How to Apply for a Green Card Lottery
The Green Card Lottery, also known as the Diversity Visa Lottery Program or the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, is a legal program organized by the government of the United States of America to annually grant legal US identity cards, popularly called green cards, to foreign citizens of underdeveloped countries via a lottery system. If you wish to join this official program of the US government, you must initially make sure that you satisfy all the required qualifying conditions.
If you meet all the eligibility requirements, you can start applying for the green card, which you can apply online via their electronic registration system that ensures security and safety of your application. This is important for the US government to prevent multiple entries and illegal immigration.
You can easily start your green card lottery application by submitting the Electronic Diversity Visa (E-DV) Entry Form within the registration period provided by the Department of State for the annual Diversity Visa program. Once your application is approved, you are to receive an announcement letter via mail.
For a successful application, it is of utmost importance that you strictly follow the following instructions in the event of the submission of your green card application.
- You can opt to submit your own green card lottery entry or allow someone else to submit it for you. Either way, you must ensure that you only submit a single entry and nothing more since failing to do so may disqualify your application.
- Mail applications or paper applications are no longer accepted; you can instead register online.
- To get the Entry Forms, you must visit the official website of the Diversity Visa Program.
- Lastly, you must completely fill up your Entry Form before submitting it.
The following information should be completed when applying for the green card lottery:
- Full name
- Date of Birth
- Gender
- Country and city of birth
- The country of chargeability or eligibility for the lottery program. This is usually similar to the country where you were born, but in the event that your country of birth is not eligible for the program, then you can choose the other available options. You may review the eligibility requirements to see the list of eligible countries.
- Electronic Photo and the pictures of your spouse and unmarried children below 21 years of age. All of these should strictly adhere to the technical and compositional specifications demanded by the Department of State.
- Mailing address, including your town, city, district, province, state, country and zip/postal code.
- Country where you currently reside
- Contact number and e-mail address (optional)
- The highest level of education you were able to complete as of the date of the submission of your green card lottery application.
- Marital status
- Spouse and children information, such as name, birth date, gender, city and country of birth and their photos.
- The number of your children, including your natural, legally-adopted and stepchildren, all of which should be unmarried and below 21 years of age. Even if they are not interested in migrating with you, you should still include them in your application. Any violation of these instructions may result to the rejection of your application.
The moment that you have successfully registered your green card lottery application, a confirmation screen will appear and this will include your name as well as your special confirmation number, which you can use to check your entry's status.
On the whole, it is easy to register for the green card lottery just as long as you conform to the instructions stipulated by the Department of State. If you fail to follow the abovementioned guidelines, then it is highly likely that your application may be disqualified. After all, you cannot afford to lose your application just because of a single mistake that could have been deliberately corrected.
