442,966 Kenyans Entered FY-2018 US Diversity Visa (Green Card) Lottery

A total of 442,966 Kenyans entered the US Diversity Visa lottery (green card lottery) draw for Fiscal Year 2018,  data from the US State Department indicates. This was a 23 per cent increase over FY-2017 when 360,023 Kenyans entered the lottery.

In FY-2016, a total of 304,693 Kenyans entered the lottery draw.

The 442,966 figure includes 317,029 entrants and 125,937 derivatives (spouses and children that entrants included in their application forms).

For FY-2018, Ghana had the highest number of total entrants at 2,227,5230. Other countries with high numbers of entrants included Uzbekistan (2.1 million), Iran (1.6 million), Ukraine (1.4 million), Egypt (1.2 million), Nepal (1.18 million), and Ethiopia (1.05 million).

The totals represent the number of entrants and their derivatives, and not the number of selected entrants or number diversity visas issued. Only a total of 55,000 entrants worldwide are selected for diversity visas each year.

The Diversity Visa lottery system makes 55,000 permanent visas available each year to nationals of countries with small populations of immigrants in the US. For FY-208, nationals from 17 countries were ineligible to participate in the program for having a large number of immigrants in the US. These included Bangladesh, India, China, Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, and Nigeria.

The next registration period (DV-2021) is expected to run between October and November, 2019.

Results for last year’s lottery registration (DV-2020) are expected to be available online at the State Department website starting on May 7, 2019.