DV Lottery 2027 Eligible Countries List

How eligible countries are decided

Any country that sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States in the previous five years is excluded, and the State Department publishes the list in each year's instructions. So a country can join or leave the list from one year to the next.

What counts is your country of birth, not your nationality or where you live. A Jordanian born in Kuwait is charged to Kuwait.

Are Arab countries eligible for the DV Lottery?

In the latest published list (DV-2026) no Arab country was excluded, so people born in Arab countries were eligible, including:

• The Levant: Jordan, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon.
• The Gulf: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Yemen.
• Iraq.
• The Nile Valley: Egypt and Sudan.
• The Maghreb: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania.
• Somalia, Djibouti and the Comoros.

Countries not eligible in the latest list

The countries excluded from DV-2026 were: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland), Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, the United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, Venezuela and Vietnam.

People born in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan were eligible. Check the current year's list in the official instructions when it is published, because it can change.

If your country of birth is not eligible

You can enter through your spouse's country of birth if it is eligible, as long as you are both listed on the same entry and enter the United States together.

Or through a parent's country of birth, if neither parent was born in or a permanent resident of your country of birth when you were born. This is called "chargeability" to another country.

An eligible country is not the only requirement

Even with an eligible country of birth you need a high school education or its equivalent, or two years of work experience within the last five years in an occupation that requires at least two years of training.

The US government may also restrict entry for nationals of some countries, and such restrictions can affect visa issuance even after selection. Follow the news on travel.state.gov.

Questions and answers