The U.S. government announced on Friday that registration for the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program for Fiscal Year 2023 (DV-2023), popularly known as the visa lottery, will officially open up next week. The Department of State, which administers the program, said the electronic enrollment period will roll out on Wednesday, Oct. 6, at noon. The entry period for the immigration program — which will allocate up to 55,000 immigrant visas or green cards in 2023 — will close on Tuesday, Nov. 9 at noon.
The 2023 Diversity Visa Program provides permanent resident visas to foreign citizens in countries with low immigration rates to the United States in the previous five years. Winners are determined through a randomized computer drawing. Applicants must meet simple but strict eligibility requirements to qualify which distributes the immigrant visas among six geographic regions. The program is widely popular around the globe because it does not require a U.S. sponsor to immigrate. For the DV-2022, the program received 7,336,302 qualified entries — 13,191,296 foreign nationals including family members of principal applicants. Egypt, Sudan, Russia and Algeria won the most immigrant visas to legally immigrate to the U.S. as legal permanent residents. Individuals must have at least a high school diploma or its equivalent, or two years’ work experience over the past five years in an eligible field that requires at least two years of training.
