Start with the EB-5 eligibility and application overview
Read what the exit plan actually promises
Review genuine investment and distribution terms under the applicable at-risk and sustainment rules. A projected sale is not automatically guaranteed repayment, and an immigration filing does not ensure that a buyer or distribution will materialize. Avoid a universal promise that every investor gets money back after two years or that every repayment clause has the same legal effect. Read the investment agreement together with the business plan, not in isolation. The review should identify who controls distributions, what conditions apply to any exit, where capital is deployed and what evidence will later show sustainment. A repayment expectation, side communication or fixed return language may matter because capital must remain exposed to business risk under the applicable rules. The practical decision is whether the arrangement can be documented without converting a commercial forecast into a guaranteed redemption.
Track the separate statutory requirements
As of September 7, 2026, the usual capital levels are US$1,050,000 and US$800,000 for qualifying TEA or infrastructure cases, with statutory adjustment from January 1, 2027 and filing-date review. Lawful source and path, management or policy participation and at least ten qualifying permanent full-time jobs per investor are required. Full-time generally is 35 hours a week, with investor, spouse and children excluded as qualifying workers; direct and regional-center methods differ. Residence requires the applicable visa admission or adjustment with availability and admissibility. Petition approval alone is not work permission. I-829 is filed in the 90 days before the second conditional-residence anniversary, not two years after a forecast sale. Job evidence should be tied to the chosen EB-5 structure and updated as the enterprise operates. Determine whether the case relies on direct positions or an approved regional-center methodology, then preserve payroll, tax and methodology records accordingly. After qualifying admission or adjustment, the investor holds conditional permanent resident status before seeking removal of conditions through the required process. The investor must make the qualifying capital contribution at risk and meet the applicable job-creation requirement; approval of a petition does not eliminate those later evidentiary questions.
The capital, the jobs and the conditional period
If the offering runs through a regional centre, remember that designation of the centre does not itself establish this project’s eligibility or classification, or guarantee its commercial success. Job creation under a regional center petition is credited when a permitted methodology is applied to defined inputs — construction expenditures, revenues, or similar measures. The qualifying capital is one million and fifty thousand United States dollars, reduced to eight hundred thousand where the new commercial enterprise is principally doing business in a qualifying targeted employment area or is an infrastructure project. Ask which method the project uses, how many jobs it allocates to each investor, and how many investors it plans to admit. Form I-829 is filed within the ninety days immediately before the two-year conditional period expires, and it asks for proof that the enterprise was sustained and that the required employment was created or, in some circumstances, will be created within a reasonable time. The investor must also have engaged in the management of the enterprise or in its policy formulation; a wholly passive holding does not satisfy the requirement, though the rights ordinarily attached to a limited partnership interest can. Current USCIS policy does not, however, impose a categorical rule that an investor contributing borrowed cash must prove how the collateral was originally acquired; any additional tracing depends on the actual lender, borrower and transfer structure.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.