First – a BIG thanks to Xarthisius who has just published the CEAC data for DV2023. The data is available at his site here.

Getting the data reveals a few things as I had explained in my preview post from yesterday.

First, the High Case numbers for each region. They are:

AF 63502
AS 26126
EU 35525
OC 2843
SA 3158
NA 13

AF is MUCH lower than I had assumed, and AS and SA are also significantly lower than my expectations. That means less holes, and whilst you might have been feeling confident at a number like AF62XXX, you must now be a little more concerned. For example, let’s say your case number is 2023AF62003 – you have only 380 cases higher than your number and 28954 before you. And remember, each case number includes the winner and the derivatives. You can check your position within the region on Xarthisius’ site.

Other findings are these points

In Asia region, it looks like Nepal hit the cutoff at just under 21000, and Iran at about 16K

Africa region has cutoff countries at about 43K, 48k and 58K. One of thoose is Egypt, and others may be Ghana, Algeria and Morocco, but I am not sure yet which is which.

In Europe it looks like we have two countries cutoff at around 18K, which is probably Uzbekistan and possibly Russia.

Neither OC nor SA have cutoffs.

In general cutoffs are not really such a big problem since almost no countries have response and success rates high enough to threaten the country cap (no country can have more than 7% of the global quota). Only Nepal has a realistic chance of hitting the cap, so there might be a little risk for the highest Nepal cases – but even that is not likely.

If you want to know why these cutoffs occur, please watch this video which explains the draw process.

In terms of progress so far this year, it looks like a pretty good start to the year. Some observations:

  • 4991 visas already issued (from 2538 cases)
  • 9205 cases scheduled so far (17747 people including derivatives). That includes scheduled interviews up to February.
  • Response rate and DS260 processing look pretty good. If you look at the early numbers from each region, about half of the cases are already scheduled. That can only happen when people have responded, and their DS260 is processed. So – they are well over halfway through the submitted DS260s across the whole number range.

OK – that’s my initial impression of the data.

You can check your own case at CEAC

And if you wonder what the status codes mean – please read this:

The first status for every case is “AT NVC”. You can ignore the text on the case – the case has not been passed to NVC.  What this status means is that the case is in one of the following situations.

  1. The case is not yet current.
  2. The case is current, BUT the DS260 has not be submitted at all, or it was submitted but not processed yet – and therefore not scheduled.
  3. The case is current, the form is processed, but it is waiting to be scheduled (typically because the cases have not yet been sent to the embassies yet).

PLEASE IGNORE the NVC information that appears – it is a standard message and DOES NOT APPLY to DV cases

“In Transit”

This status is shown for a brief period when KCC has scheduled the interview, and transferred the case to the embassy. However, the embassy has not yet updated CEAC to acknowledge they have received the case.

“READY”

This is the next status after in transit. It means the case has arrived at the embassy for interview. Sometimes a case will continue to show ready even after the interview.

“Issued”

Pretty obviously – this is the status we all want to see! The interview took place, was successful and the visa has been approved/issued.

“Refused” (2 versions)

This status can have two meanings. The usage of the status codes was updated about 2 years ago, so I should clarify the more modern use of the codes.

Cases are refused either temporarily or permanently.

Refused 221g – The temporary refusal is actually a status called 221(g) and is a period of time where someone did not have all the documents at the interview OR some additional checks are needed before the case can be adjudicated. 221(g) (commonly called AP) can last a few days or several months. The status updates during that time are almost meaningless (apart from one – see below) . To know if the refusal is the temporary type or the final refusal, you read the text under the REFUSED status on the CEAC status check site. If the text is as shown below (we call it the long text), then your case is in 221(g). Xarthisius actually determines that in his file and assigns those cases a status in his data of Refused221g.

“A U.S. consular officer has adjudicated and refused your visa application. Please follow any instructions provided by the consular officer. If you were informed by the consular officer that your case was refused for administrative processing, your case will remain refused while undergoing such processing. You will receive another adjudication once such processing is complete. Please be advised that the processing time varies and that you will be contacted if additional information is needed. For more information, please visit TRAVEL.STATE.GOV or the website for the Embassy or Consulate at which you made your visa application.”


Refused final – The other type of refusal is the permanent one. This is the status no one wants to see, meaning the interview took place and the selectee was denied. A derivative can be refused, while the principal is approved. However, if the principal is refused – all the derivatives are refused also – even if the embassy fails to update CEAC and leaves the derivatives as “ready”. It is very very rare to overcome permanent refusal. There is no official appeal process, so whilst some cases could later change from refused to issued, it is exceedingly rare (a handful of cases each year).


The permanent refusal has this text under the description on the CEAC status check site – often referred to as “the short text”. “A U.S. consular officer has adjudicated and refused your visa application. Please see the letter you received at the interview.”

“Administrative Processing”

This status used to be used for the 221g cases, however, it is no longer used that way. Now, this is the only useful status update that people may see before their case shows issued. Sometimes a case will go to Ready or Refused221g to “Administrative Processing”. That is actually the visa printing process happening, and the applicant can expect to see “issued” within a few days. This status lasts up to a week in normal times, but could last longer if there are problems with the visa printing process. The status looks like below and still has the “old” description that suggests Refused 221g. That is because the 221G status was generally known as “Administrative Processing” (and is still referred to that way).

Derivative number.

For cases that are scheduled we can see the related derivative numbers. Case 01 is the principal and derivatives are case 02, 03 and so on.