New Green Card Lottery Fee

Is the Green Card Lottery free?

No. Since the diversity visa lottery was established in 1990 by the U.S. Congress, the American DV-Lottery has always been free for applicants to enter. However, that has changed this year due to a new bill approved in the U.S. Senate, which is scheduled to be passed in the House of Representatives later this year. The green card lottery fee that will be required, to enter the green card lottery will be used to pay for another immigration program that extends federal benefits to disabled refugees living within the United States of America. The green card lottery fee would help offset the cost of that immigration program and thus, avoid adding to the U.S. budget deficit. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the non- related immigration program will cost about 36 million dollars, i.e. the green card lottery fee has to cover this amount going forward.

A Green Card Lottery for the Wealthy

The Green Card Lottery used to be a great opportunity for all people in the world, rich or pure, to come to America and live the American dream. In the future, this opportunity will no longer be available to the people who need it the most. The new diversity visa lottery fee will not deter most wealthy applicants from Europe, Asia, South America or the Oceanic, but less economical fortune people born in Africa and some Asian countries, who will no longer be able to participate. These applicants will not be able to come up with the required funds to enter the DV-Lottery and will be excluded of the same reason. Imagine how natives of Sierra Leone would be able to pay the new green card lottery fee of $30 or more, when the average yearly income is $ 901 before tax. I.e. they would have to pay 5-10% of their yearly income to enter the DV-Lottery. To make the comparison to a person born in the US, where the average income is around $30,000, an American would have to pay between $1,500 and $3,000 to enter the lottery for a chance of less than 1% of winning. To make things even worse, between 30-50% of applicants from these less fortune economical countries get disqualified due to errors in their application or their photos not meeting the strict requirements, meaning they never had a chance of winning a green card in the first place. Last year 315,741 applicants entered from Sierra Leone alone and that number will fall of a rock in the future of the same reason. Take Nigeria, where 2,005,876 applicants entered the green card lottery last year and where the average income is $896 before tax, how many people will enter the DV-Lottery from this country in the future? So the green card lottery fee will be adjusted up every year fewer applicants enter the DV-Lottery to cover the cost of another immigration program. There were 15 million people that entered the DV-Lottery held in 2010, known as the DV-2012 lottery. In 2011, only 8 million people entered in the DV-2013 lottery, mostly due to natives from Sri Lanka not being eligible any more. This new fee will probably cut the applicant number in half if not more, which would mean that the 2014 green card lottery fee would be somewhere between $60-$70 or more per person. I.e. each year the number of DV-Lottery applicant’s decreases, the green card lottery fee has to go up, excluding even more people from entering the following year and thus, increasing the fee again.

Who pays for the Green Card Lottery?

It is a common misinterpretation that the cost associated with administering the green card lottery cost the American tax payer money. Actually, it is the other way around. Each year the US Department of State notifies approximately 100,000 of the applicants that entered the dv-lottery that they have won a USA green card. The reason why 100,000 applicants are notified to compete for 50,000 green cards is due to almost a 50% disqualification rate due to errors and incorrect information in the applicants information that they submitted to the US Department of State when the registered for the diversity visa lottery. These approximately 100,000 winners, must file a typical green card application and pay all the fees any other person applying for a typical green card outside the green card lottery scheme would have to do. Each applicant must pay around $1,000 in processing fees to the INS and there are no refunds issued to individuals that are disqualified. I.e. the DV-Lottery generates around 100 million dollars each year, that more than covers all cost associated with this immigration program. In the future, the diversity visa lottery must generate at least 136 millions dollars to the U.S. government to pay for it self and another none related immigration program making it a big time money generating government lottery program. Since the 136 millions is a fixed number the green card lottery fee will be adjusted each year to meet this number and fewer applicants will mean higher fee and visa versa. So the program is generating thousands of US jobs in the INS that would not be there without this program. The program pays for it self and another immigration program and the surplus goes to the Federal Government thus, this program does not cost the American tax payer any money.

Green Card Lottery overview

The United States of America holds an annual immigration visa lottery that grants 50,000 people an American permanent resident card each year from most countries all over the world. This visa lottery is formally known as the Diversity Visa Lottery (DV-Lottery), but popularly known as the Green Card Lottery. There is no other country in the world that has such a generous immigration visa lottery where the requirements are so low to participate. There are only two basic requirements to enter the green card lottery that most people 18 years old or older would meet. The first green card lottery requirement is that you must have an education equivalent to a U.S. High School degree or higher, i.e. at least 12 years of school. The second green card lottery requirement is that you must be born in a qualifying country, i.e. it does not matter what country you are a citizen or resident of, your country of birth is the deciding factor. Each year the U.S. Department of State makes a list of countries that had less than 50,000 natives immigrate to the United States of America over the past 5 years. If you were born in a country from this list and you also have an education equivalent to or higher than a U.S. High School degree, then you qualify to enter the US green card lottery. This means that the list of eligible countries changes each year and because you were not eligible to enter one year does not mean you won’t be eligible to enter the next year.

Enter this years Green Card Lottery today. 50,000 American Green Cards Must Go Each Year. This is your chance to reach your dream of becoming an American resident today!

Return to USA Diversity Lottery’s immigration news page to read more immigration news.

USA Green Card Lottery Test

Take the green card lottery test to see if you qualify. If you do, apply for the DV-2025 Green Card Lottery here, and your dreams may soon come true. 50,000 Green Cards are available in the green card lottery each year. Take the DV-2025 Test