Green Card Lottery Requirements

In order to qualify for the green card lottery, you must meet the following two requirements.

1. You must be a native of a qualifying country.

Native of a country whose natives qualify: In most cases this means the country in which you were born. However, there are two other ways you may be able to qualify. First, if you were born in a country whose natives are ineligible but your spouse was born in a country whose natives are eligible, you can claim your spouse’s country of birth provided both you and your spouse are on the selected entry, are issued visas and enter the US simultaneously. Second, if you were born in a country whose natives are ineligible, but neither of your parents was born there or resided there at the time of your birth, you may claim nativity in one of your parents’ country of birth if it is a country whose natives qualify.

2. You must meet either the education or work experience requirement of the DV program.

You must have EITHER a high school education or its equivalent, defined as successful completion of a 12-year course of elementary and secondary education; OR two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation requiring at least two years of training or experience to perform.

3. You must provide a valid photograph for yourself and all family members in your application.

Submit recent photographs of yourself, your spouse and all children included in the application. Photographs must be submitted even if your spouse or child no longer resides with you or would not immigrate with you to the United States.

You can either submit your digital photos online or you can mail your photographs to our office.

If you choose to submit a digital photo, it will need to meet the following requirements:

• The image must be in the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) format.
• It must have a resolution of 320 pixels wide by 240 pixels high, and a color depth of either 24-bit color, 8-bit color, or 8-bit grayscale.

 If your photo does not meet the image resolution requirements exactly, we will modify your photo to meet the requirements.

If you choose to mail your photograph to our office, it will need to meet the following requirements:

• SIZE: 2 inches by 2 inches (50mm x 50mm) square.

 All photographs must meet these additional requirements:

• The person must be directly facing the camera; the head of the person being photographed should not be tilted up, down or to the side, and should cover about 50% of the area of the photograph.
• The photograph should be taken with the person being photographed in front of a neutral, light-colored background.
• Photographs in which the person being photographed is wearing a hat or glasses with dark lens or in which the face is obscured in any way will not be accepted.

Qualifying Native Countries

AFRICA

Algeria	Angola	Benin	Botswana	Burkina Faso	Burundi
Cameroon	Cape Verde	Central African Rep.	Chad	Comoros	Congo
Congo, Dem. Rep. of the	Cote D’Ivoire	Djibouti	Egypt	Equatorial Guinea	Eritrea
Ethiopia	Gabon	Gambia, The	Ghana	Guinea	Guinea-Bissau
Kenya	Lesotho	Liberia	Libya	Madagascar	Malawi
Mali	Mauritius	Morocco	Mozambique	Namibia	Niger
Nigeria	Rwanda	Sao Tome and Principe	Senegal	Seychelles	Sierra Leone
Somalia	South Africa	Sudan	Swaziland	Tanzania	Togo
Tunisia	Uganda	Zambia	Zimbabwe

ASIA

Afghanistan	Bahrain	Bangladesh	Bhutan	Brunei	Burma
Cambodia	East Timor	Hong Kong SAR	Indonesia	Iran	Iraq
Israel	Japan	Jordan	Kuwait	Laos	Lebanon
Malaysia	Maldives	Mongolia	Nepal	North Korea	Oman
Qatar	Saudi Arabia	Singapore	Sri Lanka	Syria	Taiwan
Thailand	United Arab Emirates	Yemen

 Natives of the following Asian countries are not eligible for this year's diversity program: China [mainland-born], India, Pakistan, South Korea, Philippines, and Vietnam. The Hong Kong S.A.R and Taiwan do qualify and are listed above. Macau S.A.R. also qualifies and is listed below.

EUROPE

Albania	Andorra	Armenia	Austria	Azerbaijan	Belarus
Belgium	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Bulgaria	Croatia	Cyprus	Czech Republic
Denmark	Estonia	Finland	France	Georgia	Germany
Greece	Hungary	Iceland	Ireland	Italy	Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan	Latvia	Liechtenstein	Lithuania	Luxembourg	Macau SAR
Macedonia	Malta	Moldova	Monaco	Montenegro	Netherlands
Romania	San Marino	Serbia	Slovakia	Slovenia	Spain
Sweden	Switzerland	Tajikistan	Turkey	Turkmenistan	Ukraine
Uzbekistan	Vatican City

Natives of the following European countries are not eligible for this year's diversity program: Great Britain, Poland and Russia. Great Britain (United Kingdom) includes the following dependent areas: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Pitcairn, St. Helena, Turks and Caicos Islands. Note that for purposes of the diversity program only, Northern Ireland is treated separately; Northern Ireland does qualify and is listed among the qualifying areas.

NORTH AMERICA

The Bahamas

In North America, natives of Canada and Mexico are not eligible for this year's diversity program.

OCEANIA

Australia	Fiji	Kiribati	Marshall Islands	Micronesia, Federated States of	Nauru
New Zealand	Palau	Papua New Guinea	Solomon Islands	Tonga	Tuvalu
Vanuatu	Samoa

SOUTH AMERICA, CENTRAL AMERICA, AND THE CARIBBEAN

Antigua and Barbuda	Argentina	Barbados	Belize	Bolivia	Chile
Costa Rica	Cuba	Dominica	Grenada	Guyana	Honduras
Nicaragua	Panama	Paraguay	Saint Kitts and Nevis	Saint Lucia	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Suriname	Trinidad and Tobago	Uruguay	Venezuela

Countries in this region whose natives are not eligible for this year's diversity program: Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, and Peru.

The Messersmith Law Firm, P.C.
230 E Ohio Street · Suite 208 · Chicago, IL 60611
Tel: (312) 751-9960 · Fax: (312) 751-9970 · info@messersmithlaw.com
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