IN THIS GUIDE · Review the job evidence without treating every provider as a qualifying worker
Start with the EB-5 eligibility and application overview
Identify the job method before using a staffing list
Hypothetical example: a project presentation combines employees and several outside service businesses. Determine what evidence and methodology apply to the actual standalone or regional-center structure. EB-5 generally requires at least ten qualifying permanent full-time jobs; do not assume every name on a supplier list counts.
Review capital and project qualification independently
Establish the applicable investment threshold and the actual basis for any reduced amount at the filing date. Capital must be lawfully sourced, committed at risk and supported by the relevant records. A busy provider network does not establish qualifying capital or protect the investor from commercial risk.
Preserve the individual source-and-path record
A project adviser can help assemble information, but the investor must provide genuine evidence of how funds were lawfully obtained and moved. Provider receipts and project assurances do not establish every individual fact. Distinguish professional charges from qualifying capital rather than automatically combining them.
Keep the government stages separate from provider performance
A petition does not grant residence. Applicable immigrant admission or adjustment approval establishes conditional residence, with later removal-of-conditions requirements. Visa availability, admissibility and family eligibility remain individual issues. Project advisers and suppliers cannot guarantee those decisions.
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.
Direct investment expects the investor to be engaged
At least ten full-time positions of thirty-five hours a week or more must be created for qualifying U.S. workers, and the investor, the spouse, their children and non-immigrant workers do not count. The investor must be engaged in the management or policy formulation of the enterprise; a direct investment usually means a board seat or a defined management role rather than passive ownership. If the investment involves a business connected to the family or local community, still obtain independent legal and financial review of the offering terms, fees, and risks, rather than relying on informal trust in people who are already known to the investor. Ask the target business for a position-by-position list showing weekly hours, status category where relevant, and start dates, and separate the existing workforce from the positions the investment will create. Where the money goes through a regional centre, indirect and induced jobs may be counted using reasonable economic methodologies, which is why so many investors choose that route. The jobs are ordinarily to be created within the two-year conditional period, which is why the timetable of the underlying project matters so much more than its brochure. Read the project's economic report to understand which jobs are being counted and on what assumptions, since that report is what the eventual condition removal depends on. Direct qualifying employees exclude independent contractors, nonimmigrants, the investor, spouse and sons or daughters.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.