EB-5 Visa Requirements: Investment, Jobs, and Petition Filing

Qualifying for an EB-5 visa requires investing at least $1,050,000 in a new U.S. commercial enterprise, or $800,000 if the project sits in a targeted employment area or qualifies as infrastructure, then documenting that the money came from lawful sources and creating full-time jobs for at least 10 qualifying U.S. workers. The EB-5 visa requirements below cover the money, the business, the jobs, and the two-stage petition process that turns a conditional green card into permanent residency.

How Much You Have to Invest

The standard minimum is $1,050,000. That figure drops to $800,000 when the investment goes into a targeted employment area or an infrastructure project.¹ These amounts hold through 2026. The first automatic inflation adjustment is set for January 1, 2027, and further adjustments follow every five years based on cumulative changes in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, with results rounded down to the nearest $50,000.²

The statutory minimum only covers capital going into the business. Regional center projects usually charge a separate administrative fee, often around $80,000. Attorney fees for handling an EB-5 case from petition through green card commonly run from a few thousand dollars up to $35,000 or more. Add government filing fees, certified translations of any foreign-language records, and the total outlay climbs well above the headline number.

Where the Money Can Go

The investment must go into a “new commercial enterprise,” meaning any for-profit business formed after November 29, 1990. Corporations, partnerships, LLCs, joint ventures, and similar lawful business structures all qualify.³ A business that predates November 1990 can still qualify if your investment causes at least a 40% increase in its net worth or employee count.

Targeted Employment Areas

Two kinds of locations unlock the $800,000 threshold. A high-unemployment area is one where the weighted average unemployment rate across the relevant census tracts is at least 150% of the national average.¹ A rural area is any location outside a metropolitan statistical area and outside the boundary of any city or town with 20,000 or more residents.³

Troubled Businesses

A troubled business is one that has existed at least two years and suffered a net loss during the 12 or 24 months before the petition’s priority date equal to at least 20% of its pre-loss net worth.⁴ Investing in one comes with a real advantage: you can count preserved existing jobs toward the 10-job requirement, not just new hires. Six preserved positions and four new ones would satisfy the count.

Proving Your Funds Are Lawful

USCIS does not accept assurances about where the money came from. Every dollar has to be traced from its original source to the project entity through an unbroken chain of documentation, what practitioners call the path of funds.

For petitions filed on or after May 14, 2022, you must supply seven years of personal tax returns filed in any country, along with business registration records and any corporate or partnership tax returns. You also have to disclose any monetary judgments against you and identify every person who transferred funds into the United States on your behalf.⁴ Petitions filed before that date had a five-year lookback.

The specific documentation depends on how you earned the money. Salary sources call for pay records and employment contracts covering the relevant years. Proceeds from selling property or a business require the sale documents, proof of your original ownership, and bank records tracing where the money went. Inherited or gifted funds require both the transfer documentation and evidence that the donor’s wealth was itself lawfully acquired.

Currency Controls and Bank Records

If you are moving money out of a country with capital controls, expect closer scrutiny. Currency exchanges have to go through licensed financial institutions, and USCIS wants bank records or receipts identifying which institutions handled the transaction. Using informal exchange channels is grounds for denial. Compliance with your home country’s transfer limits matters too. Breaking those limits raises questions about whether the funds were legally obtained, even when the underlying money is clean.

Your Capital Must Be at Risk

EB-5 capital cannot function like a loan. The entire investment has to be genuinely at risk, with a real possibility of both gain and loss. If the project agreement guarantees a return, promises to buy the investor out at a set price, or gives the investor the right to use a specific asset like real estate, the guaranteed or asset-backed portion does not count as qualifying capital.⁴

For petitions filed on or after March 15, 2022, the rule is explicit: capital exchanged for a note, bond, convertible debt, or any other debt arrangement between the investor and the business does not qualify. Neither does capital tied to a guaranteed rate of return. Offering documents that look like equity on the surface but function like a loan underneath will sink the petition.

The 10-Job Requirement

Every EB-5 investment must create full-time positions for at least 10 qualifying workers. Full-time means a minimum of 35 hours per week. Qualifying workers are U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and other immigrants authorized to work. You, your spouse, and your children do not count.³

Direct Versus Indirect Jobs

Standalone investors, meaning those investing outside a regional center, can only count direct jobs: employees on the payroll of the business receiving the investment. Regional center investors can also count indirect jobs (created through the project’s economic ripple effects) and induced jobs (generated when workers spend their wages locally). Those estimates have to be produced using accepted economic models such as IMPLAN or RIMS II. The models themselves are standard, but the inputs still need to be credible; unrealistic revenue assumptions draw scrutiny during adjudication.

The Sustainment Period

Under the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022, capital must remain at risk for a sustainment period of at least two years. If the project wraps up before that mark, the capital typically has to be redeployed into another qualifying project to keep its at-risk status. Investors who filed before the 2022 law took effect may face a longer sustainment window tied to the length of their conditional residency.

Filing the Right Petition

The form depends on how you structure the investment. Standalone investors putting money into their own enterprise file Form I-526. Investors going through a regional center file Form I-526E.⁵⁶ USCIS will reject an I-526 that identifies a regional center investment; that filing has to go on the I-526E.

Beyond source-of-funds evidence, the petition needs identity documents (passport copies, birth certificates), the legal name and address of the new commercial enterprise, and a full record of your financial contributions. For petitions filed on or after May 14, 2022, you also have to disclose any pending civil or criminal actions and all monetary judgments from any court worldwide.⁴

The Business Plan

A comprehensive business plan is central to the petition. USCIS expects it to describe the business and its products or services, include a market analysis with competitive comparisons, detail the organizational structure and management experience, list required permits and licenses, and lay out staffing needs with a hiring timetable and job descriptions. Sales projections, cost estimates, and income forecasts should appear with the reasoning behind the numbers.⁴ The plan doesn’t have to hit every element perfectly, but a vague plan with aggressive projections and no competitive analysis is the kind of thing that gets flagged.

Filing Fees

The current filing fee for each form appears on the USCIS G-1055 fee schedule. Under Public Law 119-21, these fees now adjust annually, so the amount due when you file may differ from what it was a few months earlier. Check the schedule immediately before submitting.⁷ The wrong fee triggers automatic rejection.

Concurrent Filing If You Are Already in the U.S.

If you are lawfully in the United States and a visa number is immediately available in the EB-5 category, you can file Form I-485 to adjust status at the same time as your I-526 or I-526E. This is called concurrent filing.⁸ While the I-485 is pending, you can apply for an Employment Authorization Document to work and Advance Parole to travel without abandoning the application. Concurrent filing does not speed up final adjudication, which still depends on visa availability in your category and country of chargeability.

Removing Conditions After Two Years

Approval of the I-526 or I-526E does not deliver a permanent green card. It gives you conditional permanent resident status, valid for two years. Before that window closes, you must file Form I-829 to remove the conditions.⁹

The filing window is the 90 days immediately before your conditional residency expires. The expiration date on your green card corresponds to the second anniversary of your admission as a conditional resident. Miss it, and USCIS terminates your status and you become removable. The agency has discretion to excuse a late filing for good cause and extenuating circumstances, but relying on that exception is reckless.

To win on the I-829, you have to show that your capital stayed at risk for the full sustainment period and that the required jobs were created (or, for a troubled business, preserved). The two-year sustainment period applies to new investors under the 2022 Reform Act; investors who filed before it took effect may face a longer window.

Family Members

Your spouse and unmarried children under 21 can obtain green cards as derivative beneficiaries on your EB-5 petition without making their own investments. Families with older teenagers face a risk of “aging out,” where a child turns 21 before adjudication and loses eligibility. The Child Status Protection Act addresses this by subtracting the time the petition was pending from the child’s biological age on the date a visa becomes available. If the resulting CSPA age is still under 21, the child stays eligible, but they must take steps to seek permanent residence within a specific timeframe once a visa opens up.

If the Petition Is Denied

A denied I-526 or I-526E is not automatically the end. You can file a motion to reopen if you have new evidence, or a motion to reconsider if you believe the law was misapplied to the facts already in the record. You can also appeal to the Administrative Appeals Office, and your immigration status stays unchanged while the appeal is pending. If none of that works, you can make a new qualifying investment and file a fresh petition.

One thing a denial does not do: return your money. Whether you recover your capital depends on the terms of your investment agreement with the project or regional center, not on the immigration outcome. Reviewing the offering documents with counsel before wiring funds matters as much as the immigration paperwork itself.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1153 – Allocation of Immigrant Visas
2
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program
3
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. About the EB-5 Visa Classification
4
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 6, Part G, Chapter 2 – Immigrant Petition Eligibility Requirements
5
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-526, Immigrant Petition by Standalone Investor
6
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-526E, Immigrant Petition by Regional Center Investor
7
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. G-1055, Fee Schedule
8
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. EB-5 Questions and Answers
9
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-829, Petition by Investor to Remove Conditions on Permanent Resident Status