The United States, has been offering the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery program since 1995 as a means of bringing people from diverse backgrounds to its shores.
Ethiopia is one of the many countries eligible for this program, and each year, approximately 4,000 to 5,000 Ethiopians successfully travels to the United States through the DV lottery.
The application process for the selected candidates of the DV-2024 program is set to close in a few days.
Meanwhile, those who were fortunate enough to be selected for the DV-2025 lottery will begin submitting their visa applications after the end of September 2024, paving their way to the US.
Looking ahead, the registration period for the DV-2026 program will commence in one week and will remain open for one month, as per the announcement by the US State Department.
The application window will run for 30 days, from October to November 2024, with the results being announced in May 2025.
Last May, the winners of the DV-2025 lottery were revealed, benefiting individuals from several regions, including Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Australia.
Africa, in particular, holds the largest share of diversity visa allocations. In the DV-2022 program, countries such as Egypt, Algeria, and Sudan each had 6,000 winners, while Morocco saw 4,138, the Democratic Republic of Congo had 3,347, Ghana had 3,145, and Ethiopia had 2,988 successful applicants, according to data from the official website.
The Immigration Act of 1990 established the Diversity Visa (DV) program, where 55,000 immigrant visas would be available in an annual lottery, starting in fiscal year 1995.
The lottery aims to diversify the immigrant population in the United States, by selecting applicants mostly from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States in the previous five years.
