The US diversity visa lottery for fiscal year 2027, commonly known as the green card lottery, is set to reopen after a federal court ordered the State Department to run it. On October 14, 2026, Judge Jinsook Ohta of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California granted a preliminary injunction in Red Eagle Law, L.C. v. Rubio (Case No. 3:26-cv-04738), ordering the department to announce and open the DV-2027 registration period. The court later approved a joint request from the parties to extend the original deadlines, and under the revised schedule reported by immigration law firm Fragomen and by VisaVerge, the State Department must publish the registration details by October 29, open registration by November 1, keep it open for at least 30 days, and notify selected entrants by December 3.
The order matters to anyone who was waiting for a DV-2027 entry period that never arrived. According to Fragomen, the State Department announced changes to the FY2027 entry period in November 2025 and then paused the FY2027 program altogether in December 2025. For readers born in Taiwan or Hong Kong, eligibility depends on the official country list, and the DV-2027 instructions have not yet been published. The most recent official list, the DV-2026 instructions published in the Federal Register, states that natives of “The People’s Republic of China (including mainland and Hong Kong born)” were not eligible, while “Natives of Macau SAR and Taiwan are eligible”; Macau-born entrants qualify through Portugal. Those same instructions allow an entrant born in an ineligible country to claim a spouse’s country of birth, or a parent’s country of birth if neither parent was born in or legally resident in the entrant’s birth country at the time of the entrant’s birth. Entrants must also have at least a high school education or two years of qualifying work experience within the past five years.
The case began on August 19, 2026, when Red Eagle Law, a California immigration firm, sued Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the department’s failure to open the program. The court denied an emergency restraining order on September 3 but kept the case on an expedited schedule. In granting the injunction, the court found the government’s inaction likely “arbitrary and capricious”, Newsweek reported. The original order had required an announcement by October 15, registration by October 18 and selectee notification by November 19; it also requires selected applicants to be processed until the FY2027 diversity visa allocation is exhausted or September 30, 2027, whichever comes first. A State Department spokesperson told Newsweek the department is “putting American interests first in our visa process.” Two rules adopted since the last lottery will also shape entries: a final rule effective September 16, 2025 set a $1 fee to register for the lottery, ending the previous free entry, and a final rule effective April 10, 2026 requires entrants to provide valid, unexpired passport information and upload a scan of the passport’s biographic and signature page.
The next fixed point is the State Department’s announcement, due by October 29, which must state the opening and closing dates, the official entry website and the participation requirements, including whether the DV-2027 country list differs from DV-2026. Previous entries were accepted only through dvprogram.state.gov, and the DV-2026 instructions carried a warning about fraudulent websites and emails. Fragomen notes that the government is likely to appeal and that a stay or reversal could change the schedule with little notice; no appeal had been reported as of October 18.
References
U.S. District Court, Southern District of California – Red Eagle Law, L.C. v. Rubio, Order Granting the Motion for Preliminary Injunction (October 14, 2026) / Fragomen – United States: Court Orders State Department to Open FY 2027 Diversity Visa Lottery Registration / VisaVerge – DV-2027 Lottery: Court Sets New Registration Deadlines / Newsweek – Green Card Update as Marco Rubio Ordered to Reopen 2027 Lottery / Federal Register – Diversity Visa Instructions for DV-2026 / Federal Register – Schedule of Fees for Consular Services: Visa Services Fee Changes / Federal Register – Visas: Enhancing Vetting and Combatting Fraud in the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program
