The Green Card Lottery is an incentive program to promote diversity by giving citizens of certain countries an opportunity to immigrate to the United States. The program makes available a maximum of 50,000 immigrant visas each year to eligible citizens of under represented countries. Curently all countries are eligible to participate in the Green Card Lottery EXCEPT Countries not eligible are Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-born), Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam. Persons born in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, and Taiwan are eligible to apply.

Each applicant must meet the education/work experience requirement of the DV program by having either a high school education or its equivalent, defined as successful completion of a 12-year course of formal elementary and secondary education 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. The U.S. Department of Labor’s O*Net Online database will be used to determine qualifying work experience. All applications must be submitted electronically through the U.S. Department of State's website at www.dvlottery.state.gov. Each year, the U.S. Department of State begins accepting applications on October 1st, the first day of the U.S. government's new fiscal year. They accept DV applications for a limited period of time, usually about a month. Applying for the DV lottery is free. Be careful not to get scammed by a website that charges a fee for submitting a DV lottery application.