The investor’s sons and daughters are excluded from qualifying employees for this purpose; reaching adulthood does not remove that exclusion. The child’s own work authorization is a separate issue.
Keep job creation and family eligibility distinct
Derivative family eligibility generally concerns a spouse and unmarried children under 21, subject to applicable age-protection rules. A relative’s possible dependent eligibility does not make employment count toward the investor’s jobs. Review the family’s actual immigration circumstances without treating business payroll as a substitute for status.
What a family can control is sequencing and record-keeping: knowing every child's exact age at each stage, avoiding unnecessary delay in filing, and being ready to prepare an independent route for an older child rather than discovering the need late. Civil documents are frequently the slowest items to obtain, particularly where a registration must be requested from another country, and age-related eligibility questions for a child should be raised with counsel early rather than discovered when the rest of the file is ready.
- USCIS — EB-5 investor program
- USCIS — business and investment visa overview
- USCIS — Child Status Protection Act
- Department of State — Visa Bulletin
- USCIS — fee schedule
- EB-5 full-time positions, job sharing and qualifying employees — 8 CFR 204.6(e), not obsolete capital figures
- Current EB-5 capital statute — 8 USC 1153(b)(5)
- USCIS I-829 instructions