The United States Department of State has announced a series of significant updates to the application process for the Diversity Visa program, widely known as the Green Card lottery. According to the new regulations proposed on March 11, prospective applicants will face stricter requirements aimed at enhancing the security and integrity of the immigration system. These changes are designed to ensure a more transparent and reliable selection process for individuals seeking permanent residency in the United States.
Under the newly introduced guidelines, every applicant will be required to provide information from a valid, unexpired passport at the time of registration. In addition to entering the passport details into the system, individuals must also upload high-quality scanned copies of their passport's biographic data page and the signature page directly into the electronic application form. This marks a major shift from previous years and aims to create a more robust verification mechanism from the very beginning of the application cycle.
The application form itself will also undergo linguistic and structural modifications to ensure clarity and consistency with official documentation standards. For instance, the term gender will be replaced with sex, and the field previously labeled as age will now explicitly ask for the applicant's date of birth. These adjustments are intended to minimize confusion and standardize the data collection process across all international applicants.
Officials have emphasized that the primary objective behind these comprehensive changes is to actively combat fraud and prevent scams that have historically plagued the Diversity Visa program. By implementing stricter identity verification measures, the State Department hopes to significantly increase the overall reliability of the lottery. These new application rules are scheduled to officially take effect on April 10, 2026, and will be fully applied starting with the DV-2027 program cycle.
Furthermore, financial adjustments are being made to the program's structure. Starting from September 16, 2025, a nominal fee of one dollar will be introduced for entering the Green Card lottery. Historically, the administrative costs of the lottery were covered entirely by the visa application fee of 330 dollars, which was only paid by the small percentage of applicants who were actually selected. Moving forward, a portion of these operational expenses will be distributed among all participants during the initial registration phase.
It is also worth noting that the United States State Department previously suspended the issuance of visas under the Diversity Visa program starting on December 30, 2025. The upcoming regulatory and financial changes indicate a strategic restructuring of the program before it resumes full operations under the new guidelines.
Read “Zamin” on Telegram!
