The Department of State announced the opening of the registration period for the DV-2011 Diversity Visa lottery. Entries for the DV-2011 Diversity Visa lottery must be submitted electronically between noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), Friday, October 2, 2009, and noon, Eastern Standard Time (EST), Monday, November 30, 2009.
Instructions for the 2011 Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (DV-2011)
The congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State. The Program makes available 55,000 permanent resident visas (green cards) annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.
The annual DV program makes permanent residence visas available to persons meeting the simple, but strict, eligibility requirements. Applicants for Diversity Visas are chosen by a computer-generated random lottery drawing. The visas, however, are distributed among six geographic regions, with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration, and with no visas going to citizens of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. in the past five years. Within each region, no one country may receive more than seven (7%) percent of the available Diversity Visas in any one year.
Click here for Detailed Requirements for Entry and Instructions.
Countries Not Eligible
For DV-2011, natives of the following countries are not eligible to apply (the term “country” includes countries, economies and other jurisdictions explicitly listed herein):
Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-born), Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Peru, Philippines, Poland, 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.
No countries have been added or removed from the list of eligible countries. The list of eligible countries remains the same as for DV-2010.
Electronic Registration
The Department of State implemented the electronic registration system beginning with DV-2005 in order to make the Diversity Visa proves efficient and secure. The Department utilizes special technology and other means to identify those who commit fraud for the purposes of illegal immigration or who submit multiple entries. For DV-2011, those who submit entries may check the status of entries online and determine whether their entries are selected or not. Successful entrants will continue to receive notification letters by mail.
Application Submission Dates
Entries for the DV-2010 Diversity Visa Lottery must be submitted electronically between noon, (EDT) (GMT-4), Friday, October 2, 2009 and noon, EST (GMT-5), Monday, November 30, 2009. Applicants may access the Electronic Diversity Visa Entry Form (E-DV) during the registration period starting at noon (EST) on October 2. Paper entries will not be accepted. Applicants are strongly encouraged to not wait until the last week of the registration period to enter. Heavy demand may result in web site delays. No entries will be accepted after noon, (EST), on November 30, 2009.
If you have any questions regarding your Entry, please do not hesitate to contact us.