Have you dreamt about obtaining a Green Card in order to legally live, work and study in the US? The easiest way to pursue this dream is by applying for the “Diversity Green Card Lottery" program authorized by the American government. The first step in participating in the Green Card Lottery program is to check if the country you were born from is qualified for the program.
Every year the US State Department issues a list of countries which are non eligible for the program. Non eligible countries are defined as those from which the United States has received more than 50,000 immigrants during the last five years. Every year the lists changes!
Below, you will find a list of non eligible countries:
- Canada
- China (except Hong Kong S.A.R.)
- Colombia
- Dominican Republic
- El Salvador
- Haiti
- India
- Jamaica
- Mexico
- Pakistan
- Philippines
- South Korea
- United Kingdom
- Vietnam
- Russia (added to the DV-2005 list)
- Poland (added to the DV-2007 list)
- Brazil (added to the DV-2008 list)
- Peru (added to the DV-2008 list)
The colored countries in the diagram below indicate those not eligible for the Green card Lottery program.
Even if your native country is non eligible, you shouldn’t be frustrated. You still may have a chance.
You can “pull” nativity from someone else. There are two ways to do this:
1. The first way is to pull nativity from your spouse if he/ she was born in an eligible country.
2. The second way is to pull nativity from your parents only in a case where both of them were born in an eligible country and stayed in the non eligible country for a limited time (for example – worked there for limited time).
USAFIS Organization provides a free service to check your eligibility for all those countries.
FREE Eligibility Test!
Back to green card articles