The DV-2027 green card lottery will not open on November 1, 2026. The date that a federal judge had set as the deadline for the State Department to start accepting entries has arrived with registration still closed, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit paused the order that would have forced the programme back open. For millions of would-be applicants around the world, the message on the morning of November 1 is stark: there is no entry window to apply in, no new date has been announced, and the only official entry site says entries are not being accepted at this time.
The pause came on October 29, 2026, when a three-judge Ninth Circuit panel granted the government's emergency request for a stay pending appeal in Red Eagle Law, L.C. v. Rubio. The stay suspends a preliminary injunction issued on October 14 by U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta of the Southern District of California, which had required the State Department to announce the registration period by October 29, open a 30-day registration by November 1, and notify selectees by December 3. With those deadlines frozen, the DV-2027 cycle — the annual Diversity Visa lottery that offers up to 55,000 immigrant visas to people from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States — remains inactive, even though its visa year began on October 1, 2026.
On Thursday, October 29 — the very day the district court's injunction required the State Department to publish its registration details — the Ninth Circuit panel of Judges M. Margaret McKeown, N. Randy Smith and Holly A. Thomas granted the government's motion for a stay pending appeal. The per curiam order found that the government had made a strong showing that it was likely to succeed on appeal, because Red Eagle Law, an immigration law firm, had not shown that it was arguably within the zone of interests protected by the Diversity Visa statute or that it had a cause of action to demand that registration open.
The panel's reasoning was procedural, and it went out of its way to say so. "We do not endorse the Department's failure to open the lottery registration period," the order said, according to reporting of the ruling by Bloomberg Law and other outlets. The court also noted that the State Department had cancelled the programme "without any explanation". In a concurring opinion, Judge Smith added a second ground, writing that Red Eagle Law additionally lacked Article III standing to bring the challenge. The stay does not decide the appeal itself, does not repeal the Diversity Visa statute, and does not cancel the programme permanently — but while it lasts, none of the district court's deadlines binds the agency.
The practical effect was immediate. The announcement due on October 29 did not produce a registration schedule. The opening due by midnight Eastern Time on November 1 did not happen. And the December 3 date for notifying selectees of their eligibility to apply is likewise frozen. As of October 31, immigration guides checking the official entry site reported the same position: entries are not being accepted, and no DV-2027 or DV-2028 dates have been announced. Anyone claiming that registration is open now, or asking for payment to enter on an applicant's behalf, is not describing the official position — the State Department has repeatedly said entries are taken only through dvprogram.state.gov during an announced registration period, and it does not notify selectees by email.
The Diversity Visa programme, popularly known as the green card lottery, is a congressionally created annual lottery that makes immigrant visas available to people from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. Winners are selected at random from entries that meet education or work-experience requirements, and selection does not itself guarantee a visa: selectees must still satisfy eligibility, vetting and interview requirements within the fiscal year. For DV-2027, that visa year runs from October 1, 2026, through September 30, 2027.
Normally, registration opens in the autumn of the preceding year and winners are drawn the following spring. DV-2027 broke that pattern completely. The State Department said on November 5, 2025, that it was implementing certain changes to the entry process and would announce the registration period and results date "as soon as practicable". No registration period followed in autumn 2025, no winners were drawn in May 2026, and in December 2025 the administration suspended the programme entirely. Bloomberg Law reported that the suspension followed the case of a Portuguese national who had received a visa through the programme and was suspected of killing multiple people in two separate shootings in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
In August 2026, Red Eagle Law, a California immigration firm that represents lottery selectees, sued Secretary of State Marco Rubio, arguing that the failure to open registration amounted to an unlawful, de facto termination of the programme. Judge Ohta agreed in part on October 14, granting a preliminary injunction. Her original order had called for an announcement by October 15 and an opening by October 18, with selectee notice by November 19; a joint motion the same day modified the schedule to the October 29 announcement, November 1 opening and December 3 notice that the Ninth Circuit has now stayed. The State Department appealed immediately, and the Ninth Circuit acted on October 29, the day the announcement was due.
The DV-2027 dispute is separate from an earlier case, Medani v. Trump, which challenged processing holds affecting DV-2026 selectees and in which a court eventually lifted a particular pause in August 2026. DV-2026 itself closed on September 30, 2026. What makes DV-2027 different is that the cycle never started at all: the visa year opened on October 1 with nobody selected, and every week the stay remains in force shortens an already tight processing window before the statutory September 30, 2027, end of the visa year.
The stay turns on who can sue, not on whether the lottery should exist. Under the "zone of interests" test, a plaintiff bringing a claim under the Administrative Procedure Act must show that its interests are arguably within the class of interests the underlying statute protects or regulates. The panel held that Red Eagle Law, as a firm whose economic interest lies in representing future lottery applicants, did not meet that test. The Diversity Visa programme, the panel wrote, "was enacted to encourage immigration, not generate revenue for law firms", and the firm's interest was "not more than marginally related" to the statute's purpose.
That distinction matters for what happens next. Because the panel did not rule that the suspension itself was lawful, a differently situated plaintiff — a prospective applicant rather than a law firm — could present a different standing question. That is precisely the route Red Eagle Law says it will now take. Its founder, Curtis Morrison, described the October 29 outcome as deeply frustrating, telling the San Francisco Chronicle that it was frustrating "that the appeals court reasoned it was more important to put a guardrail on our little law firm's ability to help immigrants than it was to put a guardrail on Stephen Miller's anti-immigrant agenda". Morrison attributed part of the standing problem to the absence of a lottery this year, which left the firm without an individual applicant to represent as a named client, and said the firm intends to file a new lawsuit on behalf of a prospective applicant who would enter a future lottery, should one be held.
For applicants, the legal nuance changes nothing today: there is no registration to enter. The stay remains in force throughout the government's appeal, and the Ninth Circuit's order said only that a briefing schedule for the preliminary-injunction appeal would follow. No decision date has been set, and no court has announced a replacement timetable. The State Department's published notice still identifies October 1, 2026, through September 30, 2027, as the visa-application period for DV-2027 selectees — but that is a visa period, not a registration window, and it does not by itself create an entry opportunity.
The Ninth Circuit panel's own words have become the most quoted lines of the ruling, because they cut in both directions. On the one hand, the panel found the government likely to succeed on standing. On the other, it wrote: "We do not endorse the Department's failure to open the lottery registration period." Reporting of the order also records the panel's observation that the department had cancelled the programme "without any explanation" — a rebuke that stops short of ordering the programme reopened, but that leaves the administration's conduct under a cloud as the appeal proceeds.
Judge Smith's concurrence sharpened the standing point, arguing that Red Eagle Law also lacked Article III standing — the constitutional requirement that a plaintiff show a concrete injury fairly traceable to the challenged conduct. Together, the per curiam opinion and the concurrence signal that the appeal may turn less on immigration policy than on the threshold question of who is entitled to ask a court to force the lottery open.
On the applicants' side, Morrison's reaction captured the frustration of a case won at district-court level and then frozen days before the finish line. His promise of a fresh lawsuit on behalf of a prospective applicant is the most concrete next step to emerge since the stay, and it is the step immigration lawyers are watching: a named applicant-plaintiff would directly test the standing reasoning that decided the October 29 order. The government, for its part, has not announced a new registration date and has not said it will open registration voluntarily while the appeal is pending.
DV-2027 matters far beyond one law firm's lawsuit because of its scale and its timing. The programme offers up to 55,000 visas a year, and for nationals of eligible countries with few other routes to permanent residence in the United States, it is often the only realistic path. The suspension has already erased the normal autumn entry window, the spring selection and, so far, the entire start of the visa year. If the stay holds for months, even a later court victory could arrive too late to process a full cohort before September 30, 2027 — the hard statutory end of the DV-2027 visa year.
The case also matters as a test of executive discretion over a congressionally mandated programme. The administration suspended a lottery that Congress created, without, in the panel's words, any explanation, and a district judge ordered it reopened. The appeals court's answer — that the wrong plaintiff brought the case — leaves the underlying question of whether the executive can simply decline to run the lottery unresolved, to be litigated, if at all, by a different plaintiff in a new case. That procedural holding, rather than a ruling on the merits of the suspension, is why the DV-2027 fight is likely to continue in a new form rather than end here.
Finally, the November 1 date itself matters. For weeks, immigration guides, law firms and applicants had circled November 1 as the court-ordered opening day, and some less careful outlets continued to describe it as an opening even after the stay. The passing of that date with registration still closed is the moment the confusion should end: November 1 was a deadline inside a lower-court order that is now paused. It is not a date the State Department announced, and it creates no right to enter today.
Three tracks now run in parallel. First, the government's appeal of the preliminary injunction continues in the Ninth Circuit, with a briefing schedule to follow and no decision date set; the stay remains in force unless the court lifts it or the appeal is resolved. Second, Red Eagle Law says it will file a fresh lawsuit on behalf of a prospective applicant, which would test the standing holding head-on and could, if it survives, seek a new injunction on a different footing. Third, the State Department could act on its own — announcing a registration period voluntarily — but it has given no indication that it will do so while the appeal is pending, and its November 2025 notice still promises only an announcement "as soon as practicable".
Applicants should watch only official sources: travel.state.gov for programme notices and dvprogram.state.gov for entries, which the State Department says is the sole entry site when registration is open. No entry fee is charged by the government at the entry stage beyond the programme's own rules, and no third party can secure a selection. Until an official registration period is announced, the correct status of DV-2027 is the one the entry site already shows: entries are not being accepted at this time.
Is DV-2027 registration open on November 1, 2026? No. The court-ordered November 1 opening was paused by the Ninth Circuit on October 29, 2026, and the State Department has announced no new dates. The official entry site is not accepting entries.
What did the Ninth Circuit actually decide? It granted an emergency stay pending appeal, pausing the district court's injunction. It found the government likely to succeed because the law-firm plaintiff likely lacks standing, but it expressly did not endorse the department's failure to open registration.
Has the Diversity Visa programme been cancelled? No. The stay does not repeal the statute or permanently cancel the programme. It pauses the order that would have forced DV-2027 registration to reopen while the appeal continues.
Can I enter DV-2027 anywhere else? No. When registration is open, entries are accepted only at dvprogram.state.gov during the announced period. Anyone claiming registration is open now, or asking for payment to enter, should be treated as a scam risk.
What happens next? The appeal continues in the Ninth Circuit, Red Eagle Law plans a fresh lawsuit on behalf of a prospective applicant, and the DV-2027 visa year ends on September 30, 2027 — so any reopening would face a shrinking processing window.
Related coverage: Supreme Court: immigration judges lose power to pause deportation cases, California ballots ruling: appeals court rejects DOJ bid to set aside 20,000 votes, and ICE voter crackdown meets skeptical appeals court days before midterms.
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