No green card lottery winners yet: what DV-2027 and DV-2028 entrants should know
What changed
Normally the Diversity Visa lottery takes entries each fall, picks winners the next spring, and issues visas in the fiscal year that follows. For DV-2027, that cycle never started.
- November 5, 2025: The State Department said it was changing the DV-2027 entry process and would announce dates later. It kept October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027 as the visa year.
- October 1, 2026: The DV-2027 visa year began with no registration held and no one selected.
- October 14, 2026: In Red Eagle Law, L.C. v. Rubio, a federal judge in the Southern District of California granted a preliminary injunction ordering the Department to reopen the program, starting with registration. The written order followed on October 19.
- October 19–23, 2026: The government appealed, the district court denied its request to pause the order, and the government then asked the Ninth Circuit for an emergency stay.
Under the court's schedule, the Department must announce registration details by October 29, open registration by November 1 for 30 days, and notify selectees by December 3, 2026. Those dates can change if the appeals court acts. As of October 28, 2026, no registration dates had been posted on travel.state.gov.
Who is affected
- Anyone hoping to enter DV-2027. If registration opens, the window may be short.
- DV-2028 hopefuls. No DV-2028 dates have been announced.
- DV-2026 selectees whose cases were caught in the issuance pause that began in December 2025. Separate litigation (Medani v. Trump, Northern District of California) addressed some of those cases. The DV-2026 year ended September 30, 2026.
Separately, a bill introduced in the House on October 22, 2026 (H.R. 10896) would end the lottery. It has only been introduced and is not law.
What to do now
- Watch official sources only: travel.state.gov for announcements and dvprogram.state.gov for entries.
- Have your documents ready. Entrants now need valid passport information, and there is a $1 electronic registration fee paid on the official site.
- Enter once, yourself. Duplicate entries disqualify you, and you do not need an agent.
- Check results only on dvprogram.state.gov with your confirmation number. The State Department does not email or call winners.
Scam sites have claimed DV-2027 registration was open or that people had won. As of October 28, 2026, no one has been selected for DV-2027. Read our scam guide.
How the lottery normally works
Federal law makes up to 55,000 diversity visas available each fiscal year to people from countries with lower rates of immigration to the U.S. Entrants must meet education or work experience requirements and be from an eligible country. Being selected does not guarantee a visa: selectees must apply, be interviewed and qualify before the visa year ends on September 30. Visas not issued by then are lost.
That deadline is why the delay matters. Under the court's schedule, people selected in December 2026 would have until the end of September 2027 to finish their cases, compared with well over a year in a normal cycle.
What's next
The key question is whether the Ninth Circuit pauses the order before November 1. Even if registration opens, the compressed schedule leaves selectees less than a year to complete their cases. Our green card lottery guide explains eligibility and the steps after selection, and our policy tracker will note any change.
Official sources
General information, not legal advice. Immigration rules change and every case is different; talk to a qualified immigration attorney about your situation. USVisa.com is not a government website. Spot an error? Tell us.
