Start with the EB-5 eligibility and application overview
Identify the investor’s actual participation rights
EB-5 requires engagement in management through day-to-day managerial control or policy formulation; the investor need not simply be described as a passive source of funds. Explain the actual rights and responsibilities under the governing agreement. Do not invent daily duties if the proposed role is policy-based. Identify the operative provision for each participation right the applicant relies on. Explain what decision it concerns, how the investor can exercise the right and any limits imposed by the agreement. Distinguish those rights from promotional language about involvement or ownership. If a side letter changes governance or exit expectations, read it with the main agreement instead of describing the documents separately as though they cannot affect each other. The applicant should not invent day-to-day duties simply to make a policy-based role sound more active. A precise account of the actual rights supports assessment while keeping the commercial arrangement intact and leaving the capital, employment and residence questions to their own evidence.
Retain capital and employment conditions
Current EB-5 capital is US$1,050,000, or US$800,000 for a qualifying targeted employment area or infrastructure project; statutory adjustments begin January 1, 2027, so use the amount for the filing. Establish lawful at-risk capital, at least ten qualifying permanent full-time jobs per investor under the applicable direct or regional-center method, and managerial or policy-formulation participation. Direct positions require at least 35 hours weekly; contractors, nonimmigrants and the investor, spouse, sons or daughters are excluded from qualifying employees.
Examine exit rights and status timing
Gifted or borrowed capital needs lawful-source evidence and a good-faith arrangement that does not circumvent restrictions on permissible capital sources. Contractual repayment rights and guaranteed rates of return are excluded. An option exercisable solely at the enterprise’s discretion has a narrow exception: its exercise requires petition withdrawal unless sustainment and the other statutory requirements have been fulfilled. Petition approval or payment is not residence or present work permission. Conditional residence begins at immigrant admission or adjustment approval; I-829 is generally filed in the 90 days before its second anniversary.
Establish qualifying capital and actual project conditions
In a project structure the investor is typically a limited partner or equivalent, relying on the project's own reporting and its economic methodology to establish the jobs. The qualifying investment is one million and fifty thousand United States dollars, reduced to eight hundred thousand where the enterprise is principally doing business in a targeted employment area or is an infrastructure project. Money held inside a corporation has to reach the investor before it can be invested, and the route chosen — dividend, salary, loan repayment, share redemption — determines both the tax consequence and the documentary trail. A project's marketing materials or a regional center's designation status is not itself a guarantee of either immigration approval or financial performance. Within the ninety days before the second anniversary, the investor files Form I-829 to remove conditions, showing that the capital remained invested and at risk and that the required jobs were created or will be created within a reasonable time. Where regional-center rules allow indirect jobs, use the appropriate methodology rather than assuming construction progress supplies the result. Read the offering's job-creation methodology and ask how many investors share the same jobs; a project that has oversubscribed its job count is a risk to every investor in it.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-08. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.