IN THIS GUIDE · Keep the investment’s exit expectations separate from immigration stages
Start with the EB-5 eligibility and application overview
Read what the project milestone actually means
Hypothetical example: an offering describes an expected completion date and the investor assumes that date also determines capital return and residence. Identify each claim separately. Commercial forecasts and contractual terms require their own review; neither is a government approval.
Assess capital and job requirements
Identify standalone or regional-center structure and the appropriate qualifying job methodology, generally at least ten qualifying jobs. Confirm the current applicable capital threshold and actual at-risk treatment. Do not assume a promised exit date removes the need to examine the investment’s genuine risk.
Trace the actual individual funds
Provide lawful source and transfer records and distinguish invested capital from charges and household reserves. The project’s documentation does not establish the investor’s funding history. Identify genuine gaps and the actual obligations rather than relying on a combined account balance.
Plan the separate residence stages
The investor petition is not itself residence, and later conditional-residence requirements remain. Review visa availability, admissibility and family eligibility, including any CSPA issue using actual dates. Filing does not automatically freeze age or guarantee the timing of any family member’s move.
Use the current capital, job and residence conditions
The current standard capital minimum is US$1,050,000, or US$800,000 for a qualifying targeted employment area or infrastructure investment. Statutory adjustments begin January 1, 2027; use the petition filing date. At least ten qualifying full-time jobs per investor are required under the applicable standalone or regional-center method. Assess management or policy participation, including qualifying limited-partner rights. Conditional residence starts at immigrant-visa admission or adjustment approval; I-829 is generally filed in the 90 days before its second anniversary. Filing does not itself remove conditions or guarantee repayment.
Apply the capital and qualifying-worker rules
The enterprise must create at least ten full-time positions for qualifying United States workers: United States citizens or nationals, lawful permanent residents, and other immigrants lawfully authorised to work, excluding the investor, spouse, sons and daughters. Outside a regional centre, only employees of the new commercial enterprise count, and each must be a qualifying U.S. worker in a full-time position of at least thirty-five hours a week, or a job-sharing arrangement that adds up to one. In a regional-center project, job creation is generally shown through an economic model that counts direct, indirect and induced jobs attributable to the project's spending. The investor must be engaged in management or policy formulation rather than holding a wholly passive stake, and that role should appear in the governing documents from the outset. An enterprise-only discretionary buyback has a statutory exception, but exercise requires petition withdrawal unless applicable sustainment and other requirements are fulfilled. Direct employees must meet the applicable criteria; independent contractors, nonimmigrants and the investor, spouse, sons or daughters do not qualify on that basis. An existing payroll is not automatically new job creation; the troubled-business preservation rules are a separate assessment. 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 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.