Who can enter the Green Card Lottery
Two requirements decide it: where you were born, and whether you meet the education or work standard. Everything else is a question of doing the entry correctly.
Your country of birth, not your citizenship
This trips up more people than anything else on this page. Where you hold a passport, where you live and where you work are all irrelevant. What counts is the country you were born in.
Each year the State Department excludes the countries that have sent the most immigrants to the United States over the previous five years. The excluded list is republished with every draw and does change, so a country that was closed last year is not necessarily closed this year.
If your country of birth is excluded, two exceptions may still let you enter.
Through your spouse
If your spouse was born in an eligible country, you can enter under their country of birth. Both of you must be included on the entry, and both must be issued visas and enter the United States together if selected.
Through a parent
If neither of your parents was born in, nor legally resident in, your country of birth at the time you were born, you may claim a parent's country of birth instead. This applies more often than people expect, particularly to those born while a parent was working or studying abroad.
Education or work experience, either one
You do not need both. Meeting one of these two standards satisfies the requirement in full.
Education
A completed high school education, or its formal equivalent: a full course of elementary and secondary education comparable to twelve years of schooling in the United States. Partial completion and vocational certificates alone do not satisfy this.
Or work experience
Two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience to perform. The occupation classification is what matters here, not the job title on your contract.
There is no age limit, and no cost to enter
Anyone aged 18 or over can be the principal entrant. Younger applicants can be included on a parent’s entry. Registration on the official State Department site is free, and no adviser can change the odds of being drawn.
The six ways people lose their place
The first two are eligibility. The rest are execution, and they are the reason this service exists.
- 01Being born in a country excluded from the current year's programme, with no spouse or parent exception available
- 02Neither completing secondary education nor holding two years of qualifying work experience
- 03Submitting more than one entry in the same year, whether by yourself or through someone else acting for you
- 04Omitting a spouse or an unmarried child under 21 from the entry
- 05A photograph that fails the technical specification, or one already used in a previous year
- 06Entry details that do not match the passport exactly
Check whether you qualify this year
The eligibility check covers your country of birth, the spouse and parent exceptions, and the education or work standard. There is no charge to submit it.