Bulletin: the 2013 DV lottery

The U.S. Department of State hosts a lottery for immigrants from countries with low immigration rates. If few people have entered the U.S. from your country of origin, you may be eligible to get a visa through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program.

Generally, your nationality is determined through the country in which you were born. You may also be able to claim a Diversity Visa as a long time resident of a country.

The Next Diversity Visa( DV) lottery will be drawn for applicants receiving visas in 2013. Because of high numbers of immigrants in previous years, emigrants from the following countries are not eligible to apply for a visa through the DV program in 2013:

                +Bangladesh
                +Brazil
                +mainland China
                +Columbia
                +Dominican Republic
                +Ecuador
                +El Salvador
                +Guatemala
                +Haiti
                +India
                +Jamaica
                +Mexico
                +Pakistan
                +Peru
                +Phillipines
                +UK
                +Vietnam
There may be additional countries of origin that are not able to enter the U.S. on a visa for other reasons. For a full list of eligible nationals, see the U.S. Department of State website, with attention to the DV Immigrant Program. If you are ineligible to apply for a visa through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, you may still apply for a visa through the USCIS. Look into more information about the type of visa you are interested in getting and whether or not you are eligible to enter the U.S. Further, the list of eligible nationals changes each year with changing immigration statistics. You may be ineligible to enter the lottery in one year and eligible in the next. Conversely, you may be eligible this year and not the next. Keep up to date on the changing list of Diversity Visa countries of origin.