An H-1B holder qualifies for EB-5 on exactly the same terms as any other investor: $800,000 into a project in a targeted employment area or $1,050,000 outside one, proof that the money was lawfully earned, and ten full time jobs for qualifying US workers created by the enterprise. What makes the move attractive from H-1B is procedural rather than financial. H-1B is a dual intent visa, so filing an immigrant petition does not endanger your status, and if an immigrant visa is available in your category you can file Form I-485 for adjustment of status at the same time as the I-526E. That combination can give you a work permit and a travel document that belong to you rather than to your employer.
Why H-1B professionals look at EB-5
The H-1B is a good visa with one structural weakness. Your right to remain in the United States is attached to a specific employer and a specific role. A layoff starts a short grace period. If your employer based green card is stuck behind a per country queue that runs for many years, the H-1B stops being a path and becomes an indefinite holding pattern.
EB-5 breaks that dependency because the immigrant petition is yours. There is no employer, no labor certification, no prevailing wage and no lottery. The USCIS EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program page sets out the statutory basis. The price of that independence is that you are putting a large sum of capital genuinely at risk, a different kind of exposure from the one you are trying to escape. Our page on why investors choose EB-5 covers the trade-off in full.
The money, including the fees nobody quotes first
The investment is $800,000 for a project in a targeted employment area, which means a rural area or an area of high unemployment, and $1,050,000 anywhere else. Qualifying infrastructure projects use the lower figure as well. Those thresholds hold until the first inflation adjustment on 1 January 2027. The capital must be at risk, which is a legal requirement rather than a formality. A guaranteed return, a redemption right, or anything that functions as loan repayment can sink the petition.
Budget beyond the headline number. Regional centers normally charge a separate administrative or subscription fee on top of the investment, and it is usually not refundable if your petition fails. There are immigration legal fees, an EB-5 Integrity Fund fee payable with the petition, and government filing fees, all listed on the USCIS filing fee schedule. Then add securities counsel or an independent due diligence review if the amount justifies it, and at this size it does.
Proving source of funds when you earned the money on a US payroll
An H-1B holder often has the cleanest source of funds story in the entire EB-5 caseload, because the income is already documented by the US tax system. The usual file includes several years of federal tax returns, W-2 forms, pay stubs, an employment verification letter, and bank statements showing the accumulation. If the capital came from equity compensation, add the grant agreements, the vesting schedule and the brokerage statements for each sale.
Two areas cause more trouble than people expect. The first is mixed money, where US savings are topped up by a gift or a property sale back home, because the foreign portion has to be documented to the same standard as the domestic portion, including the donor's own source of funds. The second is the path of funds, every transfer between the account that earned the money and the account that received it. Officers trace that chain, and gaps in it produce most requests for evidence.
Concurrent filing, and who cannot use it
Concurrent filing is the reason many H-1B holders choose EB-5 over waiting. If an immigrant visa number is available in your category on the day you file, you can submit Form I-526E and the I-485 together, plus Form I-765 for employment authorization and Form I-131 for advance parole. Once the work permit is approved you may work for anyone, including yourself.
The condition is availability, and this is where country of birth decides everything. For applicants born in countries with no queue, the unreserved category is generally usable. For applicants born in India or China the unreserved category is oversubscribed, so concurrent filing in practice depends on investing in a rural or high unemployment set-aside project where the category is current on the filing date. If the category is not current you can still file the I-526E and lock your priority date, but the I-485 has to wait. Our detailed page on EB-5 concurrent filing walks through the sequencing, and EAD and advance parole while the I-485 is pending covers what those documents actually let you do.
Keep the H-1B alive while the I-485 sits
Getting a work permit does not mean you should stop using your H-1B. The cautious approach is to keep H-1B status running as a fallback. If you abandon H-1B status, quit, and rely entirely on the pending adjustment application, a denial of the I-485 leaves you with nothing underneath you. Maintaining H-1B costs nothing except staying with a sponsoring employer.
Travel deserves the same caution. An H-1B holder with a valid visa and a continuing job can usually travel and re-enter in H-1B status without abandoning a pending I-485, which preserves the fallback. Entering on advance parole instead generally ends H-1B status. Confirm your own situation with counsel before you book the flight, because the difference only becomes visible at the border.
One more point that surprises people. An EB-5 petition does not give you the H-1B extension benefits that a pending labor certification or an approved I-140 gives under the American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act. If you were counting on EB-5 to buy time past the sixth year of H-1B, check that assumption with an attorney before you commit capital.
Spouse, children and the age-out clock
Your spouse and unmarried children under 21 are included in the case. A spouse on H-4 who files a concurrent I-485 can obtain an independent work permit through it, which is often worth more to a family than anything else in the process. Children are the time sensitive part. A child who turns 21 before the family reaches permanent residence can fall out of the case, and the protections that exist are technical and depend on when the petition was filed and when a visa became available. If you have a child aged 16 or older, that fact alone should compress your timeline. See family changes during conditional residence for what can happen later in the process.
What the two year conditional period requires
Approval of the petition and the immigrant visa or adjustment produces a two year conditional green card, not a permanent one. During those two years the capital must stay invested and the jobs must be created. In the 90 day window before the second anniversary you file Form I-829 to remove conditions, and only after that approval are you an unconditional permanent resident. Plan for the conditional period to run longer than two years, because the I-829 queue is slow and residents live on extension notices while it runs.
The 30 September 2026 deadline and how to think about timing
Petitions properly filed on or before 30 September 2026 are grandfathered under the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022, meaning they continue to be adjudicated even if the regional center program is not reauthorized after 30 September 2027. That is a strong argument for filing sooner. It is not an argument for filing a half documented petition or wiring money into the first project that answers your email. A poorly evidenced file loses more months to a request for evidence than early filing gains, and a bad project costs you the whole investment. If you are still weighing EB-5 against other routes, our comparisons of EB-5 versus the E-2 treaty investor visa and EB-5 for Chinese investors are the right places to start.
Related reading
Sources
This page is written from primary sources published by the United States government. Last updated August 3, 2026. It is general information about how the EB-5 programme works, not legal advice about your case.
- Form I-485, adjustment of status
- USCIS on the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program
- USCIS on how filing fees work
- Form I-526E, petition by a regional center investor
- Form I-765, employment authorisation
- Form I-131, travel document
- Form I-829, removing the conditions on residence
Topics on this page: EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, Targeted Employment Area, EB-5 Regional Center, EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022.