USA EB-5 Visa: Investment, Job Rule, and Path to Citizenship

The EB-5 visa requirements center on one exchange: you put qualifying capital into a U.S. business, that business creates jobs for American workers, and you and your immediate family earn permanent residency. The specifics come down to five things — how much you invest, where you invest it, how the jobs get counted, where the money came from, and how long you keep it at risk. Miss any of them and the petition fails.

How Much You Have to Invest

The minimum is $800,000 if your project sits in a Targeted Employment Area (TEA) or qualifies as an infrastructure project. Everywhere else, the minimum is $1,050,000.¹

A TEA is either a rural area outside a metropolitan statistical area, a city or town with fewer than 20,000 residents, or a census tract (or group of contiguous tracts) with unemployment at least 150 percent of the national rate.² Under the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022, only the Secretary of Homeland Security can designate high-unemployment TEAs; states no longer make that call.³ That change closed the practice of stringing wealthy census tracts together with a distant poor one to qualify a luxury project for the lower threshold.

Both amounts will adjust for inflation on January 1, 2027, and every five years after, based on the Consumer Price Index.¹ If you file before the adjustment date, the current amounts apply regardless of when USCIS processes the petition.

The 10-Job Rule

Your investment must create at least 10 full-time jobs for qualifying U.S. workers. Full-time means at least 35 hours per week, and the positions cannot be temporary or seasonal. You, your spouse, your children, and other immigrant investors do not count toward the 10.⁴

How the jobs get counted depends on the route you choose. If you invest directly in your own commercial enterprise, only workers on your company’s payroll count — you need 10 actual employees. If you invest through a USCIS-approved Regional Center, which pools your capital with other investors, the project can also count indirect and induced jobs: positions at suppliers, vendors, and other businesses that benefit from project spending. Those are estimated through economic modeling rather than counted one by one.

Most EB-5 investors go the Regional Center route because the indirect-job math makes the 10-job threshold far easier to meet. A construction project, for instance, generates jobs at concrete suppliers, equipment rental companies, and local restaurants where the crew eats lunch, and economic models capture all of that.

Your Capital Has to Be at Risk

USCIS will not treat your money as qualifying capital unless it is genuinely at risk of loss with a chance of gain. If any part of your return is guaranteed, the guaranteed portion does not count toward the minimum. If the deal gives you the right to a specific asset like a condo unit, the present value of that asset gets subtracted from your investment total.⁵

Wiring the money and signing paperwork is not enough on its own. USCIS wants evidence that real business activity has begun and that the full investment amount has been made available to the business responsible for creating the jobs. Buying stocks or bonds on secondary markets generally fails, because those purchases do not put new capital into a job-creating business.⁵

Proving Where the Money Came From

Source-of-funds documentation is the most scrutinized part of any EB-5 petition and the most common reason cases stall. USCIS needs a clear trail from where the money originated to where it landed in the project account, and every link has to be documented.

For petitions filed on or after May 14, 2022, that means:

Seven years of personal tax returns filed in any country — income, property, franchise, or any other type of tax filing.⁵
Business and corporate records if funds came from a company you own: foreign business registrations, corporate or partnership tax returns, and audited financial statements.
Bank statements from both sending and receiving accounts, wire transfer confirmations, and the identity of anyone who moved funds on your behalf.
Certified copies of any monetary judgments against you, plus disclosure of all pending civil or criminal cases and government administrative proceedings, in the U.S. or abroad.

Gifts and loans are allowed as funding sources, but only in good faith and not as a workaround for restrictions on the underlying capital. When you use gifted or borrowed money, the donor or lender has to provide the same depth of documentation you would provide for yourself.⁵ A parent gifting the money means the parent’s financial history gets the same scrutiny yours does.

Most applicants also prepare a personal narrative tying the records into one logical account of how the wealth was built. Any inconsistency between the narrative, the bank records, and the tax filings will trigger a Request for Evidence and add months to the case.

Which Petition You File

Which form depends on how you are investing. Standalone investors who manage their own commercial enterprise file Form I-526. Investors going through a Regional Center file Form I-526E, which addresses the project’s economic projections and indirect job calculations.⁶

Both forms require biographical data, the commercial enterprise’s Tax Identification Number, and a detailed business plan with a capital investment schedule. The filing fee is $11,160. Foreign-language documents need certified English translations, and every exhibit should be clearly labeled.

If a visa is immediately available in your category, you can file Form I-485 to adjust status at the same time as your I-526 or I-526E.⁷ Concurrent filing can give you work authorization and travel permission while the petition is still under review.

Reserved Visa Categories

The 2022 law set aside a share of the annual EB-5 allocation for specific project types:

Rural projects: 20 percent of annual EB-5 visas
High-unemployment projects: 10 percent
Infrastructure projects: 2 percent⁸

These reserved categories have their own separate queues. Investors from high-demand countries who would face years-long backlogs in the unreserved category can often get a visa much faster by choosing a qualifying rural or high-unemployment project. Rural projects in particular have had minimal wait times since the reserved categories launched. The remaining visas stay in the unreserved pool, open to investors from all countries but slower when demand is high.

Conditional Residency and How to Keep It

After I-526 or I-526E approval, the next step depends on where you are. Inside the United States on a valid visa, you file Form I-485 to adjust status; the filing fee is $1,440, and the application requires a medical exam and biometrics.⁹ Outside the country, you go through consular processing at a U.S. embassy or consulate.

Either path leads to conditional permanent residence for two years, granted to the investor and any derivative family members — spouse and unmarried children under 21.¹⁰ You hold a green card and can live and work anywhere in the country during those two years, but you must keep your investment in the project.

During the 90-day window right before the conditional card expires, you file Form I-829 to remove conditions.¹¹ The filing fee is $9,525. You need to show that you sustained the investment throughout the conditional period and that it created (or is expected to create within a reasonable time) at least 10 full-time jobs.¹² Regional Center investors typically submit updated economic impact reports showing the projected indirect and induced jobs materialized.

Miss the 90-day window and USCIS can terminate your conditional residency. If your I-829 is approved, you get a permanent green card on a standard 10-year renewal cycle with no further investment-related restrictions.

What Happens If the Project Fails

The at-risk requirement means there is no guarantee your money comes back. Your options depend on how the project failed. If USCIS terminates your Regional Center or debars your commercial enterprise, you can amend your petition — reassociating with a different approved Regional Center or making a new qualifying investment — as long as you can show the original failure was not your fault.⁷

If the project simply fails on its own, without a Regional Center termination or debarment, the amendment process is not available and you would need to file a new petition on a new qualifying investment.⁷ If you already hold conditional residency, that status does not automatically end when a Regional Center loses its designation, but you still have to show EB-5 compliance when you file the I-829.¹³ Choosing a project and Regional Center with a solid track record matters.

Total Costs Beyond the Investment

The investment amount is one piece of what you will spend. Government filing fees alone stack up: $11,160 for the I-526 or I-526E, $1,440 per applicant for adjustment of status through I-485, and $9,525 for the I-829. Derivative family members filing separate I-485 applications pay their own fees. USCIS updates its fee schedule periodically, so confirm current amounts before filing.

Immigration attorney fees for a full case from initial filing through removal of conditions generally run $40,000 to $75,000, and complex source-of-funds situations or multi-country documentation can push that higher. Regional Center administrative fees cover economic impact studies and ongoing project reporting and vary by project.

The Tax Surprise

The day you become a conditional permanent resident, you become a U.S. tax resident subject to federal income tax on your worldwide income: wages, business profits, interest, dividends, capital gains, and rental income from anywhere.¹⁴

If your combined foreign financial accounts exceed $10,000 at any point in the year, you must file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. You may also owe Form 8938 under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act if your foreign financial assets exceed higher thresholds. These reporting obligations sit on top of your regular return, and penalties for noncompliance are steep. Investors from countries that do not tax worldwide income often find the shift jarring, and pre-immigration tax planning can legally reduce the impact if done before you enter on your immigrant visa.

Path to Citizenship

Once conditions are removed, the standard route to citizenship is naturalization after five years as a lawful permanent resident, with physical presence in the country for at least half of that period.¹⁵¹⁶ The five-year clock starts from the date you were granted conditional residence, not the date conditions were removed, so the two conditional years count. Investors who travel heavily for business should track their days carefully, because extended absences can break continuity and reset the clock.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1153 – Allocation of Immigrant Visas
2
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. EB-5 Questions and Answers – EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 6 Part G Chapter 5 – Project Applications
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. About the EB-5 Visa Classification – Section: Job Creation Requirements
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 6 Part G Chapter 2 – Immigrant Petition Eligibility Requirements
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-526, Immigrant Petition by Standalone Investor
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. EB-5 Questions and Answers
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. About the EB-5 Visa Classification
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. href=”https://www.uscis.gov/i-829″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>I-829, Petition by Investor to Remove Conditions on Permanent Resident Status
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 6 Part G Chapter 7 – Removal of Conditions
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Regional Center Terminations
14
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 519 – U.S. Tax Guide for Aliens
15
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1427 – Requirements of Naturalization
16
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I Am a Lawful Permanent Resident of 5 Years