What is EB-5?

Immigration based job creation & economic growth program

Created by U.S. Congress in 1990, ran by USCIS, a Department of Homeland Security

Easiest & fastest way to become a U.S. permanent resident

EB-5 is an investment based immigration program where foreign investors who invest in the United States and create jobs for American workers can achieve permanent residency or a “Green Card“.

EB-5 by the Book:

An immigrant investor who invests $1.05 Million (or $800,000 in a target employment area) and creates 10 jobs for American workers can achieve permanent residency (or green card) for themselves and qualifying family members. To qualify as an “investment” the investor’s project is required to have risk. Many countries have investment immigration programs but the most popular programs are that of the United States, Australia, Canada and United Kingdom.

The program has various requirements and stipulations such as how the jobs are counted, what documentation needs to be provided and more. There are 2 styles of investment, investing directly or through a federally-designated Regional Center. When investing directly, the investor makes a direct investment into a job creating company. When investing directly, the investor can only record jobs that are created through direct hiring of employees.

A USCIS approved Regional Center is a vehicle that has gone through a sort of pre-approval process with USCIS. The Regional Center pilot program’s core purpose is to make the EB-5 investment process easier for the investor, more streamlined for USCIS approvals and further promote U.S. economic growth. The Regional Center essentially can take all the management and job creation responsibilities out of the hands of the investor. The Regional Center is a powerful job creating entity that is granted the capability to pool multiple investors together like a “fund”, and create jobs in multiple direct and indirect capacities. Regional Centers can also invest in Target Employment Areas (TEA’s) which drops the minimum initial investment amount to $800,000. Over 90% of all EB-5 investments go through Regional Centers.

The EB-5 investment is split into 2 phases. In the beginning, the investor is granted a conditional or “temporary” green card. After 2 years and successfully creating 10 jobs through their investment, the conditions are removed and a “Permanent” green card is given to the investor. If investing through our Regional Center, we make this process simple for the investors to complete.