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US Green Card Lottery Eligible Countries – Are You From One?

US green card lottery eligible countries – are you from one? Before we find out let us understand the basics.

Unlike a visa, a Green Card allows a citizen of any country to enjoy the same benefits as an American citizen in the USA. There are a number of different ways to apply for a Green Card.

Some would say that the easiest is to marry an American citizen. You could also get sponsored by your employer, make an investment in certain employment areas as an entrepreneur, etc. However, the most common way of applying for a Green Card is through the Green Card Lottery system.

Green Card. Image courtesy USCIS

What is the Green Card Lottery?

The Green Card lottery is also known as the Diversity lottery system. This was designed to encourage people from various parts of the world to come to America so that the country could have a diverse population. For this reason, not everyone can apply for this lottery.

Only people from countries with a low representation in the United States are eligible for a Green Card through the Diversity lottery. Applicants also need to have completed the equivalent of US high school education or have two years’ work experience in a job category that needs 2 years of training or study.

The application window for each year’s lottery is open for about one month. Forms for this lottery can only be filled in online and cannot be saved or downloaded. It is important to note that the Green Cards awarded as a result of the lottery aren’t applicable for that year, but, for the next fiscal year.

US green card lottery eligible countries

Natives of a country that has not sent more than 50,000 people to the United States within the last 5 years are eligible for a Green Card through the lottery system. This number only takes into consideration immigrants that have entered the United States via employment-based immigration or by being the immediate relative of a US citizen. Asylum seekers, refugees and NACARA beneficiaries are not included in this number.

AFRICA	ASIA	EUROPE	NORTH AMERICA	OCEANIA	SOUTH AMERICA, CENTRAL AMERICA, AND THE CARIBBEAN
Algeria	Afghanistan	Albania	The Bahamas	Australia (including components and dependent areas overseas)	Antigua and Barbuda
Angola	Bahrain	Andorra		Fiji	Argentina
Benin	Bhutan	Armenia		Kiribati	Barbados
Botswana	Brunei	Austria		Marshall Islands	Belize
Burkina Faso	Burma	Azerbaijan		Micronesia, Federated States of Nauru	Bolivia
Burundi	Cambodia	Belarus		New Zealand (including components and dependent areas overseas)	Chile
Cameroon	Hong Kong Special Administrative Region	Belgium		Palau	Costa Rica
Cabo Verde	Indonesia	Bosnia and Herzegovina		Papua New Guinea	Cuba
Central African Republic	Iran	Bulgaria		Samoa	Dominica
Chad	Iraq	Croatia		Solomon Islands Tonga	Grenada
Comoros	Israel	Cyprus		Tuvalu	Guatemala
Congo	Japan	Czech Republic		Vanuatu	Guyana
Congo, Democratic Republic of the Cote D’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Djibouti	Jordan	Denmark (including components and dependent areas overseas)			Honduras
Egypt	Kuwait	Estonia			Nicaragua
Equatorial Guinea	Laos	Finland			Panama
Eritrea	Lebanon	France (including components and areas overseas)			Paraguay
Ethiopia	Malaysia	Georgia			Saint Kitts and Nevis
Gabon	Maldives	Germany			Saint Lucia
Gambia	Mongolia	Greece			Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
The Ghana Guinea	Nepal	Hungary			Suriname
	North Korea	Iceland			Trinidad and Tobago
Guinea-Bissau	Oman	Ireland			Uruguay
Kenya	Qatar	Italy			Venezuela
Lesotho	Saudi Arabia	Kazakhstan
Liberia	Singapore	Kosovo
Libya	Sri Lanka	Kyrgyzstan
	Syria	Latvia
	Taiwan	Liechtenstein
	Thailand	Lithuania
	Timor-Leste	Luxembourg
	United Arab Emirates	Macau Special Administrative Region
	Yemen	Macedonia
		Malta
		Moldova
		Monaco
		Montenegro
		Netherlands (including components and dependent areas overseas)
		Northern Ireland
		Norway (including components and dependent areas overseas)
		Poland
		Portugal (including components and dependent areas overseas)
		Romania
		Russia
		San Marino
		Serbia
		Slovakia
		Slovenia
		Spain
		Sweden
		Switzerland
		Tajikistan
		Turkey
		Turkmenistan
		Ukraine
		Uzbekistan
		Vatican City

Countries that are not Eligible

Citizens of a country that is already well-represented in the USA cannot apply for a Green Card through the lottery system. Each year a list is drawn up of these countries. For the 2018 lottery, 18 countries are part of this list.

From Asia, natives of India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam, Philippines and South Korea are ineligible for the Green Card lottery. UK, Canada and Mexican citizens are also ineligible. For Central and South America, citizens of Brazil, Peru, Columbia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Jamaica are also considered ineligible.

Cross Chargeability

Under Section 202(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, a person can be ‘charged’ to a country other than the one he or she was born in for the purpose of immigration. There are two cases in which this can be applied for the Green Card lottery.

Firstly, if you are married to a person who is born in the US green card lottery eligible countries, you may claim chargeability to the country your spouse was born in. The second case depends on the country your parents were born in.

If they were born in another country that is eligible for the lottery you may claim chargeability to that country. For example, if you were born in India, but your parents were born in Indonesia, you could claim chargeability to Indonesia for immigration purposes. If you are from one of the US green card lottery eligible countries, go ahead and apply now.