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September 2020 Visa Bulletin

Sm1smom

Super Moderator
AFRICA - 2,900
Except: Egypt 2,700

ASIA - 1,600
Except: Iran - 1,000
Nepal - 1,050

EUROPE - 2,500

NORTH AMERICA (BAHAMAS) - 2

OCEANIA - 250

SOUTH AMERICA, CARIBBEAN - 350

Approximately 132,404 applicants selected.

Applicants registered for the DV-2021 program were selected at random from 6,741,128 qualified entries (11,830,707 with derivatives).
 
Sounds good. A bit faster than 2020! (@ least for my region Asia and Iran)

Mom, do you think we can make predictions based on 2020 on when we’d become current? (Since the trend is pretty much the same , or even a bit faster, so far!)

I mean my case AS 55** in 2021 would be current in January (comparing with 2020 trend)
What do u think?
 
Sounds good. A bit faster than 2020! (@ least for my region Asia and Iran)

Mom, do you think we can make predictions based on 2020 on when we’d become current? (Since the trend is pretty much the same , or even a bit faster, so far!)

I mean my case AS 55** in 2021 would be current in January (comparing with 2020 trend)
What do u think?

I typically don’t make predictions or speculations. Nonetheless, I think it’s a bit early to do so, one month’s number is not enough of a trend to go by even if the one month info looks similar or better compared to past years. There are other variables at play this year, in addition to the total number of selectees which are not the same, that you haven’t taken into consideration in your prediction.
 
134000 selected... Isn't it bad news for higher numbers (for comparison last year was 89k)? EU33k here...

Yeah EU29xxx here. It's not looking great. It's hard to make comparisons with previous years, but in 2018 they only picked 116k and the EU numbers were cut off in the 25k range. One would hope that there's some logic based on things they know that we don't, but this is ~50% more that the last few years, and that's even after the passport requirement which you would expect to have reduced the required number of selectees.
 
Yeah EU29xxx here. It's not looking great. It's hard to make comparisons with previous years, but in 2018 they only picked 116k and the EU numbers were cut off in the 25k range. One would hope that there's some logic based on things they know that we don't, but this is ~50% more that the last few years, and that's even after the passport requirement which you would expect to have reduced the required number of selectees.

I expected less amount of selectees either. Maybe applicants were more "serious" this year (took proper pictures etc.) as you need passport information to apply.

6million total applicants this year compared to 14million last year.

45k selectees from EU compared to 31k from EU last year, and 41k at 2018...
 
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that's even after the passport requirement which you would expect to have reduced the required number of selectees.
Why would the passport requirement influence the number of selectees? It's negligible in comparison to the number of people participating in the lottery. DoS has always enough candidates to select whatever they please. On the other hand, the total number of qualified entries might be affected and it looks like it was. That number is almost 3 times lower than usual.
 
Why would the passport requirement influence the number of selectees? It's negligible in comparison to the number of people participating in the lottery. DoS has always enough candidates to select whatever they please. On the other hand, the total number of qualified entries might be affected and it looks like it was. That number is almost 3 times lower than usual.

I thought that the passport requirement would increase the average "quality" of the entries by eliminating frivolous entries - i.e. as gmeteor said they would tend to those who are more serious about their applications. Therefore you wouldn't need to pick as many winners as before to fill up the 55,000. That is just speculation of course.

And I'm sure there are other factors that work the other way, like the public charge requirements etc. that tend to eliminate more people after being selected, so maybe things like that are the reason they picked so many?
 
I thought that the passport requirement would increase the average "quality" of the entries by eliminating frivolous entries - i.e. as gmeteor said they would tend to those who are more serious about their applications. Therefore you wouldn't need to pick as many winners as before to fill up the 55,000. That is just speculation of course.

And I'm sure there are other factors that work the other way, like the public charge requirements etc. that tend to eliminate more people after being selected, so maybe things like that are the reason they picked so many?

In my understanding that’s not how they decide on the number of entries. It seems simply more based on if recent trends show large numbers of selectees pursuing their selection or not ... regardless what the factors influencing that might have been. They’ve picked more than “normal” this time anyway, not less.

The low number of entries is interesting. I’m sure passport requirements explain part of it but surely not a rough halving in numbers.
 
Quite suspicious of it....how about the visa ban? Or only those are now living in the US can have interview in October?
 
Quite suspicious of it....how about the visa ban? Or only those are now living in the US can have interview in October?

Nothing suspicious about the VB. The ban is still in effect for those processing CP - no interview until the end of the ban for now, those processing AOS will continue as normal. Same as it has been with DV2020 since the ban came into effect.
 
Monthly visa issuances for 07/2020 have been released. 159 visas were issued, 12850 total in DV2020.
.....

That's quite "a lot" under the circumstances...
It is. I wonder if any of that are reissues of expired visas? We know different embassies are handing the “can they can’t they” angle of that differently.
 
The One thing is strange in VB comparing 2020 and 2021.

In Aug 2020 VB has told that:
DV2020 approximately 30800 EU applicants has been chosen. Lately, we know there were approximately 55k cases. Knowing The Holes theory that looks fine.

In Sep 2021 VB we see that:
DV2021 45000 EU appricants has been chosen BUT, for now, we see only 39k cases were encountered. How can it explained?
It looks there are some mistakes in Visa Bulletin OR the number mentioned as applicants includes derrivatives
 
The One thing is strange in VB comparing 2020 and 2021.

In Aug 2020 VB has told that:
DV2020 approximately 30800 EU applicants has been chosen. Lately, we know there were approximately 55k cases. Knowing The Holes theory that looks fine.

In Sep 2021 VB we see that:
DV2021 45000 EU appricants has been chosen BUT, for now, we see only 39k cases were encountered. How can it explained?
It looks there are some mistakes in Visa Bulletin OR the number mentioned as applicants includes derrivatives
The total numbers listed in the VB includes derivatives (it did last year too of course). The wording is confusing because they say “applicants”, but it does include derivatives.
 
Well, but their number of applicants is not final either. I mean, someone is going to get married and get +1 derivative, someone's waiting for the birth of their new baby another +1.
 
Well, but their number of applicants is not final either. I mean, someone is going to get married and get +1 derivative, someone's waiting for the birth of their new baby another +1.

This is fine, families are getting bigger which turns to higher number of applicants. It also work in opposite direction - not everyone agrees to move, some die, some does not have money or motivation to submit their cases for immigration etc
 
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