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Immigrant Visas

Diversity Visa Lottery 2012

"Green Card Lottery"

The United States Department of State has announced the Diversity Visa Lottery for 2012 (DV2012). This program is sometimes referred to as the “Green Card Lottery.” Each year this program makes 50,000 permanent resident visas available through a lottery to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.

To qualify, applicants must have either a high school education or its equivalent, or be able to meet minimum training requirements. Each applicant must also be able to show that they were born in a country eligible for this year’s Diversity Visa lottery.

  • Entries for the diversity visa lottery must be submitted electronically between Tuesday noon, EDT on October 5, 2010 until Wednesday noon, EST November 3, 2010
  • Applicants may access the electronic diversity visa entry form online.
  • Paper entries will not be accepted. Applicants are strongly encouraged to apply early and not wait until the last week of the registration period to enter. Heavy demand may result in delays.
  • No entries will be accepted after noon on November 3, 2010.

There is no fee to register for DV2012. Applicants do not need assistance to enter the Diversity Lottery Program, but the decision to hire an attorney or consultant is entirely up to the applicant. The selection of winners is made at random; no outside service can improve an applicant’s chances of being chosen or guarantee an entry will win.

For more information on DV2012 and complete instructions, refer to the Department of State’s website for instructions free of charge.

IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR DV 2012 APPLICANTS

  • The results of the selection process for the 2012 Diversity Visa (DV-2012) program have been voided.  Results previously available via the Entry Status Check (ESC) function on the Department of State website, dvlottery.state.gov, were posted in error and are now invalid.  The results were not valid because, owing to a computer error, they did not represent a fair, random selection of entrants, as required by U.S. law.  

    This means that we have rescinded all notices informing entrants that they had been selected for further processing in DV-2012; if you received such a notice via ESC on dvlottery.state.gov, it is no longer valid.

    A new random selection process will be conducted based on the original entries for the DV-2012 program.  If you submitted a qualified entry from October 5, 2010, to November 3, 2010, you do not need to reapply.  Your entry will be included in the new random selection.  Your confirmation number, which is required to determine the status of your entry, remains the same.  We are not accepting new entries for the DV-2012 program.

    We expect the results of the new random selection process to be available by July 15, 2011, via the ESC function on dvlottery.state.gov.

    We regret any inconvenience this might have caused.

    For further information and future updates on the 2012 DV program, please see:

    http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/
    http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1322.html