What's the Difference Between a Diversity Visa and a Green Card?

A diversity visa and a green card are in many respects equivalent, but not entirely. To understand the distinction, you need to know a bit more about visas and green cards in general.

What Is a Visa?

A visa is literally an entry document, which enables its holder to be admitted at the U.S. border, airport, or other port of entry.

A so-called "immigrant visa" means that its holder will be allowed to live in the U.S. as a permanent resident, with rights to reside and work there, and eventually to apply for U.S. citizenship. The immigrant visa holder will, upon entry to the U.S., become a permanent resident. He or she will then receive a green card within a few weeks, by mail. The diversity visa is a form of immigrant visa.

(Nonimmigrant visas are used for temporary visits to the United States. These include, for example, F-1 student visas, B-2 visitor visas, and H-1B work visas.)

What Is a Diversity Visa?

A diversity visa is an immigrant visa that someone receives after having "won" the diversity visa lottery run by the U.S. State Department, and succesfully applied for and been approved for U.S. immigration.

This lottery system allocates 50,000 visas to applicants from countries that have sent the fewest immigrants to the U.S. in the past five years. It is based on a computer-selected process. Not everyone whose name is drawn, however, succeeds in receiving a visa to enter the United States. You must still get through the application process and prove that you are not inadmissible to the United States or ineligible on other grounds. For more information, see "Diversity Visa Lottery."

Those people who do receive a diversity visa are not yet green card holders. They must enter the United States first. And you should realize that entry is not always guaranteed. The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials will review your visa, and if they find that you did not deserve it after all, or are inadmissible to the U.S., they can refuse your entry. It's unlikely, but by no means impossible.

What Is a Green Card?

A green card is, literally speaking, the photo identity card given to people who have been granted lawful permanent residence in the United States. However, many people use it to speak of their status as permanent residents, as in, "I have a green card."

As mentioned above, someone who enters the U.S. using a diversity visa will immediately become a permanent resident, and receive the actual green card soon after. For more on the topic of U.S. green cards, see "All About U.S. Green Cards."