The U.S. Department of State has announced that online registration for the 2017 Diversity Visa Program (also known as the Diversity Visa Lottery or Green Card Lottery) will be open to the public from October 1, 2015, until November 3, 2015. To qualify, an individual must be from a qualifying country, such as Uzbekistan, and have the equivalent of a secondary school education.
Applicants may register beginning at 9 p.m. (Tashkent time) on Thursday, October 1, 2015. Registration ends promptly at 10 p.m. (Tashkent time) on Tuesday, November 3, 2015. All entries must be submitted electronically during the registration period at http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/ and there is no fee to enter the lottery. All entrants must print and retain their online confirmation page after completing their DV entries so that they will be able to check their entry status. Applicants are strongly encouraged not to wait until the last week of the registration period to enter. Heavy worldwide demand may result in website delays. No entries will be accepted after 10 p.m. on November 3, 2015.
Starting May 3, 2016, those who registered for the DV Program may use their registration confirmation page to check on the Department’s website to learn whether or not they were selected to take the next steps in the immigrant visa application process. Applicants are reminded to print and keep their registration confirmation pages until September 30, 2017, regardless of whether or not they have won the lottery. More information on applying and qualifying for a Diversity Visa can be found in the 2017 DV Program Instructions, which are available on the Department of State website. The Embassy has also released an Uzbek-language DV video that is available on YouTube.
Each year, the U.S. government makes 50,000 permanent residence visas available through the DV Program to natives of countries with low rates of immigration to the United States, including Uzbekistan. Visa applicants who meet the strict eligibility requirements are selected through a computer-generated, random lottery. The selection of a person’s name in the lottery gives that person the opportunity to take the next steps in the immigrant visa application process.
While many companies offer services to help people submit entries for the DV Program, please be aware that the use of these services does not in any way enhance one’s chances of winning the Program. In some cases, some firms even charge exorbitant fees or blackmail lottery winners. Please also be aware that no processing fees are collected by the U.S. Government for this program until the day that a winner of the DV Program appears at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate for a visa interview. Any letter or other announcement to a lottery entrant regarding the DV Program that asks the entrant to pay any processing fees in advance of the visa appointment should be disregarded as the work of scam artists.
Please remember that the Embassy and the U.S. Department of State are the only authoritative sources of information on the DV Program and its requirements. The Embassy will be posting information and tips about the DV Program on its Facebook and Twitter accounts. Please visit the Embassy’s website regularly for more information on the 2017 DV Program and on our upcoming outreach events.
