US Green Card lottery reopens with stricter rules, new fee: Details here

Stricter checks and a new fee aim to curb misuse as the programme reopens under revised rules

The US has revived its Diversity Visa (DV) programme, widely known as the Green Card lottery, for 2027, introducing stricter entry requirements. However, the changes offer no relief for Indian applicants, who continue to remain ineligible under existing immigration rules.

 

What has changed in the DV programme

The US Department of State has confirmed that the DV-2027 cycle will go ahead after a temporary pause on visa issuances announced on December 23, 2025. The suspension followed security concerns, prompting a review of screening and vetting procedures.

 

The programme is now being relaunched with additional safeguards. According to the rule effective April 10, 2026:

   

Applicants must upload a scanned copy of the biographic and signature pages of a valid, unexpired passport at the time of entry

 

A non-waivable $1 registration fee has been introduced

 

Application fields have been standardised, replacing “gender” with “sex” and “age” with “date of birth” to improve accuracy

 

Officials have indicated that these steps are aimed at curbing duplicate entries and identity fraud, which have historically plagued the lottery system.

 

Importantly, the earlier pause applied only to visa issuances, not to the lottery process itself. The visa issuance window for selected applicants will remain unchanged, running from October 1, 2026, to September 30, 2027.

 

Why Indians remain excluded

Despite the programme’s restart, Indian nationals will not benefit. Under Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the DV programme is open only to countries with low immigration rates to the US.

 

Countries that have sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the US in the past five years are automatically excluded. India has consistently crossed this threshold and remains ineligible for DV-2027, as in previous years.

 

Other countries on the exclusion list include China, Mexico, Pakistan, South Korea and Canada.

 

Limited relevance for Indian professionals

For most Indians, especially skilled professionals in sectors such as technology, healthcare, and engineering, the Green Card lottery has never been a viable route to permanent residency.

 

Instead, they rely on alternative pathways such as:

 

Employment-based visas (EB-2 and EB-3 categories)

 

The H-1B work visa route

 

Family-sponsored immigration

 

These channels, however, face significant delays. Due to per-country caps, Indian applicants often encounter waiting periods stretching from 10 to 20 years or more for green card approvals.

 

What lies ahead

While the exact registration dates for DV-2027 are yet to be announced, the US government has confirmed that the programme will proceed under the revised framework.

 

Immigration specialists note that the new passport and fee requirements primarily target misuse of the system rather than expanding eligibility. As a result, Indian applicants are expected to continue focusing on merit-based immigration routes and potential policy reforms to address long-standing backlogs.