Does the green-card lottery work in 2026? How do you file an entry, and what do you do if it does not?

On 30 September, for several thousand people around the world, a year that was supposed to be the best of their lives will end. They were selected in the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery, DV-2026, and still have no visa: interviews were postponed, consulates stopped, and the time ran out. Selection does not carry over. At the same time, for a second year, registration for the next drawing has not opened. The lottery that for thirty years was the simplest way into the United States stopped being a way at all in 2026. Here is what happened to it, how it was built — in case it returns — and what to do if you were waiting for this one.

In brief

• DV-2027 registration never opened, and the Diversity Visa Program is suspended. The DV-2026 year ends on 30 September 2026, and visas that were not issued expire.
• There is no announcement about DV-2028. Sites that “accept entries” have nothing to do with the lottery.
• If the program returns: $1 per entry, a scan of the passport, the State Department’s one official portal, and fifteen minutes with no middlemen.
• Four routes with no drawing: EB-1A, EB-2 NIW, O-1, and study with a later move into work. The first three need documents of recognition, not luck.

What happened to the lottery?

The Diversity Visa Program has existed since the 1990s. Each year the State Department draws up to 55,000 immigrant visas among citizens of countries with low immigration to the United States. Registration opened in October, results were announced in May, and visas were issued from the following October through the fiscal year. Russia was on the list of participating countries: immigration from Russia to the United States is a small share, and that is the condition of participation.

In October 2025 the DV-2027 registration window did not open — the first time in the history of the program. There was no official continuation. The program is suspended, and there is no date for a restart. At the same time, from April 2026, a fee for taking part was introduced: $1 per entry, with a required scan of the passport. It is meant for future drawings, which do not exist yet. And for DV-2026 selectees the year was the hardest. Consular pauses — from January to August for 75 countries, and a global pause from 25 August — left some people without an interview, and on 30 September their right to a visa expires with no extension.

The first practical conclusion: in 2026 the lottery is not a route, and a move cannot be planned around it. The second conclusion is less obvious and more important. It comes below, after how the program worked. If it returns, you need to be ready in a week, not in a month.

How did people file an entry, and how will it work if the lottery returns?

Taking part was always free and simple, and middlemen made their money on that simplicity. The only official portal is the State Department’s site. Entries are processed by the Kentucky Consular Center. An entry takes fifteen minutes: the name as in the passport, date and place of birth, the country of chargeability, education or experience, family, and a photograph to the requirements. From 2026 this adds a $1 fee and a scan of the passport. One entry per person. Spouses each file their own and include each other. A second entry from the same person disqualifies both.

The applicant needs one of two things: a full secondary education, or two years of work in the last five in an occupation that requires at least two years of training. Results appear only on the official site, by confirmation number. The State Department does not write or call about a selection, and any such message is fraud.

What middlemen do for money: they fill in the same form on the same site, sometimes with errors that lead to disqualification. The only case where help is justified is if you physically cannot take the photograph to the requirements. Everything else is fifteen minutes of your time.

Being ready if the program returns is three things: a valid passport for every family member, fresh photographs to the requirements, and a subscription to official State Department notices, not to Telegram channels of “insiders.” Next, the people for whom waiting makes no sense.

Four routes with no drawing

The lottery gave a green card with no basis — only citizenship and education. Every other route needs a basis, and the difference between them is which basis.

The table answers the question people ask most often: “I am an ordinary person, so what do I do.” Ordinariness, as USCIS reads it, is measured in documents, not titles. An engineer with ten years of experience, a doctor with publications, a founder with known clients usually already has two or three of the ten criteria. They simply never counted them as criteria. What counts and what does not is in “U.S. talent visa criteria”. Every route to a green card, with prices and timing, is in “How do you get a U.S. green card in 2026?”.

What do the lottery and a self-petition have in common, and how do they differ?

They have one thing in common: neither needs an employer. That is where the resemblance ends. The lottery offered a chance of about one percent and required nothing. A self-petition takes half a year of preparation, about $17,000 all in, and documents — but the decision depends on you, not on a random-number generator, and the answer comes in fifteen business days with premium processing, not after a year of waiting for results. The line-by-line cost is in “How much does a U.S. green card cost?”.

There is also something the lottery did not have. The family comes with you on both self-petitions, and with adjustment of status the spouse gets a work permit before the green card.

Five mistakes of people who waited for the lottery

Waiting for the next drawing instead of checking whether you have a basis. A year of waiting is a year in which a petition would already have been approved.

Paying to “file an entry” now. Registration is closed. Anyone taking money for it is taking money for nothing.

Believing letters about a selection. The State Department does not write and does not call. Results are only on the official site, under your number.

Treating an “ordinary” career as an obstacle. The officer reads documents, not the scale of a personality. Half of EB-1A denials are about evidence, not about recognition.

Preparing papers “just in case” for the lottery. Prepare for the category that exists today. If the lottery returns, a passport and photographs take a week.

DV-2026 selectees who ran out of time will, on 30 September, be in the same place as everyone else: with no lottery, and with the question of what to do. Their answer is the same as the reader’s. Look at your career the way an officer does. The quiz below does that in two minutes. If it shows two or three criteria, the place to start is not by waiting for next October.