Green Card Lottery (DV): who can enter, how to apply and what the photo must be

The Diversity Immigrant Visa (DV) program, known as the green card lottery, gives up to 55,000 immigrant visas a year to people from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. Entry is free and is made only online, on the official E-DV website, during a registration period that the Department of State announces each year.

Status on 16 October 2026. On the Department of State's DV instructions page the latest published instructions are still for DV-2026 (registration ran from 2 October to 7 November 2024). On 5 November 2025 the Department announced changes to the entry process and said it will announce the start of DV-2027 registration and the date of results as soon as practicable; no date has been published yet. Instructions for DV-2028 have not been published. In its update of 31 August 2026 the Department said it has paused all visa issuances to diversity visa applicants: applications and interviews continue, but no diversity visas are issued.

So right now there is nowhere to submit an entry. A site that "accepts DV entries" today is not the Department of State. Check dates only on travel.state.gov.

Two requirements, both must be met (DV-2026 instructions; the rules for the next year will be in its instructions):

• Country of eligibility. You must be a native of a country on the eligible list. This is normally your country of birth, not your citizenship or where you live. If you were born in a country that is not eligible, you may claim your spouse's country of birth, or in some cases a parent's.
• Education or work. At least a high school education (12 years of formal elementary and secondary education), or two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience. The Department uses the Department of Labor's O*Net database to judge the occupation.

The list of countries whose natives cannot enter changes from year to year and is published in each year's instructions.

1. Wait for the official registration period and read that year's instructions on travel.state.gov.
2. Fill in the form on dvprogram.state.gov yourself: your name exactly as in your passport, date and city of birth, country of birth and of eligibility, education, marital status, and every unmarried child under 21, even those who will not move with you. Leaving out a spouse or a child can make you ineligible.
3. Upload a photo of yourself, your spouse and each child (see the next section).
4. Submit only one entry. More than one entry for the same person disqualifies all of them.
5. Save the unique confirmation number and print the confirmation page. Without it you cannot check your result.
6. Check the result in Entrant Status Check on the same website when the Department opens it. For DV-2026 results were available from 3 May 2025. The Department does not notify winners by email or letter.

Entering costs nothing. Anyone who asks you to pay for the entry, or offers to keep your confirmation number, is not part of the program.

Each person on the entry needs a recent photo: you, your spouse and every child (not needed for those who are already US citizens or permanent residents). The DV instructions require:

• File: JPEG (.jpg), 240 KB or less, square, exactly 600×600 pixels.
• Scanned print: 2×2 inches (51×51 mm), scanned at 300 pixels per inch.
• Head: 50 to 69 percent of the image height from chin to top of the head, that is 300 to 414 pixels in a 600×600 file.
• Background: plain white or off-white.
• Portrait: in color, in focus, taken within the last six months, facing the camera, neutral expression, both eyes open.
• Not allowed: eyeglasses, headphones, hats (a religious head covering worn daily is allowed if the whole face is visible).

No digital editing. The instructions say that a manipulated photo may make you ineligible, and the same photo as in a previous year's entry will make you ineligible. The Department of State writes that photos must not be digitally enhanced or altered to change your appearance. That is why gdefoto does not prepare DV photos: our document photo tool replaces the background and adjusts colour, and that is not allowed here.

How to take it yourself

• Stand half a metre to a metre in front of a plain white or very light wall, with even light from the front and no shadows behind you.
• Ask someone to shoot from your eye level, the camera straight in front of you; do not use a selfie at arm's length, it distorts the face.
• Take off your glasses, keep your hair away from your face, look into the lens with a neutral face.
• Leave space around the head so the photo can be cropped to a square without cutting the top of the head.

How to check it before you submit

• File properties: 600×600 pixels, JPG, no more than 240 KB.
• Head height: from chin to top of the head 300 to 414 pixels.
• Background: white or off-white, no shadows or objects.
• No glasses, eyes open, photo taken within six months and not used in an earlier entry.

To crop and resize a photo to exactly 600×600, the Department of State offers its own free photo tool; it is meant for cropping only.

Does it cost money to enter?

No. Entry is free. Selected entrants pay the visa application fee later, when they apply for the visa.

When will DV-2028 registration open?

Not announced. DV-2028 comes after DV-2027, and the start of DV-2027 registration has not been announced either. Dates appear only in the official instructions on travel.state.gov.

How will I know if I was selected?

Only through Entrant Status Check on dvprogram.state.gov with your confirmation number. The Department of State does not send emails or letters about selection.

Can my spouse and I enter separately?

Yes. Each spouse may submit one entry if each meets the requirements, and each entry must list the other spouse.

Does selection guarantee a green card?

No. More entrants are selected than there are visas, and each must still qualify at the interview. Since the update of 31 August 2026 diversity visa issuance is paused.