The EB-5 immigrant investor green card
Guide
How to obtain a green card by investing in a U.S. business that creates American jobs and with no employer sponsor needed.
Written by Diane Rish, Immigration Lawyer and Deputy Director, Talent Mobility Fund and the International Student Resource
Last updated: July, 2026
What is an EB-5 Visa?
EB-5 is the "fifth preference" employment-based green card. You can self-petition: no employer needs to sponsor you. Depending on the location and project type, you invest either $1,050,000 or a reduced $800,000 in a U.S. enterprise.
You file Form I-526 for a direct investment in your own business, or Form I-526E for an investment through a USCIS-designated regional center.
How the EB-5 works
Whether you invest in your own company or through a regional center, the entity that receives your funds is the "new commercial enterprise." With a regional center, the center organizes the enterprise and proposes a project to USCIS (which must approve it before investor petitions are considered), then solicits EB-5 investors. You do not need an employer sponsor and apply yourself on Form I-526 or I-526E.
Investing your own, lawfully obtained money
The law requires that you invest your own money and prove you acquired it legally. Gifted or loaned funds are allowed, but you must show how the giver or lender obtained them, except that for a bank loan you do not have to show where the bank got its money. You must also trace the path of the funds from their source, through you, to the enterprise, using documents like tax returns, gift letters, property records, checks, bank statements, and wire-transfer records.
When the reduced $800,000 amount applies
You can invest $800,000 instead of $1,050,000 in two situations: (1) you invest in a business or regional-center project in a rural area or an area of high unemployment (together called targeted employment areas); or (2) you invest in a regional-center-sponsored infrastructure project. A regional center will already have established whether its project qualifies. (See the FAQ on the EB-5 investment amount.)
Investing in your own business
For a direct investment you must: invest your own, legally obtained funds; document a rural or high-unemployment location if using the reduced amount; keep all investment funds "at risk" (you cannot merely loan them to the company); be involved in managing the company; and create at least 10 full-time jobs for U.S. citizen or immigrant employees who work directly for your company.
Investing through a regional center
A regional center resolves the project-level issues before soliciting investors, whether the project is in a targeted employment area or qualifies as infrastructure, that the documents keep investors' money at risk and meet minimal management requirements, and that the project will create enough jobs (regional-center projects can count indirect jobs created outside the project). As a result, you generally only need to show how you legally obtained your funds and the path of those funds to the enterprise.
Conditional residence and removing conditions
An EB-5 green card is initially a two-year "conditional" green card. You must file Form I-829 to remove the conditions during the 90-day window before the two-year anniversary, showing that you kept your investment at risk for at least two years and created the required jobs. Limited protections exist for good-faith investors if USCIS sanctions a regional center or enterprise before conditions are removed.
Set-asides that can shorten the wait
If you were born in a country with a multi-year EB-5 backlog, three set-aside categories may allow a shorter wait: rural-area investments (20% set-aside), high-unemployment-area investments (10%), and infrastructure projects (2%). Compare availability for these categories in the Visa Bulletin.
A note on the rules
The older regulations (8 CFR 204.6 and 216.6) are out of date. Congress substantially revised the EB-5 program in 2022, so the most current authority is the law itself (INA 203(b)(5) and 216A), the USCIS Policy Manual, and the USCIS EB-5 webpages, including the EB-5 Questions and Answers.
RELATED RESOURCES
E-1 and E-2 Treaty Trader and Investor Visas (temporary investor options)