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Green Card alert: DV lottery faces changes with stricter rules and passport requirement; Will Indians be impacted?
Green Card alert: The US has enforced stricter rules for the Diversity Visa lottery, requiring valid passport documentation to combat fraud.
The United States has implemented more stringent regulations for the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery, often referred to as the Green Card lottery, mandating that applicants provide comprehensive passport information during the application process. This modification is part of a larger initiative by US officials to enhance identity verification and mitigate fraud within the immigration system.
The Diversity Visa program allocates up to 55,000 immigrant visas annually to applicants from nations with comparatively low immigration rates to the United States.
Passport upload is a must for DV lottery entry
According to the new regulation by the US State Department, people participating in the Diversity Visa lottery are required to furnish details of a valid and unexpired passport when they submit their application.
Additionally, applicants must upload a digital scan of the biographic and signature pages of the passport as a component of the electronic entry form.
Officials have emphasized that applications lacking passport information or a valid passport scan will be automatically disqualified from the lottery.
New rules to be Implemented from April 2026
The revised regulation is set to come into force on April 10, 2026, and is anticipated to be relevant for the DV-2027 lottery cycle, which is expected to commence later in 2026.
The Diversity Visa program draws millions of applicants globally each year, rendering it one of the most competitive immigration options to the United States.
Why has US introduced new rules?
The US government states that the passport requirement is intended to address fraud and prevent duplicate entries within the program.
Authorities discovered that the DV-2025 lottery had more than 2.5 million duplicate applications, many of which were submitted by third-party agents without the knowledge of the applicants.
Mandating passport documentation early in the application process assists officials in verifying the identity of applicants and deters extensive misuse of the system.
Will new regulation impact Indian applicants?
Notwithstanding the new regulations, the change will not affect Indian applicants as India is ineligible for the Diversity Visa lottery.
The program permits participation only from countries that have sent fewer than 50,000 immigrants to the US in the last five years. Given that India surpasses this limit, Indian nationals are unable to apply for the DV lottery.
Consequently, Indians pursuing permanent residency in the US must depend on alternative pathways such as employment-based visas, family sponsorship, or investment programs.
Why has the DV program come under scrutiny recently?
The DV programme has recently faced criticism after it was revealed that several lottery winners were linked to acts of terrorism and mass shootings.
According to the New York Times, Sayfullo Saipov, the person charged with the 2017 terror attack in New York, drove his truck through a crowded cycle path in Manhattan, resulting in the deaths of at least eight persons. He was an Uzbek immigrant who arrived in the US after being selected for the DV programme in 2010, eventually obtaining permanent residency.
In a similar vein, the suspect of shootings at Brown University in December 2025, which led to killing of four people, was identified as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a Portuguese immigrant who had entered the US after being selected for the DV programme in 2017.
These incidents have prompted demands for the complete termination of the DV programme. Following the Brown University tragedy, the Trump administration halted the issuance of all diversity immigrant visas, postponed the DV-2027 registration period, and put pending applications on hold.
