DV Lottery 2027 Registration: New Passport Requirement, $1 Fee, and What Changed

The DV-2027 Diversity Visa Lottery cycle brings the most significant changes to the registration process in years. If you applied in previous years, the form you remember has changed. The Department of State announced new requirements effective April 10, 2026, and they will shape the entire DV-2027 registration window expected to open in October 2026.

Here is exactly what changed and what you need to prepare before the window opens.

The New Passport Requirement

Starting with DV-2027, every primary applicant must have a valid, unexpired passport at the time of entry submission. This is not just listing your passport number -- you must upload a high-quality JPEG scan of your passport's biographic page (the page with your photo, name, date of birth, and passport number) and your signature page.

This is a return to a previous requirement that had been temporarily relaxed. For applicants from countries where passport processing takes weeks or months, this creates a real planning constraint. If your passport is expired or expiring soon, renew it now. Do not wait until the registration window opens in October -- you could lose the entire cycle.

The scanned image must be clear and legible. Blurry photos, partial scans, or scans that cut off the machine-readable zone at the bottom will be rejected.

The $1.00 Registration Fee

For the first time, the DV lottery entry is not completely free. Each primary applicant must pay a $1.00 non-refundable fee at the time of submission. The fee requires a valid credit or debit card.

This may seem trivial, but the Department of State's rationale is that the fee creates a friction point that reduces mass duplicate entries and bot-driven fraud submissions. In previous cycles, millions of duplicate entries from the same individuals clogged the system and inflated rejection rates.

For applicants in countries where international card payments are not standard, this is a genuine barrier. If you don't have a credit or debit card that processes international transactions in USD, arrange one well before October.

Updated Data Fields

The DV-2027 entry form also changes several data fields:

• "Sex" replaces "Gender" -- the form now asks for biological sex as recorded on your passport, aligning with biometric identity verification.
• "Date of Birth" replaces "Age" -- instead of calculating your age, you provide your exact date of birth. This eliminates a common source of data entry errors where applicants miscalculated their age relative to the submission date.

These may seem minor, but any mismatch between your entry data and your passport data can trigger automatic disqualification.

The Colombia to US Diversity Visa Lottery Guide includes a field-by-field walkthrough of the DV-2027 entry form, annotated with the new data fields and common errors at each step.

Registration Window and Timeline

The DV-2027 registration window has not been officially announced as of May 2026, but based on historical patterns, it will likely open in early October 2026 and close in early November 2026 -- a window of approximately 30 to 35 days.

Results for DV-2027 will be available via the Entrant Status Check portal starting in May 2027. If selected, the visa processing period runs from October 2027 through September 2028 (fiscal year 2028).

The critical point: the registration window is short and there are no extensions. If you miss the window or submit an entry with errors, you wait an entire year for the next cycle.

How to Submit Your Entry

The only legitimate submission portal is dvprogram.state.gov. No other website can submit an entry for you. Do not use any third-party website, even if it looks official or uses .gov-style branding. Over 150 fraudulent sites have been documented that mimic the official portal to collect personal data and payment information.

The submission process requires:

1. Your full legal name as it appears on your passport
2. Date of birth and country of birth
3. A 600x600 pixel digital photograph meeting Department of State specifications
4. Passport biographic page scan (new for DV-2027)
5. Contact information and mailing address
6. Education level or qualifying work experience
7. Spouse and children information (if applicable)
8. $1.00 payment via credit/debit card (new for DV-2027)

After submission, you receive a confirmation number. Store this number in multiple secure locations. It is the only way to check your results, and there is no reliable recovery process if you lose it.

What This Means for Colombian Applicants

Colombia is currently listed as ineligible for the DV lottery (DV-2025, DV-2026, and DV-2027). However, Colombian-born individuals married to a spouse born in an eligible country can apply through cross-chargeability. The new passport and fee requirements apply equally to cross-chargeability applicants -- both the primary applicant and the eligible spouse need valid passports.

Our Colombia to US Diversity Visa Lottery Guide includes a pre-registration checklist covering the DV-2027 changes, a passport renewal timeline planner, and a screen-by-screen walkthrough of the entry form with the new fields. It also explains how to correctly claim cross-chargeability during registration -- a step where errors are non-correctable and lead to automatic denial.

The Photo Requirement Has Not Changed

One requirement that did not change for DV-2027 is the digital photograph. You still need a 600x600 pixel JPEG image with a white background, no glasses, and no digital retouching. Approximately 65% of entries are rejected at the photo screening stage before they even enter the lottery pool. If you are investing the effort to meet the new passport and fee requirements, do not lose your entry to a non-compliant photo.

Use the Department of State's free photo validator tool at travel.state.gov to test your image before submission. If you use a local photo studio, bring written specifications -- many studios default to passport photo dimensions that do not match the DV lottery's square format.

Start Preparing Now

The single most important thing you can do today is confirm your passport status. If it expires before November 2026, start the renewal process immediately. The second priority is securing a payment method for the $1.00 fee. And if you are relying on cross-chargeability, confirm your spouse's country of birth documentation now, not during the 30-day window.

The DV-2027 cycle rewards preparation. The changes are designed to filter out casual and fraudulent entries, which means serious applicants who prepare in advance have better odds than in any previous year.

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