The Diversity Lottery program is an annual lottery run by the U.S. Department of State. The DV Lottery offers up to 55,000 permanent resident visas each year to randomly selected applicants from eligible countries. The Lottery is run once a year, usually in October, and qualified applicants are randomly chosen by computer.

The program is administered directly from the U.S. Department of State Kentucky Consular Center in Williamsburg, Kentucky. The Kentucky center was established in the year 2000 by the U.S. Department of State to take over administration of the Diversity Visa Lottery program from the National Visa Center in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. KCC has continued the excellent tradition of quality service to all applicants of the DV Lottery program.

PLEASE NOTE: The Department of State has only one Kentucky Consular Center. Other organizations using similar names have no connection to the Department of State or KCC. There is no fee charged by the Department or KCC for sending an entry to the lottery program. A Diversity processing fee is only charged when a winning lottery entrant applies for the Diversity visa. At the time of the visa application at a U.S. consular office, each applicant (the DV entrant and any accompanying family members) will be charged a DV processing fee and immigrant visa fee. Both of these fees are non-refundable if the visa is refused. If the visa is issued, a separate visa issuance fee is then charged for each visa.