EB-5 Investment Description
EB-5 is the fifth employment-based immigrant-visa preference, created by Congress in 1990 and substantially rewritten by the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 (RIA), signed March 15, 2022. It offers a foreign national (and spouse and unmarried children under 21) a path to lawful permanent residence — a "green card" — in exchange for a qualifying at risk capital investment in a U.S. new commercial enterprise that creates at least 10 full-time U.S. jobs.
An investor first files Form I-526 (direct investment) or Form I-526E (investment through a designated regional center). On approval, the investor obtains conditional permanent residence for two years, either through consular processing abroad or adjustment of status (Form I-485) inside the United States. Near the end of that two-year period the investor files Form I-829 to remove conditions and secure unconditional permanent residence, having shown the capital was sustained and the jobs created. Regional-center sponsors separately file Form I-956F to obtain approval of each investment offering. Of course, the above is the simplified explanation for a highly complex application with multi-layer engagements for presentation of evidence to serve the tenets of the program and the changing economic policies of the United States.
Under the RIA the current minimum investment amounts are $800,000 for a project in Targeted Employment Area (TEA) and $1,050,000for a standard (non\-TEA) project. A TEA is either a rural area (outside a metropolitan statistical area, or in a town of fewer than 20,000 people) or a high-unemployment area (unemployment at least 150% of the national average). The RIA also created reserved visa "set-asides" — 20% of annual EB-5 numbers for rural projects, 10% for high\-unemployment areas, and 2% for infrastructure projects — which, together with the shorter processing seen in the rural category, is the single most consequential planning point for new filings.
The numbers that matter for a filing today: $800K (TEA) / $1.05M (standard); 10 jobs; 2-year conditional green card; 20% / 10% / 2% which is (rural / high\-unemployment / infrastructure set-asides). Both dollar thresholds are scheduled to rise on January 1, 2027 to $900,000 for TEA and $1,250,000 for standard projects.