IN THIS GUIDE · Read construction expenditure separately from employment evidence
Start with the EB-5 eligibility and application overview
Identify the method used to establish jobs
EB-5 requires at least ten qualifying full-time jobs per investor under the applicable direct or regional-centre method. For direct employment, a qualifying position generally requires at least 35 working hours per week. Independent contractors are not direct qualifying employees; the investor, spouse, sons or daughters and nonimmigrants are also excluded. Do not turn contractor invoices into direct payroll merely because they describe labour.
Keep the capital and participation conditions intact
Current general capital is US$1,050,000, or US$800,000 for a qualifying targeted employment area or infrastructure project, with statutory adjustments beginning January 1, 2027 based on petition filing date. Establish lawful source and path, qualifying capital at risk and management or policy-formulation participation. A construction budget does not prove the reduced threshold or the investor’s own capital commitment.
Distinguish progress reports from immigration outcomes
Contractual investor repayment rights and guaranteed rates of return are excluded from qualifying capital; the enterprise-discretion buyback exception requires petition withdrawal unless sustainment and the other requirements have been fulfilled. Petition approval does not itself grant residence or work permission. Conditional residence begins on immigrant admission or adjustment approval. I-829 is generally filed in the 90 days before conditional residence’s second anniversary; completing construction is not that clock’s starting point. Filing I-829 does not itself remove conditions.
Decide between a regional-center project and a direct investment
A regional-center project may count indirect and induced jobs shown by an accepted economic methodology, which is why passive investors favour it. The requirement is at least ten full-time positions for qualifying U.S. workers, attributable to each individual investor, created within the required period. A regional-center project can count jobs created elsewhere in the local economy through recognized methodologies; a family building its own greenhouse cannot. Alongside the money sits the requirement for at least ten qualifying full-time jobs, counted by methods that differ depending on whether the structure is standalone or regional-center. The family should ask for the project's TEA evidence, which under current rules is determined by USCIS against census-tract data, rather than accept a marketing statement that the project is rural or high-unemployment. The initial petition relies on a credible plan and methodology; removal of conditions relies on operating evidence supporting actual creation or the permitted reasonable expectation. A rental portfolio or a development company might be examined on its own facts, including entity structure, capital deployment and the permitted job-counting method, which differs between standalone and regional centre structures. If a regional-center filing uses indirect jobs, read the methodology and inputs; if the investment depends on direct hiring, use staffing records and the employer’s actual operating plan.
Investment amount, targeted employment area and job creation
The regional center, not the investor, documents the TEA designation, but the investor should read it, because a project marketed as TEA that does not qualify leaves the investor short of the standard amount. A limited partner in a regional-center fund typically satisfies this through the rights the partnership agreement grants. Under the 2022 legislation the qualifying amounts are one million fifty thousand dollars generally and eight hundred thousand dollars for a targeted employment area or infrastructure project; these are subject to adjustment and should be verified against current official sources before committing. The denominator is the number of investors, which is not fixed either: a partially subscribed offering may fund a partially built project, and an expanded one needs a correspondingly larger total.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.
- USCIS — EB-5 investor program
- USCIS — business and investment visa overview
- USCIS — Child Status Protection Act
- Department of State — Visa Bulletin
- USCIS — fee schedule
- 8 USC 1153(b)(5) — investor capital and adjustment provisions
- USCIS — Form I-829
- Current EB5 statute
- Direct employee and full-time definitions, not obsolete capital figures
- USCIS I829 instructions