The US Department of State has started accepting registration for the 2023 United States Diversity Visa Lottery program online from Wednesday, October 6, 2021, at 12:00 PM ET, and to end on Tuesday, November 9, 2021, at 12:00 PM ET.

The entry application, which is fee, can only be completed online for the lottery.

The Diversity Immigrant Visa (DV) program allows for up to 55,000 immigrant visas to be awarded each year. This gives foreign nationals of countries that have low rates of immigration to the U.S. an opportunity to participate in a random drawing for the potential of getting an immigration visa.

The DV Lottery, also known as the Green Card Lottery, makes a limited number of immigrant visas available every year to people meeting certain eligibility requirements:

• Must be a foreign citizen from a country with a low immigration rate to the United States.
• Must have graduated from high school or its equivalent or have qualifying work experience.

If you are not a native of a country with historically low rates of immigration to the United States, there are two other ways you might be able to qualify.

• Is your spouse a native of a country with historically low rates of immigration to the United States? If yes, you can claim your spouse’s country of birth – provided that you and your spouse are named on the selected entry, are found eligible and issued diversity visas and enter the United States at the same time.

• Are you a native of a country that does not have historically low rates of immigration to the United States, but in which neither of your parents was born or legally resident at the time of your birth? If yes, you may claim the country of birth of one of your parents if it is a country whose natives are eligible for the DV-2023 program.

Applicants who are selected in the program (selectees) must meet simple but strict eligibility requirements to qualify for a DV.

The Department of State determines selectees through a randomized computer drawing. The Department of State distributes diversity visas among six geographic regions, and no single country may receive more than seven percent of the available DVs in any one year.

For DV-2023, natives of the following countries are not eligible to apply, because more than 50,000 natives of these countries immigrated to the United States in the previous five years:

Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (including Hong Kong SAR), Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, Venezuela, and Vietnam.