Instructions for the 2008 Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (DV-2008)

The congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State. The Program makes available 50,000 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 percent of the available Diversity Visas in any one year.

Countries Not Eligible

For DV-2008, natives of the following countries are not eligible to apply because the countries sent a total of more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. in the previous five years (the term "country" in this notice includes countries, economies and other jurisdictions explicitly listed in this notice):

Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-born), Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Russia, 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.

Application Submission Dates

Entries for the DV-2007 Diversity Visa Lottery must be submitted electronically between noon, eastern standard time, (EST) Wednesday, October 4, 2006 and noon, EST, Sunday, December 3, 2006. Applicants may access the Electronic Diversity Visa Entry Form (EDV Entry Form) at http://www.dvlottery.state.gov during the registration period beginning noon, EST October 5, 2005. Paper entries will not be accepted. Applicants are strongly encouraged to 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, EST, on December 3, 2006.

Requirements for Entry and Detailed Instructions may be found at http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1318.html.