Each year the U.S. Congress makes available approximately 50,000 immigrant visas (aka, green cards) to applicants from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Lottery Program. The U.S. Department of State conducts the lottery and randomly selects approximately 100,000 applicants from a pool of millions of qualified entrants. From this selected applicant pool, a maximum of 50,000 Diversity Visas are then issued during the following fiscal year. Once all the visas are issued or the fiscal year ends, the program is closed. Recipients of Diversity Visas are authorized to live and work permanently in the United States. Additionally, they are allowed to sponsor a spouse and any unmarried children under the age of 21 for lawful permanent residence in the United States along with them.

The State Department will be accepting applications for the next diversity lottery from Tuesday, October 4, 2016 at 12 p.m. EDT until Monday, November 7, 2016 at 12 p.m. EST. Individuals may submit only one application, which must be filed electronically here during this period. Paper entries will not be accepted. Applicants who do not follow the State Department's official instructions will be disqualified from the lottery. Applicants are strongly encouraged not to wait until the last week of the registration period to enter. Heavy demand may result in website delays. No entries will be accepted after 12 p.m. EST on November 7, 2016. All applications must be accompanied by a passport-style digital photograph of the applicant, the accompanying spouse, and each unmarried child under the age of 21 (who is not a U.S. citizen). In order to qualify, an applicant must have EITHER a high school education or its equivalent OR two years of work experience within the past five years, in an occupation requiring at least two years of training or experience to perform. Each spouse in a family may submit a separate application that will cover both spouses and any dependent children.

The results of the lottery will be announced on a rolling basis in the late spring and early summer of 2017. Last year, the State Department received approximately 9.3 million qualified entries, out which only 125,514 applicants were selected. Being selected in the diversity lottery does not guarantee permanent residency status. Instead, selected applicants are merely eligible to apply for permanent residency if their assigned rank number becomes current. Even then, the selected applicant must complete an extensive application process and satisfy national security and criminal background checks. Because the number of individuals selected in the lottery far exceeds the number of actual permanent visas available, it is critical that selected applicants be prepared to act quickly upon receiving the government notification in the mail. Applications will be denied if they are not submitted and approved before the 50,000 limit is reached and before the end of the 2018 fiscal year.

Individuals in F-1, J-1 or other strict nonimmigrant status who are selected in the lottery are advised to consult an immigration attorney before submitting a permanent residency application in order to assess any potential consequences to their nonimmigrant status.

The Diversity Immigrant Visa Lottery Program was created to encourage people from countries with low immigration rates to immigrate to the U.S. Therefore, foreign nationals from countries with high levels of immigration to the United States are ineligible for the program. For the DV-2018 program, natives from the following countries are not eligible to apply:

Bangladesh

Brazil

Canada

People's Republic of China*

Colombia

Dominican Republic

El Salvador

Haiti

India

Jamaica

Mexico

Nigeria

Pakistan

Peru

Philippines

South Korea

United Kingdom and its dependent territories (except Northern Ireland)

Vietnam

Please see the U.S. Department of State's instructions for DV-2018, available here. Persons born in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, and Taiwan are eligible.

For additional information, please call your local Quarles & Brady attorney or contact immigration attorneys Maria Kallmeyer at 312-715-5009 / maria.kallmeyer@quarles.com, Grant Sovern at 608-283-2668 / grant.sovern@quarles.com, Jose Carrillo at 602-229-5351 /jose.carrillo@quarles.com , Emily Shircel at 414-277-5217 /emily.shircel@quarles.com, Eric Ledbetter at 312-715-5018 /eric.ledbetter@quarles.com, or Peter Asaad at 202 372-9522/peter.asaad@quarles.com.

Please Note: There have been instances of fraudulent websites posing as official U.S. Government sites. Some companies posing as the U.S. Government have sought money in order to "complete" lottery entry forms. There is no charge to download and complete the electronic diversity visa entry form. The Department of State does not send selectees notifications or letters by regular postal mail or by email. Official notifications of selection will be made through the Entrant Status Check, available May 2, 2017 through September 30, 2018, online at www.dvlottery.state.gov.

The following is a statistical breakdown, by region and country, of the successful applicants for the DV-2015 diversity lottery program (Note: These applicants applied in the fall of 2013 and were selected for further processing in the late spring/early summer of 2014). These statistics are provided simply as a view of the last Diversity Visa lottery. Because it is a random drawing, the numbers can vary substantially from year to year.

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Natives of the following countries were not eligible to participate in DV-2015: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-born, excluding Hong Kong S.A.R., Macau S.A.R., and Taiwan), Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam.