DV Lottery Program Timeline: What is the timeline for the Diversity Visa Lottery? From applying to winning, from winning to get the visa, from getting the visa to go to the United States of America. What is the timeline?
There are so many changes will be in your life, from the time you apply to the time you arrive in the United States. The process is as follow:
DV Lottery Program Timeline
The application for the diversity visa lottery always starts on the first week of October, which is the first year for the fiscal year of the United States of America.
From October the first week to the first week of November you apply DV lottery. After applying, you have five to six months to wait. That is from November, December, January, February, March, April, up to end of April. Those are six months.
DV Lottery results comes out first week of May. So from the day you apply, you have six months to wait for the results to come out.
Let’s say you have won the DV lottery. What next? What next is there is a timeline. You will fill the visa form, which is called the Department of State form number 260, DS-260.
You are filling the visa form maybe in May, in June, July, doesn’t matter. But the first person to have the DV interview will be on October 1.
DV results comes out in May, you have already waited for six months after applying the DV lottery. Also, you will wait for another five months, i.e May, June, July, August, and September before the DV interview.
If you add six months to five months you will have nine months from the day you applied the DV lottery, then the first person will be interviewed by October.
But your interview might not be in October. It depends on your case number. If someone from Africa, for instance, with zero case number or from one case number to 2000, the interview will be in October. From 2000 to 4000, that will be in November. From 4000 maybe to 7000, that will be in December. Then it goes up that way.
Majority of people, their case number will be at least three to five months later to have the interview. So if you add there, it is almost a year and maybe from the day you applied until the day of the interview, it is more than one year and three months maybe possible, or four months or five months, depending.
Then you go to the interview. From the day of the interview, you are told you have been given the visa. Whether it’s you and your family, you have six months to travel.
Whether you travel on the first day you go to the visa, that’s up to you. You travel next week, next month, two months later. But as long as it’s not exceeding six months, you are good to go.
Majority of people, after receiving the visa, it takes about three months to prepare themselves, especially if they have a family, because there are tickets for the entire family. If you buy quicker, it will be more expensive.
So that makes up to 18 to 20 months, the timeline is long. That’s why there are some people in between, maybe they die, some people in between they get married. Some people in between have children. There are some changes.
If you get married after applying, you are allowed to add the person. If you have the child after applying, you are allowed to add that child in the application in order to go the U.S.
All those are the important things you need to know the timeline. If you are a student, you can still finish your school. You still have almost years in between until you go to America, from the day you apply.
So it is a longer process for people to understand the timeline of the diversity visa lottery.
DISCLAIMER: This post and content is designed for general information only and is NOT legal advice. This site is not offering any Diversity Visa and is not the official site for DV Lottery program. The information presented in this post should not be construed to be formal legal advice.