selection.¹

Who Can Enter

Two things decide eligibility: where you were born, and either your education or your work history.

Country of Birth

Under Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, only natives of countries with low immigration rates to the U.S. may participate. Any country that sent more than 50,000 immigrants over the previous five fiscal years is a “high-admission state” and its natives are shut out that year.² For DV-2026, the ineligible list included Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, mainland China and Hong Kong, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Venezuela, and Vietnam.³

Eligibility follows country of birth, not current citizenship. If you were born in an ineligible country but your spouse was born in an eligible one, you can “cross-charge” to your spouse’s country and enter. The reverse works too, and children can cross-charge to either parent’s country of birth.⁴

Education or Work Experience

You need a high school diploma or its equivalent. The alternative is two years of work experience within the last five years in an occupation that normally requires at least two years of training.⁵ The Department of State uses the Department of Labor’s O*NET OnLine database to decide which jobs count. Occupations classified in Job Zone 4 or Job Zone 5 with a specific vocational preparation range of 7.0 or higher qualify. Look up your occupation at onetonline.org before you apply.⁶

Consular officers verify these qualifications carefully at the interview. Claiming work experience in a job that doesn’t hit the O*NET threshold means denial, and there is no appeals process for diversity visa cases.

How to Enter

Entry uses an electronic form called the DS-5501, available only at dvprogram.state.gov. Registration usually opens in early October and closes in early November; for DV-2026 the window ran from October 2 through November 7, 2024.¹ Entry is free. Anyone charging you to register is running a scam.

The form asks for your full legal name as it appears on your passport, date of birth, gender, and city and country of birth. You also list your spouse and every living unmarried child under 21, even if they don’t live with you and even if they have no plans to immigrate.⁷ Leaving a qualifying family member off can void your entry or sink your visa later.

Each person listed needs a recent digital photograph meeting the State Department’s specifications. Bad photos are one of the most common reasons entries get thrown out.⁸

You get one entry per registration period. Duplicate submissions are detected and disqualify you completely.⁷ A husband and wife can each submit a separate entry listing the other as a spouse, which doubles the household’s chances; if either is selected, the other immigrates as a derivative.

When your submission succeeds, the system displays a confirmation number. Save it. Print it, screenshot it, email it to yourself. Without that number you cannot check your results, and the State Department will not retrieve it for you.

Checking Your Results

Starting in May of the year after registration, you check your status online at dvprogram.state.gov using your confirmation number. For DV-2026, results opened on May 3, 2025, and remain available through at least September 30, 2026.⁹ Checking online yourself is the only legitimate way to learn whether you were selected. The State Department does not send letters, emails, or phone calls announcing that you won.¹⁰

Selectees receive a rank number. Lower numbers get called first, and this matters because the government processes applicants in rank order until the year’s visa supply is exhausted.¹¹ Selection is not a guarantee of a visa. It is permission to apply.

Why Selection Isn’t the Same as a Visa

The statute authorizes 55,000 diversity visas a year, but the actual figure is lower. Set-asides under the Nicaraguan and Central American Relief Act and the National Defense Authorization Act reduce the supply. For DV-2025, deductions brought the pool down to roughly 51,350.¹² The State Department deliberately selects far more people than the pool allows, over 129,000 for DV-2026, because many selectees won’t finish the process or won’t qualify.¹ If your rank number is high, there is a real chance the quota fills before your turn arrives.

Applying for the Visa

Selection starts a clock. You need to gather documents, pay fees, complete a medical exam, and attend an interview at a U.S. embassy or consulate, all before the fiscal year ends on September 30.

The DS-260

Your first step is the DS-260, the online Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration Application. It collects detailed biographical, family, employment, and security information.⁹ Inconsistencies between the DS-260 and the documents you bring to the interview are a red flag for consular officers, so answer carefully.

Medical Exam and Vaccinations

You must complete a medical exam with a panel physician authorized by the U.S. embassy. The exam screens for communicable diseases and certain physical or mental conditions that could make you inadmissible. Fees vary widely by country and doctor; the U.S. government does not regulate them.

Immigration law also requires proof of vaccination against several diseases, including measles, mumps, rubella, polio, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, hepatitis B, and haemophilus influenzae type B, plus any additional vaccines recommended by the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices. Without proof of these, you are legally inadmissible.¹³ Bring what records you have. The panel physician can administer missing vaccines for an added fee.

Police Certificates

If you are 16 or older, you need police certificates. The rules on which countries require one are more specific than most applicants expect:

Country of nationality: required if you ever lived there for more than six months.
Country of current residence, if different from nationality: required if you’ve lived there for more than six months.
Any prior country of residence: required only if you lived there for 12 months or more while at least 16.
Any place where you were arrested: required regardless of how long you lived there or your age.

U.S. residents do not need a U.S. police certificate. Certificates expire after two years, and some countries take months to issue them, so request them early.¹⁴

The DV Fee

The application fee is $330 per person, including every derivative family member. It is nonrefundable whether or not a visa is issued.¹⁵ If you’re interviewing at an embassy or consulate abroad, you pay the cashier at your appointment. If you’re adjusting status inside the U.S., you pay by cashier’s check or postal money order mailed to the Department of State.¹⁶

The Interview

The final step is an in-person interview at a U.S. embassy or consulate. Bring originals: passport, birth certificate, educational credentials or evidence of qualifying work experience, police certificates, medical exam results, and the DS-260 confirmation page. Any documents not in English need certified translations.

If approved, you receive an immigrant visa in your passport. On entering the United States, you become a lawful permanent resident. The physical green card is mailed after you pay a separate USCIS immigrant fee that covers processing your visa packet and producing the card.¹⁷

Adjusting Status Inside the United States

If you’re already in the U.S. on a valid visa when you’re selected, you can apply through adjustment of status instead of going abroad for a consular interview. That means filing Form I-485 with USCIS along with your birth certificate, passport, medical examination report (Form I-693 from a USCIS-designated civil surgeon), proof of DV selection, and a receipt for the $330 DV fee.¹¹

You can file the I-485 as soon as the monthly Visa Bulletin shows a rank cut-off number above yours, sometimes six or seven weeks before a visa number is formally allocated. Approval, though, has to wait for a visa number to become available for your rank. The same September 30 deadline applies, and any diversity visa not used by that date is gone.

The September 30 Deadline

This is where most unsuccessful selectees lose out. Every diversity visa must be issued, or every adjustment approved, by September 30 of the relevant fiscal year. No extensions, no carryovers, no exceptions.¹⁸ For DV-2026 selectees the deadline is September 30, 2026. If your number hasn’t been called or your file isn’t complete by that date, the opportunity is gone.

The practical effect is that selectees with high rank numbers face genuine uncertainty. Processing runs in rank order, and once available visas are issued the year is over. Start collecting documents the moment you see you were selected. A few weeks lost on police certificates or medical scheduling can cascade into a missed deadline.

What It Costs

The $330 application fee is only part of the picture. Per person, expect:

DV application fee: $330, nonrefundable.¹⁵
Medical exam: varies by country and doctor, typically $100 to several hundred dollars, plus any vaccinations administered during the exam.
Police certificates: fees vary; some governments charge nothing, others charge a processing fee.
Document translations: certified English translations of foreign-language birth certificates, diplomas, and other civil documents generally run $20 to $70 per page.
USCIS immigrant fee: a separate online payment required after visa approval before the physical green card is mailed.¹⁷

For a family of four, total costs can climb into the low thousands once you add medical exams and translations for everyone, plus travel to the embassy on interview day if it’s not in your city.

Avoiding Scams

The DV lottery draws heavy fraud. Scam emails and letters congratulate people on “winning” and demand payment to process the visa. They are fake, every time. A few rules from the State Department reflect how the program actually works:

Entry is free. There is no registration fee. The only legitimate payment is the $330 DV fee at your interview or by mail during adjustment of status.
The U.S. government will never ask you to send money by check, money order, or wire transfer before your interview.¹⁰
There are no notification letters or emails announcing selection. A generic reminder to check your status is possible; a message telling you that you’ve won is a scam.
No one can improve your odds. Anyone claiming to guarantee selection is lying.¹⁹

The only legitimate site for entering the lottery and checking results is dvprogram.state.gov. Official information appears only on U.S. government sites ending in “.gov.” If a suspicious message reaches you, don’t respond, don’t send money, and don’t click any links.

1
U.S. Department of State. DV 2026 – Selected Entrants
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 U.S.C. 1153 – Allocation of Immigrant Visas
3
U.S. Department of State. Instructions for the 2026 Diversity Immigrant Visa Program
4
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 7 Part A Chapter 6 – Adjudicative Review
5
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 7 Part G Chapter 2 – Eligibility Requirements
6
U.S. Department of State. Confirm Your Qualifications
7
U.S. Department of State. Diversity Visa Program – Submit an Entry
8
U.S. Department of State. Digital Image Requirements
9
USAGov. Check the Diversity Visa Lottery Results and What to Do if You Were Selected
10
U.S. Department of State. Fraud Warning
11
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Green Card Through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program
12
U.S. Department of State. DV 2025 – Selected Entrants
13
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Vaccination Requirements
14
U.S. Department of State. Civil Documents – Immigrant Visa Process
15
U.S. Department of State. Prepare for the Interview
16
U.S. Department of State. Adjustment of Status – Fee Payment
17
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Immigrant Fee
18
U.S. Department of State. Update on Diversity Visa Program 2026
19
Federal Trade Commission. Diversity Visa Lottery Scam