The State Department has not yet published the fiscal year 2027 Diversity Visa registration period, a day before the deadline a federal court set for it. The amended preliminary injunction in Red Eagle Law, L.C. v. Rubio, No. 3:26-cv-04738-JO-VET, signed by Judge Jinsook Ohta on October 21, orders the department to announce the registration period on its visas news page by midnight Eastern on October 29, 2026, and to open registration by midnight Eastern on November 1 for thirty days. As of midday Pacific on Wednesday, October 28, that page, travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news.html, listed “Countries Subject to Visa Bonds,” published October 2, 2026, as its newest item, followed by an announcement on expanded screening and vetting dated September 18 and “Diversity Visa Issuance Updated Guidance” dated August 31. No 2027 registration window had appeared.
The order is specific about what the announcement must contain: the opening and closing dates of the registration period, the website through which entries may be submitted, and the requirements for participating. It also directs the department to spread the same information through its other customary channels, including the Federal Register. Registration, once open, must run thirty days, and the department must notify selectees by midnight Eastern on December 3, 2026. The one extension the order allows concerns that notification date, and the department may ask for it only by filing a request by October 30.
The government is still asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to pause that schedule while it appeals. The circuit’s docket in No. 26-6943 was last refreshed at 7:01 a.m. Pacific on October 28 and shows no order on the emergency stay motion filed October 23, for which the court had set a response deadline of 5:00 p.m. Pacific on October 26. The newest entries are from October 27: a status report filed by the government, entered as defective because the wrong filing type was used, and re-entered the same day as correspondence. The free docket records what was filed, not what it says. In the district court, Judge Ohta on October 27 denied as moot the government’s October 20 request for more time to answer the complaint, after the department filed its answer on October 23.
The Diversity Visa program is a separate pool of up to 55,000 visas a year, allocated by random selection among natives of countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States. Nothing in this case changes employment-based cutoff dates: the November Visa Bulletin published this month is unaffected, and EB-2, EB-1A and H-1B filings proceed on their own timelines. What DV-2027 entrants are waiting on is the registration window itself, which the injunction requires the department to post this week.
Both questions will be answered on the same two records: the visas news page and the appellate docket. If the injunction stands without a stay, registration must open by midnight Eastern on November 1.
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