2014 DV Lottery registration is starting on October 2, 2012. The U.S. Department of State has announced that it will launch its annual DV Lottery Diversity Immigrant Visa Program DV-2014 on October 2. Online registration will begin at noon Eastern Time on Tuesday, October 2 and will close on Saturday, November 3 2012. The State Department recommends early entry in the lottery rather than waiting until the final week of the registration period.

Applicants must submit entries electronically during this registration period using the electronic DV entry form (E-DV) at www.dvlottery.state.gov. Paper entries will not be accepted. We strongly encourage applicants not to wait until the last week of the registration period to enter. Heavy demand may result in website delays. No entries will be accepted after noon, EDT, on November 3, 2012.

The annual DV program makes visas available to persons meeting the simple, but strict, eligibility requirements. Every DV lottery entrant must have at least a high school education or its equivalent as defined by local requirements or have two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation requiring at least three years of training or experience. Applicants who do not meet the educational or work experience requirements will be disqualified. A computer-generated, random lottery drawing chooses selectees for Diversity Visas. The visas are distributed among six geographic regions globally, with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration, and with no visas going to nationals of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States over the past five years. Within each region, no single country may receive more than seven percent of the available Diversity Visas in any one year. The congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State and conducted under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Beginning in 2005, the Department of State implemented an electronic registration system in order to make the DV process more efficient and secure. Special technology and other means are used to identify those who commit fraud for the purposes of illegal immigration or those who submit multiple entries.

Instructions, requirements and translations, as well as a complete list of the countries whose nationals are eligible, are available here.

This year, Guatemala has been added to the list of countries whose nationals are eligible to enter the lottery (if they meet certain requirements). Meanwhile, natives of the following countries are not eligible to apply because each of these countries sent a total of more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States in the past five years: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-born), Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam. Individuals born in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan are eligible.

Read more here