Qualifying capital of US$1,050,000, or US$800,000 for a qualifying targeted employment area or infrastructure case with statutory adjustment from 1 January 2027, placed at risk in a new commercial enterprise. The investment must create at least ten full-time jobs for qualifying workers, the funds must be lawfully sourced, and the investor must engage in management or policy formulation.
Money, jobs, provenance and participation
Each requirement is proved with different material, and investors who focus entirely on the amount tend to be unprepared for the other three. The capital must genuinely be at risk, which means it cannot be guaranteed, redeemable on demand or secured against the assets of the enterprise it funds. Job creation is counted for qualifying U.S.
workers and the ten is a floor rather than a target, calculated either directly or, in a regional-centre case, through an accepted economic methodology that the project must be willing to explain. Lawful source and path is usually the longest part of the file and the part that delays adjudication most often. Engagement in management or policy formulation is satisfied by a genuine role, and in regional-centre investments it is customarily met through the rights attaching to a limited partnership interest rather than through daily work.
Finally, this is an immigrant route: it produces conditional permanent residence rather than a temporary classification, and it is not a faster version of any nonimmigrant category.
- USCIS: EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program
- USCIS: Form I-526E, Immigrant Petition by Regional Center Investor
- USCIS: Form I-829, Petition by Investor to Remove Conditions on Permanent Resident Status
- eCFR: 8 CFR 204.6, Petitions for employment creation aliens
- U.S. Code: 8 U.S.C. 1153, Allocation of immigrant visas
- USCIS: Form G-1055, Fee Schedule