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How Long Does It Take to Get a Conditional Green Card Through EB-5?

April 29th, 2019 Kyle Behring

The time it takes a petitioner to receive a conditional green card through their EB-5 application is subject to several variables. Without additional processing time due to visa retrogression, estimated EB-5 processing times are as follows:

  • Once the I-526 is submitted: 16 Months to 18 Months
  • I-485 Adjustment of Status or Consular Processing: 6 Months to 12 Months

However, when a petitioner is from a country that has exceeded its per-year EB-5 visa allocation, there will be additional time added to their wait, as the petitioner will not be able to file for Adjustment of Status or apply for Consular Processing until their priority date to become current. Variables which impact the amount of additional processing time (or “Retrogression”) include, but are not limited to:

  • Average number of applicants from the petitioner’s country of origin
  • Total pending petitions already filed by applicants from the petitioner’s country of origin
  • Average I-526 approval rate for petitioners from the petitioner’s country of origin
  • Average number of visas issued per approved petition filed by petitioners from the petitioner’s country of origin

These factors allow us to calculate the total estimated number of years required to issue the visas claimed. Below is a table which expresses the estimated total of years required to issue visas claimed as of October 2018.

Note, this calculation applies to all countries which are retrogressed or expected to become retrogressed except China. The estimated wait time for Chinese investors is more complicated as the oldest EB-5 priority dates have priority to receive the “extra” visas not allocated to investors from other countries. There are 10,000 total visas available for the EB-5 category, and when the total number of visas applied for Worldwide is less than 10,000, the balance of visas are allocated to the petitioners with the oldest priority dates. Today, all “extra” visas are issued to Chinese petitioners.

Additionally, please note that these are estimates based on today’s best available data and that there are currently legislative measures being proposed which may affect EB-5 processing times in the future. Be sure to subscribe to Behring’s Mailing List to receive updates on processing time estimates as they become available.

Footnotes & Citations:

1) Number of pending petitions: USCIS https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Working%20in%20the%20US/i526list.pdf

2) Average I-526 approval rate: FY2017 average data from USCIS via IIUSA: https://iiusa.org/blog/analyzing-form-i-526-statistics-by-investors-country-of-chargeability-for-fiscal-year-2017-what-is-new-and-what-it-tells-us/

3) Average visas per petition: FY2018 YTD average per DOS: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-statistics/immigrant-visa-statistics/monthly-immigrant-visa-issuances.html

4) The estimated average number of visas to be claimed by I-526s pending as of October 2018 is equal to the Total I-526 pending on 10/24/2018 multiplied by the Average I-526 Approval Rate (FY 2017) multiplied by the Average visas per approved petition (FY2017)

5) For countries other than China, the Estimated Number of Years to Issue Visas Claimed by I-526s Pending as of October 2018 is equal to the Estimated Number of Visas to be claimed by I-526s Pending as of October 2018 divided by 696, the number of EB-5 visas allocated per country per year.

Information and analysis in this post has been truncated and adapted from from the article “Pending I-526 by country as of 10/2018“, originally posted by Suzanne Lazicki on 25 October 2018 at Lucidtext.com.

Article Link: https://blog.lucidtext.com/2018/10/25/pending-i-526-by-country-as-of-10-2018/

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