367,231 Albanians, around 13.4% of the entire population, have applied for the US Visa Lottery this year. 189,168 of these are principal applicants, whereas 178,063 are relatives of those principal applicants. The number of Albanian applicants has increased by 6%, or 168,000 more applicants, as compared to 2015.
Albania ranks third in the world and first in Europe with regards to the number of Visa Lottery applicants. It is only surpassed by Liberia at 15% and Sierra Leone at 14% of the population.
The data was made public by the United Nations Population Division, based on a Pew Research Center report on legal migrants in numbers. During 2017, around 83,000 people, including relatives of applicants, were admitted to the US after winning the Visa Lottery.
Each year, around 50 thousand people from different countries receive green cards through the Visa Lottery. Since 1995, more than one million people have received a green card this way.
Visas are distributed among six regions in proportion to the region’s population and the number of immigrants that have entered the US from that region in the past 5 years. No single country may receive more than 7% of the total diversity visas.
5% of the total number of immigrants who enter the US annually are Visa Lottery winners.
