State Department Issues 2027 Green Card Advisory, DV-2027 Details

(UNITED STATES) The U.S. Department of State has not yet opened registration for the 2027 Diversity Visa Green Card Lottery, saying the DV-2027 program remains on hold as of November 6, 2025, while it finalizes system changes and a new fee. Officials have said the official entry window is expected to fall between October 2025 and November 2025, but they have not released exact dates, citing delays tied to system modernization, the rollout of a $1 entry fee, and disruptions stemming from the October 2025 government shutdown.

In an advisory aimed at curbing confusion and false claims circulating online, the Department underscored that no one can enter the DV-2027 program yet and that it will announce the registration period well in advance.

“Dates for the DV-2027 program registration period will be widely publicized in the coming months. Those interested in entering the DV-2027 program should check the Department of State’s Diversity Visa web page in the coming months,” the Department said.
The caution reflects a broader push to steer would-be entrants away from unofficial sites and social media posts that have promoted fake opening dates, offered “priority” spots for a price, or asked people to submit personal data through unofficial portals.

The timetable has slipped for reasons the Department has spelled out across recent public messages: technical upgrades to the electronic entry system, integration of the $1 registration fee for the first time in the lottery’s history, and knock-on effects from October’s temporary federal shutdown that slowed several agencies’ timelines. Those changes are bundled into a wider refresh of the entry process for the DV-2027 program, with officials saying they are tightening identity checks to reduce errors and fraud attempts at the point of entry.

One of the most concrete changes for the DV-2027 program is the requirement that every entrant submit a valid, unexpired passport at the time of entry. The Department has framed that as part of a stricter identity verification standard being built into the modernized system. It is also reminding applicants that entries will be taken only through the official Electronic Diversity Visa (E-DV) portal during the registration period and that the lottery’s long-standing rule allowing just a single entry per person remains unchanged; duplicate entries will trigger an automatic disqualification.

A State Department spokesperson reiterated on October 21, 2025, that the announcement would be issued through official channels and not through third-party actors.

“An announcement for the DV 2027 program will be made soon on the State Department’s official website, travel.state.gov, as well as in the Federal Register,” the spokesperson said.
The Department says it will use those outlets and its public affairs feeds to broadcast the opening and closing dates so that the window is clear to anyone considering an entry.

For applicants watching the calendar, the advice from immigration lawyers has been to prepare but not to file anything until the window opens, and to be wary of paid services that promise early access or guaranteed selection.

“Use this pause to prepare — confirm eligibility, scan your passport, and avoid anyone claiming early access,” said Richard T. Herman, Esq., an immigration attorney who tracks the Diversity Visa program.
His guidance mirrors the Department’s warnings: as long as the DV-2027 program registration period is not open, any request for payment beyond the official $1 entry fee or any claim of pre-registration is a red flag.

While the entry window is delayed, the Department has confirmed several unchanged pillars of the program. Up to 55,000 immigrant visas will be available under the Diversity Visa quota for this cycle. Eligibility will continue to depend on country of birth—limited to nations with low rates of recent immigration to the United States—and on meeting minimum education or work history standards. There is no minimum age to enter, but adults must demonstrate either a high school diploma or its equivalent, or two years of qualifying work experience in an occupation that requires at least that level of training. The Department has emphasized that these criteria apply at the time of visa processing for those selected, and that entries should reflect accurate personal information to avoid disqualification later.

The Department’s advisory also sets expectations for the DV-2027 program timeline after the entry window closes. It plans to open the Entrant Status Check in May 2026, the online tool that allows entrants to see if they were selected. Those who find their confirmation numbers flagged as selected will then move into the immigrant visa process, which is constrained by fixed annual deadlines. The Department again highlighted that all Diversity Visas for the 2027 fiscal year must be issued by September 30, 2027, and that numbers cannot be carried forward if someone misses that cutoff. Processing for DV-2027 selectees, the Department said, will run from October 1, 2026, through September 30, 2027, as usual, with the delay affecting only the front-end entry period, not the issuance window for those who are chosen.

That split—an entry delay that does not shift the downstream visa issuance period—has added urgency for some prospective entrants, because a later opening date will compress the time between submitting an entry and checking results in May 2026. The Department has not said it will extend the results schedule, underscoring the value of keeping confirmation numbers safe and ensuring that entry details, especially the passport data and digital photo, meet the program’s rules the first time. Officials say the modernization effort should help by catching common errors at the point of submission and by aligning identity checks more tightly with passport information.

This year’s lag marks the first significant delay in opening the Diversity Visa registration in decades, according to the Department’s updates. Past cycles have usually opened in early October and closed in early November, which is why the Department’s expectation of an October 2025–November 2025 window drew widespread attention when it did not materialize on schedule. Some of the friction traces back to the operational pause created by the October 2025 shutdown, which slowed routine regulatory and technology work. The Department has not detailed the precise nature of each upgrade, but it has been explicit about the new $1 fee being built into the DV-2027 entry flow and about the requirement to enter with a valid passport.

Because of the DV program’s global reach, the delay has ripple effects well beyond the United States. The Diversity Visa, sometimes called the Green Card Lottery, annually draws interest from people in countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and the Americas that fall under the eligible list for that cycle. The Department’s notices stress that country eligibility lists are updated each year based on immigration trends and that people should review the official instructions when the DV-2027 program announcement is posted. In previous cycles, many entrants have relied on internet cafes, local agents, or friends to submit entries; this year, the Department is encouraging direct, self-service submissions via the official portal and says only the official $1 entry fee will be charged during the registration period.

The Department is also asking entrants to prepare compliant digital photos for each person included in an entry, including spouses and children, and to ensure that names, birth dates, and passport numbers match official documents exactly. It has reminded the public that each person may submit only one entry and that married couples can each submit an entry listing the other spouse as a derivative, effectively giving a household two chances without breaking the one-entry-per-person rule. While those reminders are standard, the Department is emphasizing them this year as part of a broader push to reduce disqualifications caused by simple mistakes or by duplicate entries filed by paid agents.

For those seeking authoritative information, the Department directs the public to its Diversity Visa pages, where it will publish the DV-2027 program notice, rules, and the opening and closing dates once they are finalized. The Department’s advisory states plainly that the announcement will also appear in the Federal Register, the government’s official journal for rules and notices, so that the registration period and any procedural changes are documented in one place. The department has asked people to avoid relying on unofficial blogs or social media posts that claim to know the dates before the government publishes them on the State Department’s Diversity Visa web page.

As people wait for the registration to open, the Department has outlined the steps that make the entry process less stressful once the window is live. The first is to have a valid, unexpired passport from the principal entrant ready to submit, along with digital photos that meet the specified composition, size, and background requirements. The second is to plan to submit a single entry during the official window and to retain the confirmation page and number after submission; without that number, checking results in May 2026 will not be possible. The third is to recognize that the lottery is random and that paying a third party outside the official system does not increase the odds of selection, even if a service offers to fill out forms on someone’s behalf.

The Department has underlined that all entries to the DV-2027 program must be made electronically and that paper entries or email submissions are not accepted. It has said, too, that no country or region is guaranteed a set number of visas and that the allocation of up to 55,000 slots is subject to the program’s standard per-country and per-region limits designed to spread the visas broadly across eligible nations. Those limits are applied only after the random selection process and during visa issuance; they do not affect how people should prepare their entries during the registration period.

The message from officials and attorneys converges on two points: readiness and vigilance. The Department wants prospective entrants to be ready with correct documents so they can file early in the registration period once it opens, and it wants them to be vigilant against scams that are more common when dates are uncertain. It has warned that people should not pay anyone who claims to have early access to the system or who offers to submit an entry before the government opens the portal. As Herman put it,

“Use this pause to prepare — confirm eligibility, scan your passport, and avoid anyone claiming early access.”

For people who do get selected when results go live in May 2026, the Department has made clear that the on-time processing rules are strict. Diversity Visas cannot be rolled into the next fiscal year if medical exams, interviews, or document checks drag past September 30, 2027. Selectees will need to move quickly once notified, following the National Visa Center’s instructions and scheduling appointments at U.S. consulates or embassies in their home countries. The Department says that the changes it is making now for DV-2027, especially surrounding identity verification at entry, are not expected to change the workload or timing of the visa application period for those who are selected; that window, it says, remains October 1, 2026, to September 30, 2027.

Until the Department posts the DV-2027 notice, the bottom line is that the Diversity Visa entry portal is not open and no legitimate entries can be filed. The Department has tried to remove ambiguity with a direct statement:

“Dates for the DV-2027 program registration period will be widely publicized in the coming months. Those interested in entering the DV-2027 program should check the Department of State’s Diversity Visa web page in the coming months.”
And for the many people around the world who plan their calendars around the lottery each fall, the clearest sign that the process is live will be an announcement on travel.state.gov and a matching notice in the Federal Register stating that the DV-2027 program registration period is officially underway.