INSTRUCTIONS for the 2024  Green Card lottery registration which opens in a few hours

The much awaited registration for the green card lottery program for fiscal year 2024 (DV-2024) begins Wednesday, October 5, 2022 at 12pm EDT and runs until Tuesday, November 8, 2022.

Program Overview
The Department of State annually administers the statutorily created Diversity
Immigrant Visa Program.  Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act
(INA) provides for a class of immigrants known as “diversity immigrants” from
countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States.

  For Fiscal
Year 2024, up to 55,000 Diversity Visas (DVs) will be available.  There is no cost to
register for the DV 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-2024, natives of the following countries and areas 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, Republic of Korea (South Korea),
United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent
territories, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
Natives of Macau SAR and Taiwan are eligible.

Eligibility
Requirement #1:  Natives of countries with historically low rates of immigration to
the United States may be eligible to enter.
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-2024 program.  For more details on what
this means, see the Frequently Asked Questions.

Requirement #2:  Each DV applicant must meet the education/work experience
requirement of the DV program by having either:
• at least 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 that requires at least two years of training or experience to
perform.  The Department of State will use the U.S. Department of
Labor’s O*Net Online database to determine qualifying work
experience.
For more information about qualifying work experience, see the Frequently Asked
Questions.

You should not submit an entry to the DV program unless you meet both of these
requirements.
Entry period
Applicants must submit entries for the DV-2024 program
electronically at dvprogram.state.gov between 12:00 pm (noon), Eastern Daylight
Time (EDT) (GMT-4), Wednesday, October 5, 2022, and 12:00 pm (noon),
Eastern Standard Time (EST) (GMT-5), Tuesday, November  8, 2022.  Do not wait
until the last week of the registration period to enter as heavy demand may result
in website delays.

No late entries or paper entries will be accepted.  The law allows
only one entry per person during each entry period.  The Department of State uses
sophisticated technology to detect multiple entries.  Submission of more than one
entry for a person will disqualify all entries for that person.

Completing your Electronic Entry for the DV-2024 Program
Submit your Electronic Diversity Visa Entry Form (E-DV Entry Form or DS-5501),
online at dvprogram.state.gov.  We will not accept incomplete entries or entries sent
by any other means.  There is no cost to submit the online entry form.  Please use an
updated browser when submitting your application; older browsers (Internet
Explorer 8, for example) will likely encounter problems with the online DV system.

We strongly encourage you to complete the entry form yourself

, without a “visa
consultant,” “visa agent,” or other person who offers to help.  If someone helps you,
you should be present when your entry is prepared so that you can provide the
correct answers to the questions and keep your unique confirmation number and a
printout of your confirmation screen.  It is extremely important that you have the
printout of your confirmation page and unique confirmation number.  Unscrupulous
visa facilitators have been known to assist entrants with their entries, keep the
confirmation page printout, and then demand more money in exchange for the
confirmation number.  Without this information, you will not be able to access the
online system that informs you of your entry status.  Be wary if someone offers to
keep this information for you.  You also should have access to the email account
listed in your E-DV entry.  See the Frequently Asked

Questions for more information
about DV program scams.  You may also wish to view our video for an introduction to
the DV program and step-by-step guide to help you submit an entry.
After you submit a complete entry, you will see a confirmation
screen containing your name and a unique confirmation number.  Print this
confirmation screen for your records.  Starting May 6, 2023, you will be able to check
the status of your entry by returning to dvprogram.state.gov, clicking on Entrant
Status Check, and entering your unique confirmation number and personal
information.  You must use Entrant Status Check to check if you have been
selected for DV-2024 and, if selected, to view instructions on how to proceed with
your application.

The U.S. government will not inform you directly.  Entrant Status
Check is the sole source for instructions on how to proceed with your application.  If
you are selected and submit a visa application and required documents, you must
use Entrant Status Check to check your immigrant visa interview appointment
date.  Please review the Frequently Asked Questions for more information about the
selection process.

You must provide all of the following information to complete your entry.

Failure to
accurately include all the required information will make you ineligible for a DV.
1. Name – last/family name, first name, middle name – exactly as it appears on your
passport, if you have a passport (for example, if your passport shows only your
first and last/family name, please list your last/family name and then first name;
do not include a middle name unless it is included on your passport.  If your
passport includes a first, middle and last/family name, please list them in the
following order:  last/family name, first name, middle name).  If you have only
one name, it must be entered in the last/family name field.

Please note that the only legitimate way to register for the lottery is on the DV lottery website: