EU Blue Card Lottery
Diversity Visa program
Is there a Blue Card Lottery, similar to the United States Green Card Lottery?
No. There is currently no Blue Card Lottery.
In the US there is the Diversity Visa program, also known as the Green Card Lottery.
This program started in the early nineties when congress wanted to see more cultural diversity in US immigration.
Approximately 50,000 US Green Card are issued annually based on the diversity program.
There are however intersting developments in the EU...
What the future holds
In order to compete with countries such as the United States, the European Commission is considering expanding the EU Blue Card program by yearly offering a number of blue cards to highly educated/skilled individuals.
This expansion would be likely added when the blue card allows full work and residence rights for the whole of the EU. The key difference with the regular blue card program would be that no job contract, or binding offer, aforehand is required. This expansion will not be called a 'lottery', but e.g. Blue Card Diversity. Emphasizing the particular charateristic of the US diversity program that is aimed at a more divers cultural immigration mix. So technically a diversity plus merit based program.
People who are highly skilled/educated, non-EU nationals and over the age of 18 would be able to participate in the program. The EU commission would yearly determine from which countries the majority of the 'winners' should come from, just like the US diversity program.
How to prepare
In anticipation on a possible EU Blue Card lottery in the future, we are creating a smart queue. Participants would be certain to be entered in such lottery, may be initiated by the European Commission. Again, this is not certain yet at all.
We will ask a fee for this service, but the idea is that participants should have none or very limited financial 'risk'.
So the fee would be 100% refundable after one year, when no lottery is initiated. Interest over that year would cover the costs of a refund.
When there is a lottery and the application is not successful, we'll refund 75%.
When the application is succesful, no refund obviously.
When you're interested, please drop us an email:
Email: lottery [at] apply.eu
Subject: EU Blue Card Lottery
Message: My name is <your name> and I am interested in participating.
