Check Your Green Card Lottery Status!

On May 15, 2018 at 12 pm Eastern Standard Time, the United States Department of State will allow DV-2019 participants to check their Green Card Lottery results.

Applicants who registered at the State Department’s website for the Green Card Lottery between Wednesday, October 18, 2017 and Wednesday, November 22, 2017 (DV-2019 Program) will be able to find out whether they have won the initial drawing or not through the E-DV official website starting May 15, 2018.

Applicants who registered at USAGCL’s website for the Green Card Lottery between Wednesday, October 18, 2017 and Wednesday, November 22, 2017 (DV-2019 Program) will be able to find out whether they have won the initial drawing or not through USAGCL’s website starting May 15, 2018, as well.

Entrants in the DV-2019 will be able to check their results until September 30, 2019. Participants from the previous year (DV-2018) will only have until September 30, 2018 to check their status.

To check one’s status through the US Department of State’s Electronic Diversity Visa Entrant Status Check system, one must enter their complete confirmation code on the correctly corresponding page. The name associated with that diversity visa registration code must also be correctly spelled and correspond to the name on the registration form.

Winning the Green Card Lottery does not necessarily mean that one will be granted a green card. Instead, it means they are granted the chance to apply for immigration to the United States without first having to obtain an immigration sponsor. Finding an immigration sponsor is often the most cumbersome step in immigrating to the United States.

Approximately 100,000 winners of the lottery are selected, but only about 50,000 will actually receive green cards. The other half of the initial winners will encounter difficulty when they apply for their visa with the KCC.

Applicants who win the initial drawing, are able to submit a proper immigration visa package and succeed at the consular interview will be issued a green card (or visa) the following year, 2019. Hence the name of the specific lottery, DV-2019, the year of the green card issuance.

Information for the next Diversity Visa Lottery program is usually released one week before the registration opens, usually during fall. The next Green Card Lottery will be called DV-2020 because the green cards will be issued in 2020.

Information that potential immigrants should be looking out for in the coming months are things like lists of eligible countries, the start and end date of the registration period of 2020 and any news regarding the President’s view on immigration reform.