The U.S. State Department’s Visa Bulletin for September 2026 shows Nepal’s Diversity Visa (DV)-2026 cutoff at case number 13,500, meaning applicants with higher case numbers are not expected to receive diversity visas, officials said.
Although the bulletin makes numbers available to Nepali selectees through 13,500, the State Department has not confirmed whether those selectees will actually receive visas because the department has paused final visa issuances while questions regarding broader admission policies are resolved.
For the month of September, the regional rank cut-off numbers are set at 101,250 for Africa, 40,000 for Asia, 47,500 for Europe, 3,000 for Oceania, and 4,750 for South America and the Caribbean. Applicants in the North America region, represented by the Bahamas, remain listed as current.
Due to federal statutory rules limiting any single country to no more than 7% of the total annual diversity visas, lower separate cut-offs were applied to specific high-demand nations, including 13,500 for Nepal, 50,000 for Egypt, and 85,000 for Algeria.
The pause follows U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ suspension of adjustment-of-status processing based on DV lottery selections inside the United States on Dec. 19—a move that led the State Department to stop issuing DV visas through consular posts until further notice.
Applicants may still complete immigrant visa applications and attend scheduled interviews, and the department continues to set appointment calendars. However, no diversity visas have been issued through embassies or consulates while the pause remains in effect, the State Department said.
For DV-2026, the bulletin lists 3,933 Nepali selectees eligible to pursue visa processing, drawn from roughly 129,516 worldwide selectees who were invited to apply. The department noted that the larger pool of selectees reflects the expectation that many will not complete applications or will be found ineligible, meaning more names are chosen initially than there are visas available.
Winners in the DV-2026 program were those who applied during the 37-day registration period from Oct. 2 through Nov. 7, 2024, when the State Department received about 20,822,624 qualified entries for the lottery. Winners must obtain their visas by Sept. 30, 2026, the hard statutory deadline for DV-2026 issuances.
The State Department stated that the DV program continues to operate annually under the mandate of the Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 203(c), which provides for diversity immigrant visas to nationals of countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States.
Prospective DV-2027 applicants face delays, as the department has not announced registration dates for the next lottery cycle. Furthermore, new rules requiring passports at entry and a mandatory $1 electronic registration fee—published in the Federal Register last September—remain in effect.
Kishor Panthi
View More PostsKishor Panthi is the founder and editor-in-chief of Khasokhas and NepYork. He is the author of three books, “Kampan,” "UNTRANSLATABLE" and “Zero Mile.” He writes about social issues, immigration, and politics.
