Immigrant Visas

Diversity Visas

The Congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa (DV) Program is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State. The Congressional act makes available 55,000 permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States.  The permanent residence visas are 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 historically 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 percent of the available Diversity Visas in any one year.  Citizens of Gabon and Sao Tome and Principe have traditionally been eligible for these visas. 

Entries for the DV 2009 lottery program must be electronically submitted between noon October 3, 2007 and December 2, 2007 (all times are Eastern Daylight Time, GMT -4).  For more information, including the complete instructions on how to enter, visit the Department of State's DV website.