Start with the EB-5 eligibility and application overview
Separate project valuation and the investor’s contribution
Explain the actual investment and supporting source-and-path evidence. A project appraisal may describe an asset’s value without proving that the applicant owns or has contributed that asset. Evaluate the real capital and relevant valuation evidence without assuming either that every appraised amount qualifies or that a particular asset type is automatically excluded. Start with the applicant’s money rather than the project brochure: acquisition records, income or business-sale documents, account statements, transfer receipts and the governing investment agreement. This sequence shows what is actually owned, gifted, loaned or contributed. The investor must decide whether a gap in the funds path can be documented before filing; an appraisal cannot cure an unexplained transfer. The review should also identify whether the proposed capital is genuinely placed at commercial risk instead of protected by a redemption promise.
Retain the statutory investment and residence conditions
On September 7, 2026 the standard capital figure is US$1,050,000, with US$800,000 available for a qualifying targeted-employment-area or infrastructure case; that figure carries a statutory adjustment from January 1, 2027 and must be checked against the date the petition is actually filed. Risk and applicable sustainment, management or policy participation and ten qualifying permanent full-time jobs per investor remain required. Full-time generally means 35 hours weekly; investor, spouse and children are excluded as qualifying workers, and direct and regional-center methods differ. Petition approval is not residence or work permission. The applicable admission or adjustment needs availability and admissibility; I-829 is filed in the 90 days before the second conditional-residence anniversary. The business plan should identify the qualifying job methodology, when the ten full-time positions are expected and which workers may count. EB-5 residence begins conditionally after the applicable admission or adjustment, and the capital must meet the applicable at-risk and sustainment rules. The investor should decide early whether the evidence supports direct hiring or the regional-center framework, because the job evidence differs. Petition approval alone does not give work authorization, and later removal of conditions requires its own evidence.
Direct and regional center methods are not interchangeable
An approved EB-5 investor and the derivative family members are admitted as conditional permanent residents for two years. The statute excludes capital subject to an investor’s contractual repayment right, including mandatory redemption or an investor-held put or sell-back option, even when contingent on enterprise success such as available cash flow. The jobs must be attributable to that investor's own capital, which is why offerings model allocations so carefully and why an over-subscribed project can leave a later investor without jobs to claim. The permitted methods of counting jobs are not identical between the two, so a model borrowed from a regional center offering may not support a direct operating company. Establish whether the exception applies before relying on preservation instead of treating every existing payroll as qualifying job creation. Conditional residence is not a benefit created by signing a real-estate contract; it follows the applicable immigration process. Where spending informs a regional-center job analysis, the applicable methodology matters; a total on a schedule should not be treated as proof of every expenditure or every required job. Investors must also be engaged in the management or policy formulation of the enterprise, which a limited partnership interest carrying the rights ordinarily accorded to limited partners can satisfy.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.