Filling Out Diversity Visa Lottery Form DS-5501

If you are from an eligible country, and wish to enter your name in the United States's annual diversity visa lottery, you will need to fill out Form DS-5501. This is an online-only form.

It is important to understand that filling out this form serves only to enter you in the visa lottery -- it is not, by itself, a green card application. If, after filling out this form, your name is chosen in the random drawing, you will then have the opportunity to apply for a green card (U.S. lawful permanent residence), allowing you to work and live in the United States.

For background on the basic eligibility criteria for entering the Diversity Visa Lottery, see "Important Information About the Diversity Visa Lottery."

Diversity Visa Form DS-5501

To access the visa lottery form, you will need to visit the "Diversity Visa (DV) Program" page of the U.S. State Department website during the time period when lottery applications are being accepted. This usually occurs between approximately October and December.

So long as you are a native of an eligible country, it doesn’t matter what country you are actually in when you submit the online application. As soon as you can start the application, the system will give you one hour in which to submit it. After that, it will erase all the information you have entered. To avoid bumping up against this one-hour entry time limit, assemble all the needed information ahead of time.

You can stop in the middle and not submit the application at that time, for example if you realize you lack a piece of information. Unfortunately, however, you cannot save or download your work in such a situation.

If you try to submit an application and the system rejects it, you can try again until you succeed.

Here is the information you will typically be asked for on Form DS-5501:

1. Full name—last name (family or surname), first name, middle name.

2. Date of birth—day, month, year.

3. Gender—male or female.

4. City where you were born.

5. Country where you were born (use your country’s current name, even if it had a different name when you were born there).

6. Country of eligibility or chargeability—normally, the same as your country of birth. However, if you were born in a country that
is not eligible for the DV lottery, you may be able to claim your spouse’s country of birth, or your parents’ country of birth, if different
from your own. See “Winning the Green Card Lottery With Dual Citizenship."

7. Mailing address—in care of, address, city/town, district/country/province/state, postal code/zip code, country.

8. Country where you live today.

9. Phone number (optional).

10. Email address (optional).

11. Highest level of education you have achieved, as of the entry date. (You don’t need to list all your schooling, just the last type of school you completed, for example high school, vocational school, university, or graduate school.)

12. Marital status—unmarried, married, divorced, widowed, or legally separated.

13. Number of children that are unmarried and under 21 years of age (no need to mention children who are ineligible either because they are U.S. legal permanent residents or U.S. citizens or are over 21 years old or married.)

14. Spouse information—name, date of birth, gender, city/town of birth, country of birth, photograph.

15. Children information—name, date of birth, gender, city/town of birth, country of birth, photograph.

The guidelines on the website will explain how to submit electronic photographs to accompany your application.

After you have successfully completed and submitted your online DS-5501, you will get a confirmation screen, showing your name, other personal information, and a date/time stamp. It may take several minutes before you receive this screen. The confirmation does NOT mean you have won, it simply means your application went through okay. This is the only time you will be sent your confirmation number, so be sure to print out the confirmation screen for your records.

Avoid Diversity Visa Scams

As you can see by the above description, entering the diversity visa lottery is not, by itself, terribly complicated. And it's free. However, numerous scammers try to convince would-be applicants  that paying them will help guarantee success; or tell people that their names were chosen and they need only to pay a fee to get the visa. Be careful who you trust your case to; and if you feel you need help with the entry process, either ask a more computer-savvy friend, or hire a qualified, reputable immigration attorney. (If your name is chosen, however, we highly recommend hiring an immigration attorney -- more names are chosen than the number of people who successfully make it through the green card application process.)