Winners of the annual Diversity Visa (DV) lottery for fiscal year 2026 had their cases on hold since December 2025, after the State Department paused the issuance of this visa category (memorandum PM-602-0193). The situation was only unlocked by a ruling from federal Judge Edward J. Davila of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Medani et al. v. Trump (No. 5:26-cv-06332). On August 28, 2026, the judge found the suspension of procedures to be “likely arbitrary and capricious” and ordered the State Department to resume processing the paused cases.
Numbers that worry more than they reassure
According to the official State Department announcement from August 31, 2026 (“Diversity Visa Issuance Updated Guidance”), the December 2025 pause has officially expired. In practice, getting things moving has proved slow. According to court status reports (the State Department was ordered to report three times a week until the end of the fiscal year), a total of about 147 interviews and re-interviews were scheduled between August 29 and September 13, of which only 11 took place. In the following two days—by September 16—the number of newly scheduled interviews increased to about 45, and re-interviews to about 864, but only 6 and 85 of them actually took place, respectively. Over the same period, approximately 218 applications were refused (under Section 221(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act—a temporary refusal, not equivalent to a final denial), and only 28 visas were approved for issuance.
Why September 30 is a hard wall, not a suggestion
Federal law limits the issuance of visas from a given DV lottery edition strictly to the end of the fiscal year, which is September 30. Judge Davila explicitly noted in his September 10, 2026 order that appellate jurisprudence limits the district court’s authority to order the processing of DV applications after the end of the fiscal year—even if the delay resulted from unlawful government action. In other words, the court order obligates the government to make “good faith” efforts, but does not create a blanket deadline extension. Individuals whose cases are not finalized by September 30 permanently lose their chance to obtain a visa from this program edition, regardless of the fact that they were selected.
What this means for Polish lottery winners
The State Department’s September Visa Bulletin shows that for Europe—the region to which Poland belongs—queue numbers below approximately 47,500 have a theoretical chance of receiving a visa still this fiscal year, but the pool may run out before September 30. Polish applicants who received a number within this range and have a scheduled or pending interview at the consulate should: (1) immediately check their case status in the Entrant Status Check system at dvprogram.state.gov, (2) ensure that medical exams and civil documents are current and complete so as not to give the consulate an additional reason for postponement, and (3) actively contact the appropriate consular office instead of passively waiting for a summons—as court data shows, the pace of consular work is uneven, and some cases are still waiting to be manually rescheduled from waiting lists.
Background: two pauses lifted within a week
The resumption of DV visa issuance coincided with another court decision: on August 21, 2026, a New York court (in Catholic Legal Immigration Network v. Rubio) struck down a separate pause concerning immigrant visas for nationals of 75 countries, which also affected some individuals selected for DV-2026. On September 10, 2026, the State Department sent a cable to consular posts worldwide (Cable 26 STATE 88862) instructing consular officers to re-evaluate cases refused solely due to either of the two pauses—without automatically granting a visa, but also without upholding a denial if its only basis was the program suspension.
Cases concerning U.S. visas and residency—including legal support for the DV lottery—are handled by Polish attorneys from our Polish Pages directory.
