Selection and Notification  The winners of the Diversity Visa lottery are chosen at random by a computer program, with a certain number of visas allocated to each region of the world and no one country receiving more than 7 percent of the Diversity Visas available in any given year.  Although the exact dates vary, people who have entered the Diversity Visa lottery can check the status of their application beginning in early May the year following their application, by using the Entrant Status Check link on the Diversity Visa webpage. This is why it’s so important to save that confirmation number: Without it, you won’t be able to see if you’ve been selected or not.