IN THIS GUIDE · Reconcile a project allocation with the investor’s own petition
Start with the EB-5 eligibility and application overview
Identify the investment and the petition date
The current thresholds are US$1,050,000, or US$800,000 for a qualifying targeted employment area or infrastructure investment. Scheduled adjustment begins January 1, 2027; the applicable amount depends on petition filing date. A project reservation or an early payment does not necessarily lock in the threshold. Record the relevant category and filing assumptions before comparing offers.
Ask how jobs are attributed
EB-5 requires ten qualifying full-time jobs per investor under the applicable method. Direct investment relies on qualifying direct employment; regional-center cases may use permitted indirect job methodologies subject to the governing rules. Ask how jobs are allocated among investors and avoid double counting. The investor, spouse and sons or daughters, nonimmigrant workers and independent contractors are not qualifying direct employees. An existing payroll is not automatically new job creation; the troubled-business preservation rules are a separate assessment.
Trace capital and participation rights
The investor must establish lawful source and path and place qualifying capital at risk. Read the governing documents for the management or policy role; qualifying limited-partner rights can matter without requiring daily operations. Distinguish immigration evidence from investment diligence: a project’s representations do not guarantee capital recovery or approval.
Keep the later milestones separate
Petition approval is not the start of conditional residence by itself. That period begins with admission on the immigrant visa or approval of adjustment of status. The I-829 filing is generally made during the 90 days before the second anniversary of conditional residence. Filing it does not itself remove conditions or guarantee repayment; retain the evidence needed for the later requirements.
Count qualifying jobs rather than only hours
The capital must create at least ten full-time positions for qualifying United States workers, and the word full-time carries a defined meaning of at least thirty-five hours a week; two part-time roles cannot be added together to make one. The investor must be engaged in the management of the enterprise, either through day-to-day managerial control or through policy formulation, and a purely passive holding does not satisfy the requirement. The subscription creates rights and obligations between investor and issuer — capital call mechanics, a distribution waterfall, transfer restrictions, reporting undertakings — and the offering documents govern all of it. In a regional centre investment the count may include jobs calculated under an economic methodology, which is one of the principal practical differences between the two structures. The condition is removed by a later petition showing that the capital remained invested and that the jobs were created and sustained, which means quarterly wage filings, payroll registers and hours for every position counted. Note the date the capital was actually deployed into the business, because sustainment and job-creation questions are measured from real events rather than from the day a subscription agreement was signed. A narrow exception permits a buyback option exercisable solely at the enterprise’s discretion; exercising it requires withdrawal of the petition unless the applicable sustainment and other requirements have been fulfilled. Read the offering documents, escrow provisions, repayment priorities, fees, borrower security and job-creation methodology with qualified financial advisers.
Direct investment expects the investor to be engaged
The statutory investment is one million and fifty thousand dollars, reduced to eight hundred thousand dollars where the investment is in a targeted employment area or an infrastructure project, under the 2022 reform legislation. Direct employment records, economic methodology and the treatment of related persons serve different purposes, so the investor should know which evidence the chosen model will ultimately require. A project’s marketing description cannot supply missing proof about the investor’s own capital or the facts required at the later removal-of-conditions stage.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-08. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.