Tag Archives: DS-260 Form

The DS-260 form, also known as the Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration Application, is a crucial document that must be completed accurately for your Diversity Visa (DV) interview. This guide is on how to fill out the DS-260 form correctly. The principal applicant and all family members applying for a diversity visa program must complete Form DS-260. You will need to enter your DV case number into the online DS-260 form to access and update the information about yourself and your family that you included in your DV entry.

If your family circumstances have changed after you entered the Diversity Visa program, for example, if you have gotten married or had a child, you will need to add your new family members to your case. (“Family member” refers to a spouse and/or unmarried children who had not reached age 21 before you entered the DV program.) When adding family members to your case, you will need to upload a document to prove your relationship to the family member being added.

How to Fill Out the DS-260 Form Correctly

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to fill out the DS-260 form correctly:

• Step 1: Access the DS-260 Form

Go to the Consular Electronic Application Center (CEAC) website. Select the option for “DS-260, Online Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration Application“ and enter your Case Number.

• Step 2: Personal Information

Provide your personal information, including your full name, date of birth, place of birth, and nationality. Enter your passport information, including the passport number, issuing country, and expiration date.

• Step 3: Address and Phone Number

Enter your current address and phone number. If your address changes before your interview, update this information in the DS-260 form.

• Step 4: Marital Status and Family Information

Indicate your marital status and provide information about your spouse and children (if applicable). Include their full names, dates of birth, and passport information.

• Step 5: Previous U.S. Travel Information

Provide details about any previous travel to the United States, including the purpose of your visit, dates of travel, and locations visited.

• Step 6: Work/Education/Training Information

Provide details about your work, education, and training history. Include your current employer or school, as well as any previous employers or schools.

• Step 7: Security and Background Information

Answer questions about your background, including criminal history, immigration violations, and other relevant information.

• Step 8: Medical and Health Information

Answer questions about your medical history, including any physical or mental health conditions that may require treatment in the United States.

• Step 9: Miscellaneous Information

Provide any additional information that may be relevant to your visa application, such as previous visa denials or other immigration issues.

• Step 10: Review and Submit

Review all the information you have entered on the DS-260 form carefully to ensure it is accurate and complete.

Click the “Sign and Submit Application” button to submit your DS-260 form. Once submitted, you will receive a confirmation page with a barcode. Print this page and bring it to your DV interview.

Be aware that KCC can only tell you if your form has been processed. KCC cannot tell you whether or not you or your family members are eligible for diversity visas. Only the consular officer who interviews you can make that decision.

Note: On the Sign and Submit page of the DS-260, you will need to re-enter your DV case number without the zeros (e.g. if the case number is 2023AF0000012345, enter ‘2023AF12345’). Entering the full case number with zeros will generate a validation error.

In Conclusion:

Filling out the DS-260 form correctly is essential for your DV interview. By following these steps and providing accurate information, you can increase your chances of a successful visa application process. Once you’ve submitted the DS-260 online, you must print the confirmation page so you can bring it to your visa interview at the U.S. consulate in your country.

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. If you have any questions about the DV lottery, please contact an immigration professional/officer or a licensed attorney.

If you have checked the DV-2025 Diversity Visa Lottery results and discovered that you have been selected, congratulations! This is just the first step in the process. After checking for your DV-2025 lottery result, below are what you need to do next:

Step 1: Checking Your Diversity Visa Lottery Results

After checking the DV-2025 Lottery results online, and discovered that you have been selected, you will need to proceed for further processing.

Step 2: Complete the DS-260 Form

If you have been selected, you will need to complete the DS-260 form (Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration Application). This form collects information about you and your eligibility for the Diversity Visa program.

Read: How to Fill Out the DS-260 Form Correctly for Your DV Interview

Step 3: Gather Required Documents

You will need to gather various documents to support your application, including:

• Passport
• Birth certificate
• Marriage certificate (if applicable)
• Police certificates
• Medical examination records
• Other supporting documents as requested

Step 4: Attend the Visa Interview

Once you have submitted the DS-260 form and gathered all required documents, you will be scheduled for a visa interview at the U.S. embassy or consulate in your country. During the interview, a consular officer will determine if you are eligible for a visa.

Step 5: Receive Your Visa

If your visa application is approved, you will receive your visa, along with a sealed packet containing your documents. Do not open the sealed packet. You will need to present it to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer when you arrive in the United States.

Step 6: Travel to the United States

Once you have received your visa, you can make travel arrangements to the United States. You must travel and enter the United States before the expiration date on your visa.

Step 7: Adjust Your Status

After arriving in the United States, you will need to adjust your status to become a lawful permanent resident. This process involves submitting additional forms and documents to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

These are steps to follow after checking for your DV-2025 lottery result.

In Summary

Diversity Visa Program involves:

• Submit an Entry.
• Selection of Applicants.
• If You Are Selected.
• Confirm Your Qualifications.
• Submit Your Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration Application.
• Submit Supporting Documents.
• Interview.
• Prepare for the Interview.

In Conclusion:

Winning the DV-2025 Lottery is an exciting opportunity, but it also comes with several important steps and requirements. By following the instructions provided and preparing thoroughly, you can navigate the process successfully and start your new life in the United States. It is important to remember that selection does not guarantee you will receive a visa. In order to receive a DV to immigrate to the United States, selectees must still meet all eligibility requirements under U.S. law.

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. Please ignore any sites, organization or anyone asking or demanding any form of payment from you, for jobs or visa preparations. If you have any questions about the DV lottery, please contact an immigration professional/officer or a licensed attorney.

Passport for DV: After the DV lottery results are out, and you are among the selectee (i.e you won), the next thing is filling the DS-260 form.

Individual that are selected in the DV lottery and are waiting for their interviews, yet they don’t have this document, i.e the passport, this article will discuss about the passport for those that are waiting for the DV results and the passport throughout the whole process.

• Those waiting for the DV results

The concern around the passport, famously known as the travel document, is brought about by the fact that majority of you that are waiting for the results don’t have their passports ready. That’s what raises the anxiety.

Can you be able to fill the DS-260 form, even without the passport? That is the travel document.

The answer is yes, you can fill the DS-260 form even without the passport. Answering this question professionally or technically is that you need the travel document for you to successfully and can fully fill the DS-260 form and submit it. You need the travel document. There is that section where you’re supposed to fill the travel documents. You as the principal applicant and also in the DS-260s of the derivatives, there is a section that you’re supposed to fill in that information.

Therefore, a solid or the best answer to the question, Must you have the travel document in order to fill the DS-260 form? Yes, you need that document.

Immediately after filling the application, the DV Lottery application, if you are hopeful for the results to be positive, that is, you get selected, it is good that you start preparing or applying for the passport immediately. The reason is because, in some countries, there might be delays in getting the passport.

You would have ample time to apply and get it before the results are out. The passport in many countries, they don’t expire within a short time. They go up to 10 years of expiry. Even if you apply and you’re not successful during this DV Lottery, then apply the next DV Lottery and you get successful, then your passport will still be there with you. It is not a must that you have it for you to fill the DS-260 form.

What are you supposed to do? How do you go around the passport?

You might be knowing that you can use other travel documents if they are availed in your country. But if you don’t have the alternatives, what you’re supposed to do in that slot where you place your passport number, you can use any other document identifying you. For example, your national identification number, you can use maybe your baptism number or you can use whichever number that identifies you. Then you submit your DS-260 form.

This is important for those that have derivatives as well. If your derivatives are the ones without the passport, then you can use whichever documents that identify them in that regard, and then submit the document, the DS-260 form.

If it is your child and is not yet up to the age that he or she can obtain your national ID, then you can use your national ID as the principal applicant in their place, and then submit the DS-260 form. Because the point is to submit the DS-260 form early enough because the DS-260 forms are always processed in the order of their submission. So submitting early, that is the point.

Even if you don’t have the passport document, fill it using whichever identification number and then apply for the passport. Then afterwards, after you’ve gotten your travel documents, then you come back, request for the unlock from KCC, and then update the DS-260 forms.

• The second concern, the passport

This is for those that are already scheduled for the interviews and they don’t have the passport. The concern is, can they attend the interview even without the passport? The absolute answer is no. You can’t attend the interview without the passport. Why?

Because if you go through the interview you successfully and you get your visa approved, the visa itself is stamped onto the pages of the passport. If you don’t have a passport, where will they stamp that visa? It is a must that you go to the interview with your passport. If you don’t have the passport, you don’t have an option but to reschedule your interview to a later date when you will have your passport documents.

Even if you attend the interview, it won’t be successful without the passport. You will have to present the passport.

Having your passports ready with you, has a great deal of advantages.

1. You won’t be required to unlock your DS-260 forms for any update around the travel document section.
2. Having your passport gives you an upper end over those without, when it comes to opportunities. When you get an opportunity, then you are easier to relocate than those without.

Remember, there are many avenues to the United States, various visa to the United States. Even moving to other countries where you would like to, you need the passport. You have an advantage.

3. It does not expire soon, you can just apply, be with it and be trying those opportunities. Once you get it, you are just ready because you have the passport.

Question: What if the passport number I used for dv application expired and I got a new one, can I use the old passport number or the renewed passport number?

Answer: Change to the new one. You have to do it.

Question: WHEN YOU UNLOCK THE DS-260, AFTER GETTING THE PASSPORT, WILL IT NOT DELAY THE PROCESS TO GET 2NL??

Answer: No

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. If you have any questions about the DV lottery, please contact an immigration professional/officer or a licensed attorney.

This is yet another crucial document in the DV process, the DS-260 confirmation page. It is officially known as the Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration Confirmation page.

DS-260 Confirmation Page

What is DS-260 Confirmation Page? That document is the page that you get once you have completed filling the DS-260 form and you’ve clicked on “submit”, after submitting, then that page comes.

Question: When you complete and submit your DS-260 form, do you receive an email to confirm that you have submitted that DS-260 form?

Answer: Many people receives an email to affirm that, but also many people claim they do not receive that email. The confirmation page, as seen above, comes to confirm that you have successfully submitted the DS-260 form to the KCC.

DS-260 Confirmation Page Sample

Below is the DS-260 Confirmation Page sample:

It’s a two pager, as can see, it have immigrant visa and alien registration application confirmation. So it confirms that you have submitted the DS-260 form. Its states:

“You have successfully submitted an immigrant visa and alien registration application form, i.e from DS-260. This is a confirmation approved that you have submitted your DS-260 form to KCC.”

Still on the DS-260 Confirmation Page

As you can see above, it has a barcode with unique number to you as the applicant, and all the beneficiaries will have the DS-260 forms and will have their unique number.

Having said that, remember that you are supposed to fill the DS-260 form yourself as the principal applicant together with each member of your family. So you fill your DS-260 form and then add another DS-260 form for each member of the family.

What this mean is that, if you have a spouse, you add DS-260 form for the spouse. Fill up all the details that are needed and then click “submit” and you will have a “confirmation page” for that spouse. The same case applies to the kids. Each one should have his or her own DS-260 form and eventually their own “DS-260 conformation page”.

If you are a family of three, you will have three DS-260 confirmation pages. Only the principal applicants will not fill the DS-260 form.

Where does this DS-260 confirmation page apply?

As you can see above, they tell you to print out this confirmation page. Every DS-260 confirmation page for each and every person of your family should be printed out. You should print it in several copies because of the several areas you will have to use this confirmation page.

On the same note, remember that you will need the confirmation page, most importantly, during these two places:

First place: The DS-260 confirmation page together with other documents will be needed during the medical examination. Once you receive your second notification letter and you have booked a medical appointment, you will need to carry with you the requested documents (among those requested documents is the confirmation page of the DS-260 form).

So you will carry your confirmation page together with those of your family members. Make sure you print several copies for each one of them because you need them during the medical examination.

Second place: You will this confirmation pages during the DV lottery interview itself. You will need all the confirmation pages for the DS-260 form during the interview. This is a confirmation that you indeed submitted the year DS-260 form, and you will be requested for it during the interview, so carry with you alongside other documents while going to the DV lottery interview.

In conclusion

DS-260 Confirmation Page/document is very important. It is highly advisable that you print this page, once you have submitted the DS-260 form, you print it immediately. However, it is not that it is a must that you do that, because when you visit this page and key in your details, you can access the page. So any time you want to print it, you can access it. But. It is highly advisable that you print it immediately.

This guide have explained important things regarding the DS-260 confirmation page, which have you know now, all the days DS-260 forms that you need and you know everything regarding that.

Thank you for reading this guide.

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. If you have any questions about the DV lottery, please contact an immigration professional/officer or a licensed attorney.

This guide will clearly handle the things that you need to know as a DV applicant waiting for the DV results to be out. This guide is also very important to all those that have already been selected and are waiting for their DV interview.

As you are waiting for the DV lottery results, there are things that have never been discussed. You might not have thought of, but let’s get them one after the other.

While Waiting For The DV Results And Interview, You Need To Do these

Did you know that you need to have all the information regarding the DV lottery? This is because you applied, or you are planning to apply, or you have already been selected, and this shows that you have the interest of moving to the U.S with the DV Lottery. You need to gather all information regarding the DV Lottery. This is very important because it will lessen the chances of making mistakes. If you have information, you reduce the chances of making mistakes.

As you are waiting for the DV results to be out in the month of May, make an effort to understand the whole DV Lottery process. Know the pre-application requirements. Before you had applied, what did you need to know? You needed to know several things.

For example, how to apply, how to do it, because there are things that you need to do or to have not done, for a successful application. You need to know all the people that you’re supposed to add in your application. If you are single, you need to add none. If you are a single parent, you need to add all your kids. If you are married, then you need to add your immediate family, the nuclear family. That’s you need to know, plus other things that you need to know. The pre-application knowledge that you need.

After applying, there are things that you need to know because there are things that you need to do. While waiting for the results after applying, there are things that you need to do.

For example, as you’re waiting for the results, you may need to apply for the passport, if you don’t have already. If you are applying for passport, there are things that you need to do, one of them being passport application. As a principal applicant, the main applicant of the DV Lottery, it’s good that you get a passport, is very important because when filling the DS-260 form, you will require the passport information, the passport number, when filling the DS-260 form. You need for each and every member in your application.

You might fill the DS-260 and put some other numbers in that passport number location e.g, your national ID, just to stand as a placeholder and submit the DS-260 form, and then apply for the passport, and later on request KCC to unlock, and you change it with the passport number, that is possible. But why do so if you are able to obtain a passport early and then use the passport itself in that place when filling the DS-260 form.

In any case, if it’s worry about the passport expiry, remember that passports, they go up to 10 years before they expire, so you still have time. So even if you get it as early as possible, which is very good, there’s no harm. It’s good that you use the passport details right on the go. Fill it in the first filling of the DS-260 form and then submit it. With this, you will not need to request an unlock for you to update it with the passport information.

So while waiting for the results, get your passports and those of my derivatives. You need to know that as you’re waiting for the result, you may decide to get a passport.

Also, as you’re waiting for the results, there’s another thing that you need to know. If possible, try to look for connection with people already in the United States. Make friends with people in the United States through whichever means, through the social media, through the church, through activities. Get some connections with people already in the United States. You can join a community group in the United States. You can go to Facebook and join a social group of people already in the United States and actively socialize with them.

Reason: Because another thing that you need to fill the DS-260 form, and that is before you start filling, is a permanent address. You need a permanent address to fill the DS-260 form because you need an address in the United States, because that is the permanent address that you need to fill.

Make genuine friends, look for friends, people that later on can come and provide you with that address to fill as the permanent address, without which you cannot completely fill the DS-260 form. You need to know that.

Another thing that you need to know as you’re waiting for the results is that you need to also gather information regarding post-selection DV process. After you have been selected, if you are lucky, what are the steps that follow up to the end of the DV process? You need to gather that information as you’re waiting for the results.

If I win, what will be the next step? If I win, what follows? And after that, what follows? What do I need to get? Which documents do I need to have? Which step do I need to follow? What things should I not do? What things should I do for a successful interview? All those you need to gather that information.

Get everything that regards the steps after you have been selected. By doing that, you will be able to go through the DV process with minimum errors, if there is any.

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.

Can a low case number miss an opportunity for DV interview? In other words, can KCC fail to schedule an interview for a low case number? Hardly this happens, but it does not mean that it is impossible for that to occur. It’s not common, but it does happen.

We need to first of all understand how DV interviews get scheduled. How are they scheduled? First of all, interviews are scheduled or they are given according to the numerical order. They are done numerically and that is from those with low case numbers to those with high case numbers.

By that arrangement, low case numbers are highly likely to get their interviews, while high case numbers have a greater risk of missing their interviews.

Interviews are scheduled numerically based on the cut-off numbers in the visa bulletins. The cut-off numbers in the visa bulletin will increase gradually from low case numbers all the way to the highest case numbers, until the visas for the DV lottery are exhausted.

Once you have your case number, that is, you’re a winner, you should keep watch of the visa bulletins. Because by the visa bulletins, you will be able to tell when your interview is likely to be scheduled.

All case numbers that fall below the cut-off number in a specific visa bulletin, all those case numbers below it, they become current. By becoming current, that means they fall under the cutoff numbers and they are ready for interview processing.

All those case numbers below the cut-off numbers, they are eligible to be scheduled for an interview.

Once your case number is current, your case is put under a queue in your embassy, and that queue for your embassy is called the Allocated Visa Queue (AVQ).

Allocated visa queue is a queue for every embassy that has winners or case numbers below the cut-off number for a certain month. It simply means that you are ready for your interview to be processed.

If that queue is not long for your embassy, that means that you will soon be scheduled for the interview, you will soon receive your interview appointment. But if the queue is so long, that brings about what we call the backlog, meaning a lot of people in that queue waiting to be scheduled for an interview.

If you are on the farthest end of that queue, that simply means that it will take some time for you to get scheduled. You might be current, yes, and your DS-260 form has fully been processed, but simply because there are many people before you in that queue for your embassy, they allocated this queue for your embassy, then it will take a lot of time, maybe days, even up to months before you get an interview appointment, the second notification letter (2NL).

This AV queue, the allocated visa queue, people in that queue, they are also arranged in the numerical order. From the lowest case number in that queue to the highest case number in the same queue. But you should note that sometimes there might be some discrepancies in the order. There are some minor changes in the order.

You might find in the same queue that a person with slightly higher case number than the other being before that person with the low case number than this person. You might find a high case number before a low case number. Why does it happen that way sometimes?

Sometimes it happened because if you submitted your DS-260 form late, yet your case number is low, and that means that KCC came across your DS-260 form later on after they have already arranged that queue.

If the queue has been arranged, that is those numbers are current and yours also is current, but they had already processed the DS-260 forms and they have arranged that AV queue. If your DS-260 is processed after that queue has been arranged, then you’ll come to the end of that queue.

You’ll not jump those case numbers in that queue because your case number is low, no. You will come to the end of that queue because the queue had already been established. You’ll come to the end, and that is to mean, even if you have the low case number, these people that are current together with you that have higher case number than yours will be before you.

But you should know that normally the AV queue is arranged numerically from the low case number to the high case number.

Can a low case number miss DV interview? Can KCC not allocate an interview for a case number that is low?

REASON #1:

It rarely happens so, it’s not a common occurrence, but sometimes it happens. For example, the DV Lottery 2023 and the DV lottery 2022, if you are keen, you should have observed that in some embassies, people with even very low case numbers ended up not getting their interviews.

The reason was these embassies, they had not performed well enough to reach those low case numbers. So if an embassy is very slow, you might find other embassies within that region which perform very well have interviewed people with very high case numbers. But for this poorly performing embassy have not yet even interviewed a person with a low case number.

There are some people with AF 10,000, that is for Africa, not getting their interviews, while others with case number 58,000, even up to 63,000 getting interviewed in other embassies.

Therefore, if embassies perform poorly, they are likely that even low case numbers might not be reached for DV interview scheduling.

REASON #2: Another reason would be you failing to submit your DS-60 form

There are some people, winners of DV lottery but they forget that had applied for DV lottery and therefore they end up not submitting their DS-260 forms, and that mean even if they have low case numbers, they will not be scheduled.

If you fail to submit your DS-260 form, even with low case number, you cannot be scheduled for DV interview because KCC has no record of your application, your visa application (DS-260 form).

In conclusion

Normally, people with high case numbers have higher risk of missing DV interview as compared to those with low case numbers because the interviews get scheduled according to the numerical order of the case number.

Question: Am from Africa, my case number is 2024AF2**4 but I submitted my DS-260 on 25th August, do I still have a chance to be schedule for interview?

Answer: Yes. Though you submitted late for your case.

Question: Is this AV queue done by countries or regions?

Answer: There is AV queue behind every embassy.

Question: If my case is say less than 5000 in AF and submitted DS-260 on 31st May. Will you say it’s a late submission?

Answer: No. That is early.

Question: After receiving 2NL, On registering for the interview (confirming the date), the principal applicant realized only after that their names were not well entered (only surname with no given names), but that of their derivatives had no issues. Please how serious is this mistake and what can be done at this level?

Answer: There are no major issues. Just attend the interview with all documents and amend the names there on the first counter.

I hope the question, Can a low case number miss DV interview, have been answered. I hope this information is very useful.

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.

The famous Form DS-260 (immigrant visa form) is the form where many people who are looking for immigrant visa must fill. Among those people are people who are the DV lottery winners, who are supposed to fill this particular form.

What is DS-260 form, immigrant visa form? What are the key information or key things you need to pay attention when you’re filling this form?

This form is in different categories or different areas.

• Personal information

In order to fill this form and compete well, you need to have good information, the correct information about your educational level and work experience.

If you don’t have high school, you depend on work experience, then you have to put work experience in a very explanatory way so that you’ll be able to get the visa without any particular problem.

But while you’re filling this form, in order to complete this form, you need to have the address of where you’ll be staying in the United States of America. Many people don’t get the opportunity to have what is called “a host”.

So make sure that you find different ways to get the host, to get a person where you’re going to stay with, family or maybe a friend, whatever you are from your countryman that will be able to help you. There’s the address where you’ll be staying in the United States of America.

Apart from that one, other things will be very important. You have to fill them. Have the address where you’ve been staying, the name of your parents, your name, where you go to school, criminal record, what your intention in the United States, etc.

Once you submit that form, you’ll not be able to make any change. But if you want to make any change, you have to ask KCC, Kentucky Consular Center, to unlock your case number.

To unlock, you don’t need to give the reason. You put on the subject your name, your case number, and your date of birth, and then you ask them to unlock your case number, your DS-260, and want to make changes.

When requesting for unlocking of your DS-260, you don’t need to give the reason for that, maybe that you want to change because child is born or because someone died in the family, he’s not able to come. You don’t need to give all this explanation for that particular case.

Note: Once the interview schedule has been done, you cannot make any changes in your DS-260 form anymore. That is the time when the U.S Embassy will be able to have access to your DS-260. But if you go and make any change before the U.S embassy schedule interview date, U.S Embassy will not see that one.

Those edits, those changes you’re going to put are not in the final copy until the final submission and the visa interview schedule date has been set, then embassy will have that access.

Question: Can I edit or change information/anything or details of my DS-260, immigrant visa form, after submitting? Will the U.S Embassy see those changes?

If you are the DV lottery winner, when you submit your DS-260 form, it goes to KCC (Kentucky Council Center). Once you send the information, your form is locked, that means you cannot make any particular change.

You can make changes only if you ask KCC to unlock the DS-260. The request is very simple. You put your case number, you put your birthday and your name. On the body you just write them, “Please Unlock My DS-260 I want to make changes”.

You don’t need to explain the reason of that particular change. Once you make the unlock, you can make any particular change. The changes, the edits you do, it’s between you and the DS-260. Those changes will not be appearing or the U.S Embassy will not see all those when you are going to make those changes.

But once the DS-260 is fully locked and you are given the visa scheduled date, the second notification letter, that is when the U.S Embassy in the country were you are supposed to do the interview will have the access to that edited DS-260 form. That’s when they will see the final DS-260 with everything there.

They will not know whether you remove the name, you changed the name, you were single, you say you are married, etc, they will only see the final version of everything.

Yes, you can make changes with that particular procedures, but don’t worry they’re not going to see those information/changes at the U.S embassy.

Question: If you have a family, do you fill more DS-260 forms for your derivatives?

Let say for example, you are a family of six or more, does it mean that you will have to fill six DS-260 forms, or is it just one DS-260 forms and all derivatives will fall within the same?

When you go to fill the form DS-260, you fill as a main applicant, principal applicant. They will ask you a question, are you married? You will choose “Yes”. You put the information for your wife.

Are you coming with you a spouse, husband or wife? Do you have kids? You put their names there.

When you finished filling everything on your case. Then on the same page you signed in, there is an option called “Add Derivative”.

You click Add Derivative, then it comes another page. That page you are going to fill the information, the name, date of birth, full information of your son or your daughter, you will fill it there. After filling all the information, everything, then you add another derivative.

Within one DS-260, you have the option to click another derivative, if another page comes in, all will be done in a column.

So under the principal applicant, it will be derivative one, derivative two, derivative three, derivative four, derivative five, etc. As the principal applicant, you’re going to add all derivative.

If you don’t create their own page within your DS-260 form, it means they are not going to be given the visa. Because they will use your case number and everything.

You sign in one, but inside you are going to create extra pages, to add derivative in that particular sense.

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.

Your Case is Current For interview Processing But Not Received 2NL? What Should You Do?

If you emailed KCC (Kentucky Consular Center) to check the status of your diversity visa and you received this message,

“Your case number is now current for interview processing. Once the interview date has been scheduled, you will receive notification via email to check on this website, dvprogram.state.gov.

If you need to make changes to your DS-260, you should contact the consular section where you will be interviewed or bring the information about your changes to your interview appointment.

Because your case is ready to be scheduled, KCC can no longer unlock your application.

For additional information, please follow the following websites:

The Diversity Visa website: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/diversity-visa-program-entry/diversity-visa-submit-entry1.html

The diversity instruction website: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/diversity-visa-program-entry/diversity-visa-instructions.html

The DS-260 instruction website: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/diversity-visa-program-entry/diversity-visa-if-you-are-selected/diversity-visa-submit-your-iv-and-alien-registration-application.html

To enter the Diversity Visa program or check for the selection notice: https://dvprogram.state.gov/”

This is the message about which you will get the answer from this guide. If you have checked your status and above is the message that you have received through the email, this simply means that your case is now current.

Your Case is Current For interview Processing But Not Received 2NL?

KCC has already gone through your DS-260 form that you submitted and they have finished processing it. They are ready to transfer your case to the embassy and consequently send you the second notification letter, if you have not received it yet.

Therefore, this will depend upon the embassy. Does the embassy has the embassy the capacity to receive your case?

If the slot is there at your embassy, then KCC transfers your case to the embassy and you receive a second notification letter and you start getting ready for the interview. At this moment, if you want to make any necessary changes to your DS-260 form, it is impossible through KCC.

What you are required to do, as this email says, is that you are supposed to contact the embassy directly and request them for the changes.

Alternatively, you just go with those changes to your DV interview and at that point you will inform them of the changes for them to make the necessary changes to your DS-260 form.

That is what this message clearly means.

Some Frequently Asked Questions and Answer

Question: How do you get such email above?

Answer: Just email KCC requesting your status. You may get such response if you are current.

Question: How do you emails KCC?

Answer: Email to KCCDV@state.gov

Question: I received the same email but I didn’t receive the interview date email, is it possible they will not send an email anymore for interview date?

Answer: You will get it only after 4 conditions are met:

1. DS-260 processed (yours has been processed)
2. Number current
3. Embassy has a slot for interview (no backlog before you). Embassy performance
4. Visas have not run out.

Question: Am current and I have got my interview appointment but my DS-260 form is no were to be found, what can I do?

Answer: You don’t need DS-260 form, just the confirmation page.

Question: The date of birth on my school certificate doesn’t match on the actual birth certificate please what should I do?

Answer: Use that in the birth certificate in the DV process.

Question: I send email to KCC to unlock my DS-260. However they haven’t responded yet. But when I check my case status, it says completed and at the left side there is option to add applicant. Is this means that My DS-260 has been unlocked? Can I add my spouse name on add applicant? Or will KCC send you email that DS-260 has been unlocked?

Answer: Add and submit it if you married after you applied.

Question: What is the next step after the received 2NL?

Answer: You book medical examination, verify high school certificate.

Question: If your case number is current but haven’t received your 2NL, is it necessary to email KCC?

Answer: No need

Question: When one submits their DS-260, then one requests for unlock after few months, does the necessary corrections and submits again, does KCC consider your previous month you submitted or the second one?

Answer: They consider the details of the corrected DS-260

Question: What does it mean for a case to be in AV queue? At what stage does this occur?

Answer: Allocated visa queue. When KCC process cases, it allocates a visa to them and that’s only when they can send them to embassies (if they are current). If not current or embassy doesn’t have capacity, the processed cases are arranged in a queue in the order of processing. That is the AV queue.

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.

Filling the Immigrant Visa form DS-260: You have won the Diversity Visa Lottery and you need to fill the visa form called DS-260 form.

There are two types of visas for the United States. There are visas which are called immigrant visas and the visas which are called non-immigrant.

Immigrant visas are the visas for people who are going to live in America on a permanent basis. You have won the DV Lottery, you are going to become a permanent of the United States, for that particular case, you fill the DS-260 form.

Those who are going to U.S like student, tourist, visitors, exchange visitors or student, for a certain particular time, is called non-immigrant visas and they fill DS-160. The DS-160, Online Nonimmigrant Visa Application form, is for temporary travel to the United States, and for K (fiancé(e)) visas. Form DS-160 is submitted electronically to the Department of State website via the Internet.

But in this particular guide, we are talking about immigrant form, DS-260. This form has a lot of information. Don’t rush to fill the form and submit. There is no competition in submitting because one mistake can cause you not to be given the visa.

Filling the Immigrant Visa form DS-260

The form needs to have information about yourself, date of birth, place of birth, your education. You will be putting exactly the name of the school, exactly where did you study, which year, address. All the education level you have you are going to put there.

When it comes to the work experience, you will put all the work experience in the past five years you have.

If you are married, or divorced, even if your spouse passed away, you will put their information or you are not planning to go with your spouse, you have to put their information too.

If you have children, whether you are going with them or not going with them. First of all, you have to put them during the DV lottery application, then you have to indicate them in DS-260 form too.

Once you complete the DS-260 application form, you will submit the application.

But if you have married and you are planning to go with your spouse, then there is a place you add derivative, you are dependent in the application. You will open another profile within the form, to add your spouse.

If you have two children, you add the profile of each child who will be going with you and you’re going to fill all the information in the DS-260 form.

Once you submit the completed DS-260 form, then you wait for the next step, which is the request for the documents. But before the request for the documents, if at one point you find out you made a mistake in that DS-260 form, you want to make changes, you cannot make changes once that form is submitted.

What you need to do is call to request the authority which is Kentucky Consular Center, KCC, to unlock your case. When you win, they’ll give you the email address to communicate with KCC.

When writing the mail to KCC, you put the subject, you put their email address, and you don’t need to put much explanation, you ask them to “Please unlock my case number or my DS-260”. But you have to indicate your full name, date of birth, and also you have to indicate your case number so that they can be able to unlock it.

Sometimes it takes a week, two weeks, three weeks, depending on how busy they are.

To avoid unnecessary stress and pressure to think or to wait for them to unlock, make sure you fill everything correctly before you submit the form. Ask another person to review if the names, dates, matter, the place you lived before, everything is correct. So that you don’t need to have a pressure to unlock and then they are not unlocking for two, three weeks. Don’t do that.

Make sure that you fill the visa form correctly.

On the interview time, most of the things you filled in the DS-260 form, if you say you have master’s degree, they will want to see the master’s degree certificate. If you said you have two years of work experience from this organization, they want a proof.

So you must make sure that you put things which you can show as proof and which are true in that particular form.

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.

How do I know that KCC has received my DS-260, after I have submitted it? Does KCC send an email notification showing you that they have received your DS-260? This guide will give you answer to this questions.

Majority of those applicants that submitted their DS-260s, they don’t receive an email telling them that KCC has received their DS-260.

However, there are some cases that they received an email notification from KCC informing them that KCC has received their DS-260 form. Therefore, those are the two answers.

Sometimes KCC may send a notification to you saying that they have successfully received your DS-260, but many other times they might not send you the notification.

But, how do you know that KCC has received your DS-260 form?

Upon finishing your DS-260 and submitting it successfully, you will receive the confirmation page and this confirmation page has this information that will assure you that it has been successfully sent to KCC.

Confirmation Notification After Submitting DS-260 to KCC

Check sample of the confirmation page attached below:

It says….

“Thank you

You have successfully submitted an immigrant visa and alien registration application (form DS-260). You must bring to your visa interview proof that you submitted this form by printing a confirmation page using the below button.

Do not print a copy of this screen. Use the below print confirmation button to print a page with a unique barcode related to the visa application.

You can print a confirmation from this website at any time.”

That information is a confirmation by itself, that your DS-260 has been successfully submitted.

In conclusion

The above sample is the page that you are supposed to print and present it during your interview to the consular officer. You print it by clicking the button down below saying “Print”. Don’t print the website page, but click the “print” button for you to get the confirmation page printed with a unique barcode.

That is the confirmation of your successfully submitted DS-260 form.

Question: How do you know your case has been processed?

Answer: You can write to KCC and request

I hope the information is very clear.

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.

This guide concerns filling of names during the application of the DV lottery and also during the filling in of the DS-260 form.

If you are currently making your application into the DV Lottery, or if you are currently dealing with the DS-260 form because you are a DV selectee, then this guide is for you.

Make sure you read this guide to the end because the answer is found in the end. Don’t read the first parts and jump into conclusion.

Names on DV lottery Application and DS-260 Form

The issue on names has raised a lot of questions to many, and the concern is on what to fill in the DV lottery application or in the DS-260 form.

In an earlier guide, I discussed in details, that the birth certificate is a very important document when doing your DV lottery application.

That means that the names that you have or that are indicated on your birth certificate in their order, you’re supposed to use that. Because that will eliminate a lot of errors or mistakes that can face you later on.

If you are married and you have a different name, maybe you took the name of your spouse, and on the marriage certificate, you have the name of the spouse added onto your names. You are allowed to use those names because they are your legal names as of now. You can use your married names in the application.

Another thing, many people are wondering that the names that appear on their passports differ from the names that appear on the birth certificate. That on their birth certificate they might be having two names, but on their passport, they have three names.

First of all, remember that in every country there is an embassy, a United States embassy. In those countries, the embassies in those countries, they are well-conversant and they know how your birth certificate and your passports look like.

For example, if you take an example of Ghana, the birth certificate might be having either two or three names, and the passport you might find others having up to four names. The embassy in Ghana, Accra, they know the naming systems that will apply on those both documents.

So when you use your birth certificate as the names during the application, then the embassy knows of that. Even if you come with your passport and it has four names, they well know the naming system of your country.

In Kenya, for example, majority of the birth certificate, if not all, they have two names, your two names, and there below we have the parents, the male parent and the female parent. But when it comes to the birth certificate and any other documents, the academic documents, you’ll find majority having three names. That is, they are given names plus the family name.

The embassy in Nairobi, the United States embassy in Nairobi, they are aware of that the birth certificate contain two names, the names of the parents. But any other document, including the passport, may have three names: the given name plus the family name.

This is not an issue that should bother you so much. But what happens when your birth certificate has two names, for example, and your passport has three name, for example, and your academic documents, some have two names while others have three names?

First of all, if you apply and you’ve used your birth certificate name, then if you get selected and in the process of filling in the DS-260 form, you will put the names that you used in the application and any other extra name.

If you have an inclusive family name, an additional family name, then you will include during the DS-260 form where it says, have you ever used other names? That is the maiden, the religious, the professional, etc.

In that slot, if you select yes, it gives you a slot where you are to insert any other name that you used. So it is in this place that you will add that extra name. Having done so, then you have no problem at all.

You have to include all the names used in the DS-260 form, and this will help because it will give additional information of all the names that you used, covering those on the documents, the academic documents, the passport, and also the birth.

So make sure during the filling in of the DS-260 form, you include all the names that you have ever used.

Secondly, you will have to go ahead and swear an affidavit of name. This is just to keep you on the safe side. If you have two names on your birth certificate and maybe three names on your passport or four, then it’s good that for you to be on the safe place, you swear an affidavit of name.

This is done before an advocate or before the court. It is a stamped document proving that though the names they differ, the number of names on your different documents they differ, you are still the same person holding that name.

An affidavit of name would be very effective. Before you go for your interview and you have different names appearing on your different documents, swear an affidavit of name and go with it to the interview.

In any case they ask you why they differ, you will present the affidavit of name. Also, the names that appear on your DS-260 form will also act as an evidence.

Some Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

Question: If you added a name which is different from the one on your high school certificate, where can you indicate the old name on the DS-260 form, incase of background check?

Answer: Other names used.

I hope this guide is clear.

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.

This guide is important to all the DV winners, including the DV lottery 2023. Because towards the end, you’ll learn a lot of information regarding the questions on DV program and first email response before or when DS-260 is processed.

For the DV lottery 2024 winners, your time is not yet. That is the time for your interview. As you know, the interviews will begin from October and will run through to the 30th of September 2025. So as we are speaking, it’s not yet time.

Regarding how you can check your status at the moment, your information on the CEAC is not yet, that is the CEAC website. Your information is not yet and you cannot check on that website for your status. Your information will be out from the first of January and therefore, at this very moment, how can you check the progress of your case?

The only legal and legit way to check the status of your progress is by contacting KCC. You email KCC and then ask off the progress of your case.

Another thing that you need to know is majority of the DV Lottery 2024 winners have already submitted their DS-260 forms and only a few have not. Once you submit your form DS-260, then KCC will go through your form.

As they are looking or going through the information on your DS-260 form, we say they are processing your DS-260. When KCC begins or decide to process DS-260 forms submitted at a particular time, for example, if they decide to begin to process DS-260 forms submitted, let’s say in the month of May, all the DS-260 forms submitted in that month will be processed, regardless of the case number.

They’ll move to another time, let’s say, for example, the month of June. If they take on the month of June, all the DS-260 forms submitted in the month of June will be processed, regardless of the case number. If it’s high or low, that will not matter.

And then they move on, maybe to the month of July, and process all the DS-260 forms that were submitted in that month, regardless of the case numbers.

When you send KCC a status request, and at that time, they have not opened your DS-260 form yet, or they have opened and they are currently going through the information in there, then this is the email response that you expect to get.

First Email Response Before / When DS-260 is Processed

Read through it and get some important things that you should know today. This is the email.

“Thank you for your inquiry.

Your forms have been received and are currently processing. Allow several weeks for processing. Interviews are scheduled numerically based on case numbers that have completed processing.

Once the Kentucky Consular Center, that is KCC, has finished processing your DS-260, you will receive an email from the Kentucky Consular Center giving you instructions to complete in order for your case to continue processing.

In order for the Kentucky Consular Center to assist with inquiries regarding a specific Diversity Visa (DV) case, you must provide the principle applicant’s full name, complete case number, and date of birth in the following format (MM/DD/YYYY) as entered in the original entry.

Please remember that Kentucky Consular Center does not have the authority to tell you whether or not your specific case will be disqualified. Only a Consular Officer can do that at the time of your visa interview.

Do not send any paper documents to the Kentucky Consular Center. For additional information, please refer to the following………..”

Basically, this is the email response that you expect to get, if your DS-260 form has not been opened or has not been completely processed.

Some few things to get from the email is that you should add allow for some weeks for processing. So it takes some time for KCC to get your number and process it. This means it may take any time between two weeks and several weeks, up to several months.

Then interviews are scheduled numerically based on case numbers that have completed processing. Scheduling of case numbers are scheduled numerically. By numerically, it means from the lowest case number to the highest case number of all the cases that have been processed.

If you have a considerably lower case number and you fail to submit your DS-260 form early enough, you’ll find out that someone with considerably higher case number than you will be scheduled for the interview before you because your case was not processed at the time.

You had submitted your case number late and therefore it was processed later. And this one with higher case numbers than you who had submitted the DS-260 early enough will have DS-260 form processed and scheduled even before you.

So for all the cases that are processed for a particular period, the numbers will be arranged from the lowest case number to the highest case number within that time. If you have a low case number and you fail to submit it early enough for it to be processed, then you will find out some higher case numbers scheduled before you, even if that is not the case.

Submit your case, your DS-260 form early so that when they are scheduled numerically, you are also included and you receive your interview invitation, i.e the 2NL (Second Notification Letter), before someone with higher case number than you.

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.

If you have any questions about the DV lottery, please contact an immigration professional/officer or a licensed attorney.

Let discuss four (4) important things that you might have forgotten or you might forget while filling the DS-260 form. This is very important and very crucial to the success of your DV process.

4 Important Things You Might Easily Forget When Filling The DS-260 Form

1. Medical Section

The first one is regarding the medical section. There is a part on the DS-260 form that regards the medical, and specifically that part that requests you or asks you whether you have any form of documentation to prove that you have received the vaccines as per the United States law.

On that very part where you are supposed to check either a yes or no, regarding whether you have the documentation to prove whether you have received all the vaccinations. On that section, you are supposed to select yes.

You might ask, but I’ve not received the vaccinations, why should I fill a yes?

First of all, whether or not you have received those vaccinations as per the U.S government law, you are supposed to select yes. If you select no, do it at your own risk, but select yes. Below are reasons:

(i) This question applies during the interview when you are before the consulate or the officer interviewing you. At that time, this question applies at that time. That is when you will be required to present the proof of the vaccination, and that proof of vaccination, you get it from your medical examination.

Remember, you get your medical examinations prior to the interview, which means you will have received all the necessary vaccinations that you don’t have. If you don’t have any of the vaccination or some of the vaccinations, then you will get them administered to you during the medical examination.

So when selecting these, select a yes. Don’t forget this during filling the DS-260 form.

2. Social Security Number

Another thing that people mess up when filling or they might forget during filling the DS-260 form is on that part that talks on the Social Security Number information towards the end of the DS-260 form.

That section that requests you if you can give authorization to the United States government, that is the Homeland Security Department, or the Social Security Administration to access your information on the DS-260 form for them to assign you a Social Security Number.

In that section, you are supposed to check either a yes or no. You might choose to deny them access, or you might select to allow them the access. That is the best way, giving them access to your information for them to assign you a social security number, as well as that social security card.

So when filling that part, ensure you check on the yes button. Select yes that you authorize the access of your information to the Home Land Security Department and the Social Security Administration and any other government office, for them to assign you the Social Security Number.

When you select that option, which is a yes, that means when you land in the United States, you will not be required to do another application for the Social Security Number.

If you select a no, then upon landing in the United States, you will be required to do an application for the Social Security Number with the United States.

You’ll go to the Social Security Administration Office and do an application. So why go through this process? You can save yourself from this whole process by choosing Yes on the DS-260 form to allow those administrations to access your information.

3. Creating DS-260 forms for your derivatives

Remember, as a principal applicant, you fill the DS-260 form and you include all the information, including those of your derivatives. Once you have finished up with your DS-260 form as the principal applicant, you need to create other DS-260 forms for your derivatives for each one of them.

If you have a spouse, you create her DS-260 form. If you have kids, you create for each one of them. Many people forget doing this. Remember to create DS-260 forms for each and every one in your application.

4. Printing Confirmation pages for each and every member in your application

Another thing that people forget is to print their confirmation pages for each and every member in the application, i.e your derivatives.

So upon finishing and submitting your form DS-260, together with those of your derivatives, if you have, then you need to print the confirmation pages for each one of you.

These confirmation pages are important during the medical examination, as well as during the interview. You will be required to present these confirmation pages for each and every one in your application.

Those are just four of the things that you might forget when filling the DS-260 form.

I hope this information is very useful to you.

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.

If you have any questions about the DV lottery, please contact an immigration professional/officer or a licensed attorney.

DS-260 Expiration and Submission Deadline:

• Does the DS-260 form expire?
• Is there a deadline of submitting my DS-260 form?
• After winning the DV Lottery, when should you fill out the visa form, DS-260?

Those three obvious questions are going to be answered in this guide, read and get the knowledge.

Does the DS-260 form expire?

Yes, the DS-260 form expires. Just as with the other forms by the Immigration Department, other forms by the USCIS, they do expire. But let’s understand what expiry means on these documents.

Every batch of documents or forms that are released by the USCIS or any other department of the United States that needs to collect information from individuals, all those forms have an expiration date.

So their batch numbers always change, and when one batch or serial number comes to the end of when it was intended to serve, then it needs a replacement with a newer version. When it comes to this, then the end date for which those forms were to serve is called the expiration date.

If you take the example of DS-260 form, the DS-260 form normally changes over time, and when we are shifting from one DS-260 form to the next one, the next version with some updates, then we say that the form has reached its expiration.

You’ll see the notification that the DS-260 form will expire at such a date. That’s what we call the expiration. So when you see an expiration date of a particular form, e.g form I-134, form DS-260, form DS-5535, etc, that means that the end of that batch number or that serial number has come and a newer version, normally with some few updates, is going to be rolled out.

Does the expiration date affect your DS-260 form that you have filled and you have submitted?

Definitely no.

When you are filling the DS-260 form, the only form that you get, is the form that is currently serving, even if it has only one day to expiry, that form that you’re filling is the one that is valid at that moment, and there’s no problem with that.

It is the form that you are supposed to fill. Once you fill it and submit it, even if a new version is enrolled after the expiration of the one that was serving your details, they are safe. They are not affected in any way. You are not required to fill a newer DS-260 form. It won’t be possible. So it does not affect your DS-260 form at all.

Is there a deadline for submitting the DS-260 form?

The answer is an absolute yes. The deadline for submitting the DS-260 form is normally 30th September of that fiscal year.

For example, if you are a DV selectee for the DV Lottery 2023, then the deadline for submitting the DS-260 form is the end of the fiscal year 2023, and that is 30th September 2023.

If you are a DV Lottery 2024 winner, then you have until the end of the fiscal year 2024 and that is 30th September 2024.

Normally the end of the fiscal year for a certain DV program is the end of all the interviews regarding that DV program.

So if you are waiting to submit the DS-260 form at the end of the fiscal year, then that’s a very perfect lateness and that means you cannot be scheduled for the interview. Even your DS 260 form wouldn’t be processed. There’s no time for that.

Therefore, if you are a DV winner, the best practice is to submit your DS-260 form as early as you can.

After winning the DV Lottery, when should you fill out the visa form, DS-260?

After checking the results, you find out you are the winner of the diversity of the lottery. The question is, after knowing that you are the winner, when should you go and fill the famous DS-260 form (visa form)? How long should you wait until you go to fill that particular form? Should you feel right away? Should you wait a little bit longer? Does the U.S government through Kentucky Consular Center (KCC) process the visa interviews on first come, first serve basis?

If you find out you have won the diversity of the lottery, you can fill the visa form as soon as possible. But there are some of the things you need to know because you might come to regret later.

You must fill the form for the visa and submit only if you have everything required to have to complete the form. Make sure you have all the important documents.

If you are planning to get married, get married first before you complete the DS-260. Let’s say if you were the winner and you are pregnant or you are dependent of someone and you are pregnant and the child is going to be born in June or July, don’t rush to fill the submit form. You can fill the form, but you don’t need to submit yet. Wait until the child is born, get the passport, and just going to submit all at once.

Once you fill the form and submit, and for sure you know there are some of the information you don’t have, then you need to request for KCC to unlock the DS-260 so that you can fill that particular information to make it complete.

Sometimes KCC can take even seven weeks or nine weeks to just go and unlock your document. Sometimes the stress of waiting for them to unlock the DS-260 is higher than just if you could wait for one more month to go to submit.

Make sure that you have everything before you go to apply, before you go to fill the DS-260. Make sure everything is ready before filling and submitting.

I hope this guide on DS-260 Expiration and Submission Deadline have answered those questions above.

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.

The fourth email response that you might get from KCC.

Note: There are other series of Email Response From KCC that you might get. Today we will learn the fourth email response that you might get from KCC.

The Fourth Email Response From KCC

Thank you for your inquiry.

Your case number is now current for interview processing. Once the interview date has been scheduled, you will receive notification via email to check https://dvprogram.state.gov.

If you need to make changes to your DS-260, you should contact your consular section where you will be interviewed or bring the information about your changes to the interview appointment. Because your case is ready to be scheduled, KCC can no longer unlock your application.

In order for Kentucky Consular Center to assist you with inquiries regarding a specific Diversity Visa (DV) case, you must provide the principal applicant’s full name, complete case number, and the date of birth in the following format (MM/DD/YYYY) as entered on the original entry.

Please remember that KCC does not have authority to tell you whether or not your specific case will be disqualified. Only a consular officer can do that at the time of your visa interview.

Do not send any paper document to KCC. For additional information, please refer to the following……………………………

This is the fourth response that you should expect. Clearly, as you can see, this says that your case number is current for interview processing. You only get this response after your case has become current.

Let’s say you’ve checked the visa bulletin, and you realized that your case number lays below the cut-off number indicated on the visa bulletin. That means that your case number is now current and you are qualified to be scheduled for an interview in the mentioned month of the visa bulletin.

You should be anticipating for the long anticipated 2NL.

Few things to note:

This email has revealed some important information, and that is about updating the DS-260 form after your interview has become current. If your case has become current, this means that KCC now has no authority to unlock your case.

If you realize that you have made some mistakes or you have something that you need to update, then it says, “once your case is current, the only way that you can do the changes is by contacting the consular section.” That is the embassy of your interview and is the only way because they are the only one who can unlock at this point, KCC has no authority to unlock a case that is current.

Alternatively, it says, go with those changes that you are intending to do to the interview. At the interview, you are able to change those details and you do this specifically on the first desk that you go, where your request is for the documents, you can do the changes.

This is the major point that has been emphasized by this note.

Note: Do not send any paper documentation to KCC. Initially, after filling the DS-260 form, you were supposed to send the papers to KCC for them to process and then wait for the interview and again go with the paper. This process was scrapped off.

So after filling the DS-260 form, you only are required to wait for the second notification letter (2NL), and after you get the second notification letter, then you can go with the documents to the interview.

Below are other email responses that you might receive from KCC:

• The First Email Response From KCC and How to Request Your Case Status From KCC
• The Second Email Response From KCC | When Requesting Your Case Status From KCC
• The Third Email Response From KCC | When Requesting Your Case Status From KCC
• The Fifth Email Response From KCC | When Your DV Interview Has Been Schedule At U.S Embassy

Question: Can you transfer your case when your case has been processed and your case is current on the bulletin too?

Answer: If current, KCC has no authority to open DS-260 for you to edit. However email KCC for the changes, to see their response.

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.

Still on the email responses that you might receive once you send a request to KCC about the current status of your case. This guide will focus on the third response that you might receive from KCC.

The Third Email Response From KCC | When Requesting Your Case Status From KCC

Below is a sample of third email response you might receive from KCC:

“Thank you for your inquiry.

Records indicate you have submitted a complete and valid DS-260 application for each family member, and you have provided all required documentation to the Kentucky Consular Center (KCC).

Interviews are scheduled numerically based on case numbers that have been completed processing.

Please refer to the Visa bulletin at http://travel.state.gov to locate the current numbers being processed. This bulletin is updated after every 15th day of each month.

Once an interview date has been scheduled, you will receive notification via email to check the dvprogram.state.gov.

In order for Kentucky Consular Center to assist with inquiries regarding a specific Diversity Visa (DV) case, you must provide the principal applicant’s full name, complete case number, and date of birth in the following format (MM/DD/YYYY) as entered in the original entry.

Please remember that KCC does not have authority to tell you whether or not your specific case will be disqualified. Only the Consular Officer can do that at the time of your interview.

Do not send any paper documents to KCC. For additional information, follow the following……………….”

This is the third email response. From previously guide, we saw an email response that you might get once your DS-260 has been completely processed.

The above email follows after checking with them and you waited for some time and still your case number is not current, and later on you request the status of your case, then you might receive this email.

It says, records show that you have already submitted a complete DS-260 form for all the members, and it is a valid DS-260 form. It also says that interviews are scheduled numerically from low case number to the highest case numbers.

It insists on the importance of checking the Visa bulletin that is released after the 15th day of every month, to know the status of the cases that are current. It says that only the Consular Officer can tell you whether you are successful or not, and not the KCC.

It also says that once your interview has been scheduled, once your case is current, and once the Embassy has some vacancies, then you will receive your second notification letter and that is the letter informing your date of interview.

That is it about the Third Email Response you might receive from KCC, when requesting your Case Status from KCC. I hope you are now conversant with this email because you might receive this email response.

Below are other email responses that you might receive from KCC:

• The First Email Response From KCC And How to Request Your Case Status From KCC
• The Second Email Response From KCC | When Requesting Your Case Status From KCC
• The Fourth Email Response From KCC | When Your Case is Current for DV Interview Processing
• The Fifth Email Response From KCC | When Your DV Interview Has Been Schedule At U.S Embassy

Thank you for reading this guide.

Some Frequently Asked Questions About DS-260 Form and Case Number

Question: When filling the DS-260 form for a family, is it only the principal applicant passport number that is required.

Answer: For all.

Question: Did this email means that the DS-260 have been processed?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Can you fill the DS-260 form without the passport?

Answer: No, as the principal applicant you have to have it.

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.

Does unlocking the DS-260 form cause you harm or delay on your DV Process? Does it cause any delay in the processing of your case? This is what has been answered in this guide.

Contrary to what information you get regarding unlocking your DS-260 form, unlocking your DS-260 form once you’ve realized you had made some serious mistakes, is ultimately an important step to take and it is very crucial for your case.

Those that says that unlocking your DS-260, you harm your chances or you cause delay to your cost and therefore you should not unlock, they are actually not correct.

There are errors that you might do on your DS-260 form that will end up ruining your chances. They will lead to your visa denial.

For such type of errors, the only way around them, the only remedy to them, is to write to KCC and request them to unlock your DS-260, specifying the specific DS-260, whether it is yours or your derivatives, and update it to the correct information.

Can that process cause you any harm or will it cause any delay?

The answer on the highest side is definite no, and on the lowest side is yes. What does that mean?

Majority of the corrections made on the DS-260 forms, they never cause any delay. For example, you are a DV Lottery 2023 winner and you submitted your DS-260 around May of last year, and later on you discovered that you had error in entering some critical information.

In around August you requested the form to be unlocked and it was unlocked and you updated the DS-260 and submitted. Then the interviews began in the month of October last year. If you take such a scenario, and let’s say your case number is around 10000AF, or 5000AS, if you take that case, there will be no delay.

What does it mean? If you have a case number that is not yet near to getting current and then you request unlocking and you update the information, there will be no delay at all. On this other side, if your case number is current and at that time of which you cannot tell, KCC is about to transfer your details to the embassy for the interview scheduling, at that time of which you cannot tell, and then you request unlocking of your DS-260.

Then definitely they will hold back, until you do the changes for them to hand over the case to the embassy. That is obvious. But those, as you can tell, are very rare cases.

So people saying that you are causing a harm to your case by you unlocking, then they are not correct.

On the other hand too, what will be the benefit of you not updating your DS-260, yet you realized you had a grievous mistake and you end up being denied the visa, yet you had the chances of unlocking?

What if, even if you request unlocking and the case is delayed for some time and then you get to the interview and you are issued with the visa because you had corrected the errors?

Or what if it might cause any delay? Which one of these will you take?

For the first scenario, you realize you have made a mistake, you decide not to change anything at all, you end up in the interview with the errors and because of the errors you get visa denial.

For the second scenario, you realize that you have made some mistakes, you write to KCC to unlock your case, you do the necessary changes or amendments and you submit your DS-260 form and if it happens, then it delays.

Then you go to your interview and simply because you corrected the errors, you get your visa approved. Which of those would you take?

That’s why the idea that people are giving you that you should not unlock for you not to cause any delay is not correct.

What would you benefit if you lose your chance because you did not update the information?

In conclusion

A bigger percentage of those cases that are corrected, they are never delayed, and only a small percentage get some kind of delay. It is better for you to even get a delay and correct the errors and get your visa approved, then not to correct the errors in fear of your case getting delayed, and at the end of it, you get denied the visa.

So, if you realize that you have made any mistake, don’t hesitate to request unlocking for you to update the information, to be on the safe side.

The mistakes that should cause you to request unlock, they should be those critical mistakes. For example, if you made errors in your names or some other personal related information, you need to change them.

Thank you for reading this guide. I hope it gets you at the right time and it clears your doubt and your worries.

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.

If you have any questions about the DV lottery, please contact an immigration professional/officer or a licensed attorney.

What next after Submitting DS-260 form? This is another guide of interest to diversity visa applicants and it has to do with what comes next after you have submitted your DS-260.

Everyone is aware that after you get to elected in the Diversity Visa Lottery, the next thing to do is to fill out and submit your DS-260. But remember that you should consider your circumstances and not rush into submitting the form.

After submitting your DS-260 form, what do you do next?

In recent years after submitting your DS-260, you were also required to submit a list of supporting documents to KCC. But that is not always the case.

Depending on what the State Department decides for a particular year, you may or may not be requested to submit supporting documents to KCC.

So if submitting supporting documents to KCC is a requirement that applies during your program year, then after submitting your DS-260, you will have to submit your supporting documents.

But in case submitting supporting documents to KCC is not a requirement during your program year, then after submitting your DS-260, your next line of action will be to turn your attention to the Visa Bulletin.

Remember, after the Diversity Visa Lottery results are released in the month of May and you see that you were selected, the Visa Bulletin that is published in that month of May does not concern interviews for your program.

The one that is published in the month of June does not concern interviews for your program. Neither does the one that is published in the month of July.

It is from the month of August that the Vista Bulletin is going to show information regarding interviews for your program and that is when you have to begin to follow the Visa Bulletin, if you are selected from the results published in the month of May.

It is the Visa Bulletin that will tell you when your diversity visa interview is supposed to be scheduled.

When you see from the Visa Bulletin that your case number has become current, then it means that there is a Visa number available for you and that is when your diversity visa interview is actually supposed to be scheduled.

How do you know when your case number is current?

Every month the Visa Bulletin shows a number for each region. That number is referred to as the cut-off number for that region, for that month.

So when you see that the cut-off number for your region for a given month is higher than your case number, then your case number is current for that month and it means that it is in that month that you are supposed to be scheduled for your diversity Visa interview.

That is for cases that submit their DS-260 before their case number becomes current in the Visa Bulletin.

There are cases when the applicants have not yet submitted their DS-260 but the Visa Bulletin shows that their case number has become current. In such a case, there will be a Visa number available for such applicants, but their Visa interview will not be scheduled because they have not yet met the necessary requirement, which is the submission of their DS-260 and in cases where they are required to submit documents, the submission of their documents.

For clear understanding, if you submit your DS-260 and possibly your documents before your case number becomes current, then you will have to wait for your case number to become current, in order for you to be scheduled for interview.

For example, your case number is 7200 in the Africa region, and you check the Visa Bulletin in the month of August. You will realize that there’s information for the month of September and the month of October.

The month of September concerns the previous program. So it is the information that relates to the month of October, which is the first information concerning your program that you are going to change your attention to.

You see that the cut-off number that applies to the region of Africa in the month of October is 2500. It means that you cannot be scheduled in the month of October because the cut of number is lower than your case number.

So you will have to wait until the Visa Bulletin is published in the month of September, when it will be showing information for both October and November.

Also, you look at the information that pertains to the month of November. If the cut-off number for the Africa region is, e.g 5000, you will still not expect to be scheduled in the month of November. You will have to follow again for the month of December.

The Visa Bulletin that will show information for the month of December will be released in the month of October.

So let us say that the cut-off number that is shown for the month of December is 8000. Because that cut-off number is higher than your case number of 7200. It means that it is in the month of December that you can expect to be scheduled for interview.

On the other hand, if you do not submit and your case number becomes current, you will have to submit before you can expect to be scheduled for interview.

For example:

You saw that your case number will be current for the month of December, but up until December you have not yet submitted your DS-260. You submit the form after December.

When you submit after December, that is when the form will be processed and your interview is expected to be scheduled along with the next batch of interviews because your case number has been current since the month of December.

So that is how things are after you submit your DS-260.

Note: For the past few years, things have not worked in that way, maybe due to the effects of COVID-19.

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.

If you have any questions about the DV lottery, please contact an immigration professional/officer or a licensed attorney.

How to Correct Mistake on DS-260 After Submitting: There is this question, can I update my DS-260 once I have filled it up and submitted? Or What if I realized that I made mistakes, can I request unblocking for me to update my DS-260?

First of all, once you’ve completed filling the DS-260 and you have submitted it, the system will show the DS-260 as completed. When the form status show completed, it is locked for editing. You cannot edit it.

But remember, an accurately filled DS-260 form is very essential for the success of your case.

Back to this question, Can I update my DS-260 form once I have submitted it? The answer is yes, you can update it. But how?

How to Correct Mistake on DS-260 After Submitting

If you need to change anything in your DS-260 form, you’ll have to email the KCC asking them to unlock your DS-260, so that you can make the changes.

Below is a sample email you can use it to request KCC to unlock the principals DS-260:

The KCC email address is as shown above is KCCDV@state.gov. You can see on the main body of the email, is requesting the KCC to unlock the DS-260, meaning the principal applicant’s DS-260.

The subject of the mail as shown, will read “Unlock Request”. In the body of the email, you will have to be specific, you will include your names (that is the first name, the middle name and the last name).

You will have to indicate your case number, indicate your date of birth, the American format.

Then you will have to tell the KCC which DS-260 form they are to unlock for you. This sample shows the principal applicant unlocking. This email will request the KCC to unlock the part of the principal applicant for review, to unlock the DS-260 for the derivatives.

As you can see in the body of the email, you will have to specify to KCC which derivatives DS-260 form you want them to unlock for you for revision.

There is no limitation to the number of times you can ask KCC to unlock your DS-260 form for revision.

Note that the interviewing Consular Officer will be able to know the number of changes that you did. But you have not to worry about that because it not affect anything.

Also note that you cannot request unlocking once your interview has been scheduled, because at this point, it is only the embassy that can unlock your DS-260 form.

Will the unlocking of the DS-260 leads to the delay of the scheduling of my interview?

If your case is going to be current in many months to come, then there’s no concern about delay. But if your case will be current in the near future, then the answer may be no or possibly yes in some cases.

For example, if you are requesting the unlock to add the details of a newborn, then this will not cause any delay.

But if you are requesting unlock for you to add maybe your spouse, since this is a grown up, an adult, and he or she has to go through some background checks, then this means there’ll be some delay.

Another example that may cause some delay is when you request unlocking for you to add travel details. If you are adding travel details of a country that has cases with terrorism, definitely they’ll have to do some background checks of the travels. So this can cause some delay.

Also, if your case is going to be current soon and then request unlocking for you to revise your dates of birth or name, there might be some possible delays.

Some minor changes like changing the address in the United States or the work experience might not cause any delay. But remember, it’s better to get some delay, but have a correctly filled up DS-260 form because it will determine your success at the embassy.

So request unlocking for you to make the necessary changes. Do not consider delays. Another point to note is that requesting for unlocking towards the end of the processing year.

Let’s say for example, you request for unlocking in the month of July, then it might be impossible for the unlocking. This is because the KCC will not be having enough time to schedule for your interview.

Therefore, it is important for you to request the KCC to unlock your DS-260 form as soon as possible. As early as you realize there is mistake, make sure you request for unlocking for you to update your DS-260.

That’s all about unblocking and updating your DS-260.

I hope the information was useful to you.

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.

If you have any questions about the DV lottery, please contact an immigration professional/officer or a licensed attorney.

This guide will answer some frequently asked questions about DS-260 Form and Case Number.

Question: The DS-260 online form responds to me like “the case number entered is currently unavailable”. Why and how can it be solved?

If the DS-260 online form responds with “the case number entered is currently unavailable,” there could be several reasons why this is happening. Here are some possible solutions based on the search results:

• Contact the National Visa Center (NVC):

If you encounter an error while completing your DS-260 form, follow the instructions and take the recommended action as shown on the http://Travel.gov website. If you are unable to resolve your error based on this guidance, or the error you encounter is not listed, please contact NVC at https://nvc.state.gov/inquiry for assistance

• Check if you entered the case number correctly:

If you get an error saying “Your Search did not return any data”, it means that you did not enter the data properly. You would have removed the spaces in the Case Number. You need to enter it with spaces properly

• Check if your case number matches:

In some cases, people experience difficulties validating their DS-260 due to a mismatch between their case number and their application ID. If this happens, contact KCC via e-mail or phone

• Wait for technical difficulties to be resolved:

The DS-260 online system may experience technical difficulties from time to time. If access to DS-260’s is still unavailable after some time, contact NVC telephonically at 603-334-0700

• Reset your DS-260:

If you completed your DS-260 when your case had a visa available, but the case subsequently retrogressed, and now a visa is available again but the DS-260 is not available, contact NVC at https://nvc.state.gov/inquiry to get your DS-260 reset.

How do I obtain my case number for the DS-260 form?

To obtain your case number for the DS-260 form, you need to refer to the official communication you received from the U.S. Department of State’s National Visa Center (NVC) or the U.S. Embassy or Consulate handling your immigrant visa application. The case number is typically provided in the correspondence you receive regarding your visa application.

Here are the general steps to locate your case number:

Check your email: Search your email inbox for any communication from the NVC or the U.S. Embassy/Consulate. Look for subject lines related to your visa application or immigrant visa processing. The case number is often included in these emails.

Review physical mail: If you received any physical mail regarding your visa application, such as a notice or instructions, check the documents for the case number. It is usually mentioned on the correspondence.

Contact the NVC or Embassy/Consulate: If you cannot locate your case number or have not received any communication, you can contact the NVC or the U.S. Embassy/Consulate directly. Provide them with your relevant personal details, such as your full name, date of birth, and any other identifying information they may require. They should be able to assist you in retrieving your case number.

Remember that the case number is unique to your specific visa application and is essential for accessing and completing the DS-260 form. It’s important to keep this information secure and readily available throughout the immigration process.

Note: DS-260 form is typically used for immigrant visa applications, and the process may vary depending on the type of visa you are applying for. If you have any specific questions or concerns about your visa application, it’s recommended to consult the official websites of the U.S. Department of State or the specific embassy/consulate handling your case for accurate and up-to-date information.

How does one check to know the status of his/her DS-260?

Hint: You can email KCC the request. Otherwise wait for notification from KCC.

Source: Quora, Quora

DISCLAIMER: This guide and content is designed for general information only and is NOT legal advice. The information presented in this guide should not be construed to be formal legal advice nor the formation of a lawyer/client relationship. The information presented in this guide does not create an attorney-client relationship nor is it a solicitation to offer legal advice.

If you need legal advice, you may contact an attorney. You should seek the advice of an attorney in your jurisdiction before taking any legal action.

As such, I disclaim all liability with respect to actions taken based on any information presented. Nothing herein is intended to nor constitutes a guarantee, warranty, or prediction regarding the outcome of your legal matter.

Every case is different and outcomes will vary depending on the unique facts and legal issues of your case. Thank you.