The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (DV), authorized by the United States Congress, is administered by the U.S. Department of State and is issued annually according to the requirements set forth in Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The law was enacted for a group known as "diversity immigrants," people who were born in countries with low immigration to the United States. Each year, 50,000 diversity visas (DVs) are issued worldwide.
The annual DV program is open to people who meet a simple but strict set of qualification requirements. The winners of the DV program are determined by a random computer lottery. Visas are allocated among six geographical regions, and no one country in each of these regions can account for more than seven percent of the total number of visas issued in a given year.