The State of DV-2026 in One Chart and a Few Hard Numbers
The Diversity Visa lottery for fiscal year 2026 (DV-2026) is now three-quarters of the way through its active processing window, and the pattern across U.S. consulates is unusually clear — clearer, in fact, than in any DV cycle since the pandemic years. As of the most recent CEAC snapshot (June 6, 2026), the State Department has issued 6,952 DV-2026 visas worldwide, with 722 refusals (combining 214(b) and 221(g) actions). That is an overall 90.6% issuance rate for selectees who actually reach an interview — but that headline number hides a brutal split between regions and, more importantly, between selectees whose nationality is covered by the June 2025 travel ban and those whose isn’t.
Here are the three things every DV-2026 selectee should understand right now.
1. The Global Picture: Europe Leads on Volume, but Africa Holds the Pipeline
By raw case volume, Europe still dominates the DV-2026 universe with 189,209 total cases — nearly 58% of all selectees and family members in the system. Africa is second with 103,796 cases, Asia trails with 27,474, and South America and Oceania round out the bottom at 4,696 and 3,300 respectively. That distribution mirrors lottery selection ratios more than it tells us anything about who is actually moving through the process.
What is far more useful is the breakdown of cases that have actually been scheduled and decided at a consulate. Across the world, only 4,621 cases are currently “at post” — meaning the consulate has the file and is either preparing for an interview or has already conducted one. The rest are still sitting at the National Visa Center (NVC) waiting on documents, fees, or schedule slots. Europe has 1,642 cases at post, Africa 1,516, Asia 1,119, and South America and Oceania about 170 each.
The interesting story is in the outputs. Of the visas already issued, Europe accounts for 3,014 (43%), Africa 2,220 (32%), Asia 1,154 (17%), Oceania 252, and South America 309. Issuance rates by region tell us where the friction is:
- Europe: 95.0% issuance rate — the cleanest pipeline in the system
- South America: 98.7% — smallest region, very few refusals
- Africa: 91.3% — strong, but uneven across posts
- Oceania: 91.0% — in line with Africa
- Asia: 78.1% — by far the lowest, dragged down by a single post (see Section 3)
The pipeline behind those numbers is the part most selectees underestimate. There are still 50,476 cases parked at NVC and 2,349 cases in “Ready” status — meaning the consulate has the file but no decision has been made. Africa alone is sitting on 26,153 NVC cases. With under four months left in the fiscal year, the realistic share of NVC-stage selectees who will see an interview is small.
2. The African Continent: Twenty-Two Embassies Are Doing Almost All the Work
Of the 22 U.S. embassies and consulates physically located in Africa that are actually conducting interviews, four posts are responsible for the overwhelming majority of African DV-2026 issuances:
- Cairo (CRO): 451 cases at post, 825 visas issued, 45 refusals — 94.8% rate
- Algiers (ALG): 269 cases at post, 441 visas issued, 37 refusals — 92.3% rate
- Nairobi (NRB): 232 cases at post, 359 visas issued, 18 refusals — 95.2% rate
- Addis Ababa (ADD): 160 cases at post, 233 visas issued, 2 refusals — 99.2% rate
These four posts alone account for 1,858 of the 2,179 issuances across the entire African continent — about 85%. Selectees with low case numbers who could be transferred to one of these four posts are statistically the luckiest in the African region.
Mid-tier performing posts include Dakar (75 issued / 41 refused), Kigali (71 / 4), Cotonou (50 / 0), Banjul (35 / 3), Abidjan (27 / 4), and Luanda (21 / 6). Tunis, Conakry, Praia, Dar es Salaam, and Lilongwe each show single-digit issuances — not because applicants there are weaker, but because the case volume assigned to those posts is genuinely tiny.
The painful entries are at the bottom. Lome (Togo) has 59 cases at post but only 3 issued and 27 refused — a 10% issuance rate against the African average of 91.5%. Freetown (Sierra Leone) has 7 cases at post, 0 issued, 3 refused. Djibouti shows 27 cases at post, 1 issued, 1 refused, and a staggering 53 cases stuck in “Ready” status awaiting a decision that hasn’t come. These three posts are not failing because consular officers are arbitrary or the applicants are weaker — they are failing because the populations they serve are on the U.S. travel ban list.
3. The Travel Ban Is the Single Biggest Variable in DV-2026
The June 2025 Presidential Proclamation on travel restrictions is the most important context for understanding DV-2026 outcomes. It puts 12 countries under a full ban — Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen — and 7 countries under partial restrictions: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.
DV selectees are not categorically exempt from the proclamation. The data shows what that means in practice.
The “direct-ban” posts
Four U.S. posts primarily serve nationals of banned countries, and their numbers are the clearest evidence of ban enforcement in the dataset:
- Rangoon (Myanmar) — full ban: 102 cases at post. Zero issuances, 11 refusals, and 223 cases stuck in “Ready”. Issuance rate: 0%.
- Lome (Togo) — partial ban: 59 cases at post. 3 issued, 27 refused, 49 in “Ready”. Rate: 10%.
- Freetown (Sierra Leone) — partial ban: 7 cases at post. 0 issued, 3 refused, 22 in “Ready”. Rate: 0%.
- Djibouti (handling Somali selectees) — full ban on Somalia: 27 cases at post. 1 issued, 1 refused, 53 in “Ready”. Rate: 50% on a sample of two.
Across these four posts combined, the issuance rate is 8.7%, against a global benchmark of 90.6%. The pattern isn’t a high refusal rate — it’s an extraordinary “Ready” backlog. Selectees are being interviewed and then left in suspended animation while consular officers either await waiver decisions or simply don’t issue.
The “proxy” posts and the Abu Dhabi signal
Where banned-country posts are closed entirely (Tehran, Khartoum, Tripoli, Sana’a, Asmara), selectees are reassigned to processing posts in neighboring countries. The story at most of these proxies is reasonably normal:
- Yerevan (Iranian processing): 255 issued, 7 refused — 97.3% rate
- Cairo (Sudanese and Libyan overflow): 825 issued, 45 refused — 94.8% rate
- Nairobi (Somali overflow): 359 issued, 18 refused — 95.2% rate
- Amman (Sudanese, Syrian): 78 issued, 4 refused — 95.1% rate
- Frankfurt (Iranian overflow): 82 issued, 13 refused — 86.3% rate
- Dakar (Chadian, regional): 75 issued, 41 refused — 64.7% rate
- Doha (Yemeni): 33 issued, 10 refused — 76.7% rate
But one post stands out in a way that should worry every selectee whose chargeability could route them there: Abu Dhabi (ABD). The Abu Dhabi consulate has become a major re-routing hub for Yemeni and Iranian DV selectees, and its numbers are the single most alarming data point in the entire DV-2026 dataset. As of June 6, ABD shows 168 cases at post, 59 issuances, and 177 refusals. That is a 25% issuance rate — and Abu Dhabi is now the single highest-refusal consulate in the entire DV-2026 universe, with more refusals than every other post in the world. This is what targeted enforcement of the proclamation looks like in the CEAC data.
The standstill week
The other piece of context that selectees should pay attention to: between the May 30 and June 6 snapshots, the global pipeline barely moved. Only 17 case-level status changes were detected across all 328,505 cases, and every single one was a transition from InTransit or Ready into “Dark” status — meaning the post stopped actively processing the case. Zero new issuances and zero new refusals were recorded globally in that seven-day window. With about 115 days left in the fiscal year, the absence of forward movement is itself the story.
What This Means If You’re a DV-2026 Selectee
Three practical takeaways from the data.
First: your post matters enormously. A Kenyan, Ethiopian, Egyptian, or Algerian selectee is operating in a system with a 92–99% issuance rate at their home post. A Togolese or Sierra Leonean selectee is operating in a system with a 0–10% rate. That is not because Sierra Leoneans and Togolese present weaker applications — it is because their countries are on the proclamation list. If you are from a banned country and have any flexibility in case transfer, that decision is now one of the most important you will make in the entire process.
Second: “Ready” is not “almost done.” The CEAC system shows hundreds of cases sitting in Ready status at ban-affected posts — Rangoon alone has 223. “Ready” historically meant the file was complete and an interview was imminent. In the current environment, Ready at a ban-affected post often means the file is complete, the interview happened, and the case is now waiting on a waiver determination that has not arrived. If you are in Ready status at Rangoon, Lome, Freetown, Djibouti, or Abu Dhabi, plan as if your case will not be issued before September 30.
Third: time is running out, and the pipeline is moving slower, not faster. A standstill week in early June is not normal. Historically, May and June are peak processing months for DV cases as posts push toward the fiscal-year deadline. If you have not been scheduled by now, and you are not at one of the four high-volume African posts (CRO, ALG, NRB, ADD) or one of the equivalents in Europe and Asia, you should be preparing for the realistic possibility that DV-2026 will close with your case still pending.
A Note on the Numbers
Every number in this article comes from the public CEAC dataset, snapshot dated June 6, 2026. “Cases at post” counts principal selectees whose file has been assigned to a specific consulate. “Issued” and “Refused” counts include derivative family members — spouses and children — which is why issuance numbers can exceed case-at-post numbers at high-throughput posts. Refused = 214(b) refusals plus 221(g) administrative actions. Issuance rate = Issued ÷ (Issued + Refused).
One caveat worth keeping in mind: on November 12, 2025 the State Department introduced a new case-status protection in CEAC, locking newer cases behind a valid passport-number and last-name combination. Cases we know exist but can no longer query are marked Dark. As the fiscal year progresses, the share of Dark cases will grow, and the headline totals here should be read as a floor, not a ceiling. The relative comparisons between posts — which is what most of this article is built on — remain solid.
We will publish another update in two weeks, with particular focus on whether the standstill continues and whether Abu Dhabi’s refusal volume keeps climbing.
Shout-out to Xarthisius for maintaining the public CEAC data archive at dvcharts.xarthisius.xyz/ceacFY26.html, which is where the data dump used in this article came from.
WofoyTV publishes regular data analysis on the Diversity Visa lottery and other U.S. immigration pathways. For more in-depth breakdowns, interview prep, and step-by-step guides, subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/wofoytv. If you have a DV-2026 case at a post we haven’t covered in detail, leave a comment and we will dig into your post in the next update.