- The U.S. State Department delayed the DV-2027 registration indefinitely, leaving prospective applicants without a clear start date.
- Officials have not confirmed claims that mandatory passport uploading is now required for the Green Card lottery entry.
- Processing for DV-2026 remains on an immediate hold following a December 2025 security review directive by DHS.
(UNITED STATES) — U.S. authorities kept the Diversity Visa program on hold into early 2026 as online claims spread that the Green Card lottery now requires passport uploading, a change that recent official notices do not announce.
The confusion has landed as the DV program faces a broader slowdown, with no new registration period opened for DV-2027 and processing disruptions affecting cases already underway. Applicants and selectees have circulated posts portraying a new blanket document-upload rule, but the publicly cited DV instructions and notices focus on electronic entry and program administration, not a newly mandatory passport-upload requirement.
Pressure has grown around DV-2026, where selection does not guarantee a visa and eligibility runs on a fixed clock. At the same time, prospective entrants who expected the usual annual registration window have waited without a new start date, after the State Department said it planned changes to the entry process.
Recent official DV materials continue to describe an electronic entry system through the State Department’s DV portal, and applicants have pointed to that language as they try to verify what is required. A DV-2026 correction from October 2024, for example, directs applicants to file electronically at the official DV site and does not describe a new passport-upload mandate.
That distinction has mattered because procedural updates can look like new documentation requirements, particularly when applicants already expect added screening. In recent months, the passport-upload claim has circulated alongside broader uncertainty about when the next entry period will open and how a review ordered late last year will affect approvals.
For DV-2027, the usual registration season did not open in October 2025. The State Department said on November 5, 2025, that it was implementing undisclosed changes to the entry process and that the start date would be announced later, leaving prospective entrants without the standard timetable.
The program’s mechanics create two separate calendars that applicants often conflate: the entry period, when people submit registrations, and the visa issuance period tied to the fiscal-year cycle. For DV-2027, the visa issuance period remains October 1, 2026, to September 30, 2027, even as the registration opening has remained delayed.
Within that environment, claims about “major Green Card lottery rule changes” have gained traction, including assertions that applicants must now upload a passport as part of entry. Official DV instructions cited by applicants still describe electronic entry, but they do not announce a new blanket rule requiring passport uploading for all entrants as a program-wide change.
The lack of a confirmed passport-upload mandate in those notices has not ended the verification problem for applicants, many of whom read entry-process changes as signals of new document steps. The State Department’s statement that it would implement changes, without describing them publicly, has added to the risk that applicants treat viral guidance as a substitute for official instructions.
The operational disruption widened after a directive on December 18, 2025, that ordered a halt in key DV-related activity. DHS SAVE America Act to Boost Department of Homeland Security”>Secretary Kristi Noem directed U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to halt new diversity visas and placed an immediate hold on all DV-2026 adjustment of status applications, ancillary benefits, and waivers for comprehensive policy and security reviews.
The directive followed shootings linked to a DV lottery entrant, and it framed the response as a review tied to security and policy. Such reviews typically slow adjudications, increase checks, and can reshape processing routines as cases move through screening and decision points, creating additional uncertainty for applicants already in the system.
For DV-2026 selectees seeking to complete the process inside the United States, the hold has covered adjustment of status applications and related filings. USCIS suspended approvals, and processing could shift toward in-person interviews, a step that can further extend timelines when agency capacity is constrained.
The effects have also appeared in visa-number management for those processing through consular channels. The March 2026 Visa Bulletin reduced the annual limit to approximately 52,000 visas and made them available only to selectees with rank numbers below specified cut-offs by region.
Those cut-offs have turned the DV-2026 timeline into a race against the end of the fiscal year. For DV-2026, entitlement ends September 30, 2026, and delays late in the year can leave selectees without enough time to complete steps required before a visa can be issued or a case can be approved.
The same fixed deadline has magnified the stakes for applicants whose cases were already moving when the December directive took effect. A pause that interrupts adjudications can compress remaining time for interviews, document review, and other required processing, even when selectees remain eligible in principle.
The uncertainty has also reached people who planned to enter the Green Card lottery for the next cycle. With DV-2027 registration delayed past October 2025 and the entry-process changes still unimplemented, applicants have faced a vacuum in which unofficial claims can seem plausible, even when they do not match published DV instruction language.
In that environment, applicants have increasingly treated viral claims as a checklist, including assertions about passport uploading. The official materials referenced describe electronic entry and provide updates through formal notices and instructions, but they do not announce a newly mandatory passport upload as a blanket requirement for DV entrants.
Applicants have also watched for signs of legal or administrative fallout if the program changes permanently, because Congress created the DV program. The program could face legal challenges if permanently altered, while selectees and would-be entrants track whether processing restarts and how entry changes will be implemented.
Authoritative updates on entry instructions and registration timing come through State Department DV instructions and announcements, while processing information appears through the Visa Bulletin and USCIS updates for adjustment of status. Applicants have used those channels to verify claims circulating online and to check whether any entry-process change includes new document steps.
For now, the central realities remain that no confirmed passport-upload mandate appears in the publicly cited notices and that the DV program’s operations remain clouded by the ongoing review and pause described in the December 18, 2025 directive. Until the State Department announces a DV-2027 start date and agencies clarify how processing resumes, applicants and selectees have continued to rely on official instructions rather than social media claims about passport uploading.
