Just weeks before the registration period for the 2027 green card lottery is set to begin in early October, the U.S. Department of State announced on Tuesday that entry will no longer be free.
In a new rule published in the Federal Register, there will be a $1 fee to register for the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery program effective September 16, 2025.
The $1 registration fee, while negligible for many applicants, might prove a barrier to those in countries with limited electronic payment methods, as the payment has to be made electronically on a U.S. Government portal which the notice did not specify.
Congress established the Diversity Visa program through the Immigration Act of 1990. It got implemented in 1995 and it grants 55,000 immigrant visas each year through a lottery system. The program targets countries with historically low levels of immigration to the U.S. and attracts tens of millions of registrants each year
Until now, only winners of the lottery paid an application fee of $330. The state department has said previously that the program has huge operational costs with an average of 25 million registrants each year. The $1 application fee will raise $25 million to cover those operational costs.
“This change will more fairly place the burden of the lottery registration on individuals seeking the benefit of gaining access to the DV application process instead of charging only the small percentage of successful registrants for the costs associated with administering the lottery program for all registrants,” the State Department said in its notice.
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