The U.S. excludes Cuba from the 2026 Visa Lottery.

For the first time since 1990, the United States excluded Cuba from the list of countries eligible to participate in the Diversity Visa Program for 2026 (DV-2026) due to the high rates of immigration from the island reported in the last five years.

The government opened the call this Friday, with the registration link available from October 5 to November 9, 2024; but it clarified beforehand that "with the exception of Cuba, which is not eligible for DV-2026, there were no changes in eligibility compared to the previous fiscal year."

Cuba was one of the most benefited countries and led the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean in terms of the number of winners of this program, but just as happened with Venezuela, which was excluded in 2022 due to its high rates of emigration to the U.S. over the five-year period, now it is also out.

About twenty countries with high rates of immigration to the United States cannot participate in the lottery, which has granted around 55,000 immigrant visas from around the world since 1990.

The only country that joined this list this year, which includes Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Vietnam, and Venezuela, which entered it in 2022.

While Cuba has historically had high immigration rates, a statistical technicality had until now allowed it to circumvent the list of ineligible countries, as the 20,000 annual visas established in the agreements between Havana and Washington in 1994-1995 were recorded under the exception umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and were not counted towards the limits set by the Department of State.

But the island has experienced the largest migratory exodus in its history, and thousands have left legally under the humanitarian parole initiative implemented by President Joe Biden.

In previous calls, Cubans have exceeded 100,000 annual applications for Diversity visas, with a record of 362,368 entries in 2016.

In 1999, the highest rate of Cuban participation was reported, with over 800,000 entries recorded. More than 15,000 Cubans have benefited from the Visa Lottery draw in the last decade.