The new visa bulletin has just been released, it is the first one for DV2024. It shows the starting numbers for DV2024. Now, don’t get “worked up” about these first numbers. The progression of numbers from month to month should not be compared to earlier years, and doesn’t signify much in terms of where they will end up. I will produce a video to explain that later today.

Also in this VB is the info we have been waiting for about how many selectees there are in each country. They have selected about 143000 people, which is an increase over the last couple of years. Again, I will explain my thoughts about this in a video later today, once I have had a chance to look at the numbers. Clearly they did not “double” the selectees, as some were thinking, which means there are, as I suspected, a lot more holes between the case numbers. So – that is worth understanding if you are wondering about your chances for this year. The high number of selectees will mean some risk for high case numbers, so that is also worth understanding.

We can expect to see the first 2NLs within the next few days, and then 2NLs could continue to be sent until about the end of the month.

Just a note about DV2023, this new VB signals the end of scheduling hopes for DV2023. There have not been any 2NLs sent for over a week, so I think we can safely assume that DV2023 scheduling is finished.

Those that are current, and have forms processed early enough, can normally expect their 2NL in the next 2 to 3 weeks from now. This is supposed to be the same every month. VB from the 8th to the 15th of each month, and 2NLs in the second half of the month. For the last few months there have been 2NLs in daily batches, but we seem to be moving to a more normal procedure where almost all the 2NLs are sent before the end of the month, with just a handful being sent earlier this month. I would normally expect all the interview 2NLs to have all been sent by the end of this month, but we can see recently they are exceeding that to try and get as many interviews in as possible. They can be sent right up until the last day of the month, and even the first few days of the following month during exceptional times.

To those new to looking at VBs, let me explain what the “except” XXX country means – and you can also read this post on how to read the visa bulletin.

Processing is spread out over the full year. You can see the progress of the two previous years in this post about basic questions.  However, some countries have a high number of selectees and those selectees are concentrated in the lower case numbers. For various reasons, mainly to do with embassy capacity, KCC slow down certain countries as compared to the region. So, for example – in Africa, any case with a case number shown as under the new number can be interviewed but for cases from a few countries, that number is lower. That isn’t a big problem, it just “slows down” those countries a little more than the rest of the region. Since selectees from those countries all have lower case numbers, this slowing down does not present any risk. It does not (at this point) mean they won’t allow all selectees an interview from those countries.

To understand why some countries get lower case numbers, read this article about the lottery draw process.