The Department of State announced the opening of the registration period for the DV-2012 Diversity Visa lottery. Entries for the DV-2012 Diversity Visa lottery must be submitted electronically between noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), Tuesday, October 5, 2010, and noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EST), Wednesday, November 3, 2010.
Instructions for the 2012 Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (DV-2012):
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.
Countries Not Eligible:
BRAZIL, CANADA, CHINA (mainland-born), COLOMBIA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, ECUADOR, EL SALVADOR, GUATEMALA, HAITI, INDIA, JAMAICA, MEXICO, PAKISTAN, 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.
For DV-2012, no countries have been added or removed from the previous year’s list of eligible countries.
Electronic Registration:
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-2012, 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-2012 DV lottery must be submitted electronically between noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), Tuesday, October 5, 2010, and noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), Wednesday, November 3, 2010. Applicants may access the electronic DV Entry Form (E-DV) at www.dvlottery.state.gov during the registration period. Paper entries will not be accepted. 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 noon, EDT, on November 3, 2010.
Click here for the requirements for entry and detailed instructions.