Glossary

EB-5 glossary

101 terms an EB-5 investor actually meets, each defined in one sentence and each carrying the rule, regulation or case it rests on. Every definition links to the pages here that go into it properly.

Checked against primary sources on 6 August 2026. For the same vocabulary as prose rather than as a reference, read key EB-5 terms and acronyms explained.

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Who does what

Process and timing

The programme

Risk and compliance

Visas and the queue

Every term, A to Z

0-9

75 percent cap on short construction jobsalso 75 percent limit, construction job cap, two year construction rule: Where a regional center project's estimated jobs come from construction activity lasting less than two years, the share of the ten-job requirement that may be met with indirect jobs falls from 90 percent to 75 percent.
8 CFR 204.6also the EB-5 regulation, 204.6, 8 C.F.R. 204.6: 8 CFR 204.6 is the EB-5 regulation, and it still supplies the working definitions of employee, full-time employment and troubled business, but the text printed in the Code of Federal Regulations today is the 2019 version a court vacated, and USCIS applies the pre-2019 wording instead.
8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)also INA 203(b)(5), section 203(b)(5), the EB-5 statute, 203(b)(5): 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5), cited in filings as INA 203(b)(5), is the statute that creates the EB-5 category and, since the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022, carries the investment amounts, the visa set-asides, the job creation caps and grandfathering in the statute itself. It runs from subparagraph (A) to subparagraph (S).
90 percent cap on indirect jobsalso 90 percent limit, indirect job cap, 90 percent indirect jobs: The 90 percent cap limits a regional center investor to meeting no more than nine of the ten required jobs with indirectly created ones, so at least one of the ten must be a direct job; a tighter 75 percent limit applies where the estimated jobs come from construction activity lasting less than two years.

A

Adjustment of statusalso AOS, I-485 route: Adjustment of status is the process under 8 U.S.C. 1255 by which someone already in the United States becomes a permanent resident without leaving, on Form I-485, instead of collecting an immigrant visa at a consulate abroad. An EB-5 investor who adjusts is granted conditional permanent residence for two years, the same status a consular applicant receives on admission.
Administrative feealso admin fee, regional center fee, subscription fee: A charge the investor pays to the new commercial enterprise, its manager or the regional center on top of the qualifying investment, covering offering, marketing and management costs. No immigration statute or regulation sets or caps the amount, and it does not count toward the $800,000 or $1,050,000.
Affiliated job-creating entityalso affiliated JCE, affiliated job creating entity: A job-creating entity in the regional center program that is controlled, managed or owned by any of the people involved with the regional center or the new commercial enterprise, those people being the ones who hold substantive authority, directly or indirectly, over the investors' money.

B

Backlogalso queue, waiting line, visa backlog: Backlog is the demand already waiting ahead of an investor in the same visa category, the same country of chargeability and, since the 2022 set-asides, the same reserved or unreserved pool, which must be worked through before a visa number reaches them.
Bridge financingalso bridge loan, interim financing: Bridge financing is the interim debt or equity a developer or the principal of a new commercial enterprise uses to start a project before EB-5 capital arrives, and which the EB-5 capital then replaces.

C

Capitalalso qualifying capital, investment capital: Capital is the cash and tangible assets an EB-5 investor contributes to the new commercial enterprise. Two texts define it: the statute, which governs petitions filed on or after 15 March 2022, and the older regulation, whose conditions on debt USCIS still applies alongside the statute.
Capital accountalso member capital account, partner capital account: The ledger a limited partnership or LLC keeps for each investor, recording capital contributed, profit and loss allocated, and anything distributed back out. It is an accounting term, not an immigration one.
Capital at riskalso at risk, at-risk requirement: The rule that the investor's required capital must be genuinely exposed to loss, with a real chance of gain, and not shielded by a guaranteed return or by any contractual right to repayment.
Capital stackalso capital structure, stack: The capital stack is the ranking of a project's funding sources by priority of claim, from senior debt, which is paid first and absorbs losses last, down through mezzanine debt and preferred equity to common equity, which is paid last and absorbs the first losses. It is a finance term rather than an EB-5 one: nothing in the EB-5 statute or regulations fixes where a project's EB-5 money must rank.
Census tractalso census tracts, contiguous tracts: A census tract is a Census Bureau statistical subdivision of a county or county equivalent, generally holding 1,200 to 8,000 people, and the unit from which a high unemployment targeted employment area is built.
Combinations of part-time positionsalso part-time jobs, aggregating hours, combining part-time positions: Two or more separate part-time positions can never be added together to make one qualifying EB-5 job, even when their hours combine to the 35 a week that counts as full-time. Only a single full-time position shared by two or more qualifying employees counts.
Commercial enterprisealso for-profit activity, new commercial enterprise: A commercial enterprise is any for-profit activity formed for the ongoing conduct of lawful business, in any entity form, publicly or privately owned, and not a noncommercial activity such as owning and operating a personal residence. For petitions filed on or after 15 March 2022 the term that governs is new commercial enterprise, which the statute defines more narrowly: a for-profit organization formed in the United States that receives, or is established to receive, EB-5 capital.
Completion guarantyalso completion guarantee, construction completion guaranty: A completion guaranty is a promise by the project sponsor or a creditworthy affiliate to fund cost overruns and finish construction, made to the lender or the project entity rather than to the individual EB-5 investor. It guarantees the building, not the investor's capital and not the jobs.
Concurrent filingalso concurrent filing I-485, file together: Concurrent filing is submitting Form I-485 together with Form I-526 or I-526E, or while the petition is still pending, instead of waiting for the petition to be approved. 8 U.S.C. 1255(n) permits it whenever approval of the petition would make a visa immediately available to the investor.
Consular processingalso CP, immigrant visa processing: Consular processing is the route to permanent residence through a US embassy or consulate abroad, on Form DS-260 and an interview, rather than by adjusting status inside the United States. It is the only route for an investor who stays outside the country, and it is open by choice to one already inside.
Country of chargeabilityalso chargeability, chargeability area: Country of chargeability is the foreign state against whose per country visa ceiling an applicant is counted, set by place of birth rather than by citizenship, passport or current residence, subject to four narrow exceptions.
Cross-chargeabilityalso cross charge, spouse chargeability: Cross-chargeability is the rule that charges an applicant's immigrant visa to a spouse's or a parent's country of birth instead of their own, so that a family facing different per-country queues is not separated.

D

Dates for Filingalso filing chart, DFF, Dates for Filing Applications: Dates for Filing is the more permissive of the two cutoff charts in each monthly Visa Bulletin, and its date is normally later than the matching Final Action Dates cutoff, so it opens paperwork earlier in the queue than a visa number is actually ready. For Form I-485 it applies only in the months and categories USCIS designates; the State Department uses it separately to decide when the National Visa Center asks a consular applicant for documents.
Developer equityalso sponsor equity, skin in the game: Developer equity is the project sponsor's own money in a deal, normally the most subordinate position in the capital stack: repaid only after the lenders and after the EB-5 capital, and first to absorb a loss. It is a project finance term rather than an immigration one, and no EB-5 rule sets a minimum for it.
Direct EB-5also standalone investment, direct investment, non regional center EB-5, Form I-526: Direct EB-5, which USCIS calls the standalone program, is an EB-5 investment made without a regional center and filed on Form I-526, where only the full-time jobs created by the new commercial enterprise itself, or by its wholly owned subsidiaries, count toward the ten.
Direct jobsalso direct employment, payroll jobs, direct job creation: A direct job is a position held by an employee of the new commercial enterprise itself or, in a regional center case, of the job-creating entity, as distinct from an indirect job held at a supplier or other business outside them.

E

EB-5 Immigrant Investor Programalso EB-5, EB5, EB-5 visa, immigrant investor program, fifth preference, employment-based fifth preference: EB-5 is the employment-based fifth preference immigrant visa category: a foreign national who invests the required capital in a new US commercial enterprise receives permanent residence, granted first on a two year conditional basis, and keeps it by proving that the investment created full-time jobs for at least ten qualifying US workers. It leads to residence, not citizenship.
EB-5 Integrity Fundalso Integrity Fund, integrity fee: A US Treasury fund created by 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(J) to pay for EB-5 oversight, financed by an annual fee on every designated regional center plus $1,000 collected with each initial Form I-526E.
EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022also RIA, RIA 2022, Public Law 117-103, Division BB, Consolidated Appropriations Act 2022: The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 is Division BB of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, Public Law 117-103, approved on 15 March 2022, and it rewrote the EB-5 category in the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Economic impact reportalso job study, economic report, job creation study, economic impact analysis: An economic impact report is the economist's analysis that turns a project's spending, revenues or direct hiring into an estimated job total, and the project application a regional center files for each investment offering must include one. The statute and USCIS call it a credible economic analysis.
Equity modelalso equity structure: Equity model is the industry name for a structure in which the new commercial enterprise takes an ownership stake in the job creating entity instead of lending to it. It describes only that leg of the deal: the investor's own capital always goes into the new commercial enterprise as equity, never as a loan.
Escrowalso escrow account, escrow agreement, release trigger, tài khoản escrow: Escrow in EB-5 is an arrangement under which an investor's subscription money is held in a designated account under a written escrow agreement and released to the new commercial enterprise only when a stated trigger occurs, rather than passing to the enterprise on subscription.
Exit strategyalso exit, repayment, capital return: Exit strategy is the industry name for how and when invested capital is meant to return to the investor, whether through repayment of the project loan, a sale, a refinancing or a buyback. USCIS does not define the term, and immigration law limits it: capital the investor has a contractual right to get back does not count as capital at all.
Expansion of an existing businessalso 40 percent test, substantial change: Expansion of an existing business is one of the three routes in 8 CFR 204.6(h) to establishing a new commercial enterprise: investing the required amount so that net worth or employee count rises by 40 percent, to at least 140 percent of the pre-expansion figure. The route reaches only petitions filed before 15 March 2022, because the RIA definition of new commercial enterprise at 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(D)(vi) carries no expansion test.
Expenditure modelalso expenditure methodology, construction expenditure model: An expenditure model estimates EB-5 job creation by feeding a project's spending into an economic input-output model, rather than feeding it the project's projected revenues or a verified count of direct hires. USCIS does not use the label itself, but it recognizes expenditures as one of the input types an investor may rely on and requires the investor to show that the expenditure figures are reasonable.

F

Final Action Datealso final action, FAD, cut-off date, Application Final Action Dates: A final action date, shown in the Department of State Visa Bulletin as an Application Final Action Date, is the cut-off at which an immigrant visa may actually be issued or an adjustment of status approved for a given preference category and country of chargeability.
Form I-956also I-956, Application for Regional Center Designation: Form I-956, Application for Regional Center Designation, is the application an economic unit files to be designated by USCIS as an EB-5 regional center under INA 203(b)(5)(E), or to amend a designation it already holds.
Form I-956Falso I-956F, I956F, Application for Approval of an Investment in a Commercial Enterprise: Form I-956F, Application for Approval of an Investment in a Commercial Enterprise, is the application a designated regional center must file for each particular investment offering before any investor may petition on that offering.
Form I-956Galso I-956G, Regional Center Annual Statement: Form I-956G, Regional Center Annual Statement, is the yearly filing every designated regional center must submit to support its continued eligibility for designation, accounting for investor capital, project progress, fees collected from investors and required compliance certifications.
Form I-956Halso I-956H, Bona Fides of Persons Involved with Regional Center Program: Form I-956H, Bona Fides of Persons Involved with Regional Center Program, is the background attestation that each person involved with a regional center, a new commercial enterprise or an affiliated job-creating entity must complete and file as a distinct submission alongside Form I-956 or Form I-956F.
Form I-956Kalso I-956K, Registration for Direct and Third-Party Promoters: Form I-956K, Registration for Direct and Third-Party Promoters, is the USCIS registration that each person promoting a regional center EB-5 offering must file, including migration agents, subagents and employees of promoter firms.
Full-time employmentalso full time, 35 hours, full-time position: Full-time employment in EB-5 means employment of a qualifying employee in a position that requires a minimum of 35 working hours per week, not 40. The 35 hours are measured by what the position requires rather than by the hours any one person works, which is why job sharing counts, but the person filling the position must still be a qualifying employee.
Fund administrationalso separate account, third-party fund administration: Fund administration is the duty under 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(Q) for a new commercial enterprise to hold each investor's capital in a separate insured United States account and to retain an independent fund administrator over that account. The account requirement cannot be waived; the administrator can be, either by an annual GAAS financial audit shared with DHS and every investor, or by a discretionary waiver where an SEC registered adviser or broker-dealer controls the enterprise.

G

Grandfatheringalso protection from expired legislation, grandfathered petition, 203(b)(5)(S): The rule at 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(S) that requires DHS to keep processing a regional center investor's petition, and to keep visas flowing to approved ones, even if the legislation authorizing the regional center program expires, provided the petition was filed on or before 30 September 2026.
Guaranteed returnalso guaranty, guarantee of principal, guaranteed rate of return: A promise that the investor will earn a set return, or will get the principal back, which the EB-5 statute strikes out of the capital that counts, to the extent of the amount guaranteed.

H

Hard costs and soft costsalso hard costs, soft costs, construction costs: The split in a project budget between physical construction spending, the hard costs, and the professional, financing and carrying costs around it, the soft costs. Neither phrase is defined in the EB-5 statute or regulations, but the split decides which dollars enter a job creation model and at which multiplier.
High employment areaalso high employment TEA: A high employment area is a part of a metropolitan statistical area that, at the time of investment, is not a targeted employment area and has an unemployment rate significantly below the national average. It is the statutory opposite of a high unemployment area, but it carries no price premium today: an investment there requires the standard $1,050,000, the same as any investment outside a targeted employment area or infrastructure project.
High unemployment areaalso high unemployment TEA, 150 percent area: One of the two routes into a targeted employment area: a census tract, or contiguous census tracts, that the Secretary of Homeland Security designates as a high unemployment area because the weighted average unemployment rate across them is at least 150 percent of the national average. The other route is a rural area.

I

IIUSAalso Invest In the USA, IIUSA Industry Forum: The trade association of the EB-5 regional center industry, a 501(c)(6) founded in 2005 and paid for by the regional centers and service providers it speaks for.
Immigrant Investor Program Officealso IPO, USCIS IPO: The Immigrant Investor Program Office (IPO) is the single USCIS office that administers the EB-5 program and adjudicates its investor petitions and regional center filings. USCIS locates it in Washington, DC, not at a service center.
IMPLANalso IMPLAN model: IMPLAN, short for IMpact analysis for PLANning, is a commercial input-output modeling system and regional data set developed by the US Forest Service in the 1980s and privatized in the 1990s, now one of the models most often used to estimate EB-5 job creation.
Indirect jobsalso indirect employment, supply chain jobs, indirect job creation: Indirect jobs are positions created elsewhere in the economy by a project's spending, estimated with an economic model rather than counted from a payroll, and available only to regional center investors. They may fill at most nine of the ten jobs each investor must create.
Induced jobsalso induced employment, household spending jobs: Induced jobs are jobs a model attributes to the project's direct and indirect employees spending their earnings on consumer goods and services, which USCIS treats for EB-5 purposes as a sub-set of indirect jobs.
Inflation adjustmentalso indexation, 1 January 2027 adjustment, CPI adjustment: The automatic adjustment of the EB-5 minimum investment amounts to inflation, added to the statute by the RIA in 2022, which runs for the first time on 1 January 2027 and every five years after.
Infrastructure projectalso infrastructure set-aside, public works project: A second route to the $800,000 EB-5 investment amount, available only through the regional center program, in which a governmental entity is itself the job-creating entity and contracts with a regional center or new commercial enterprise to receive the investors' capital as financing for maintaining, improving, or constructing a public works project.
Input-output modelalso I-O model, economic model: An input-output model is an accounting framework of interindustry purchases that estimates how spending on a project spreads into output and jobs across a regional economy. In EB-5 it is the standard way a regional center investor shows job creation, and it produces estimated jobs rather than a verified headcount.

J

Job allocationalso employment creation allocation, job allocation agreement, allocation of jobs: Job allocation is the division of a new commercial enterprise's qualifying full-time jobs among the EB-5 investors who petitioned on it, at least ten to each, under any reasonable agreement the investors have made. Where the documents are silent, USCIS allocates by the date each investor filed to remove conditions, so a shortfall falls on the last to file rather than on everyone in equal shares.
Job cushionalso job buffer, cushion, surplus jobs, job surplus: A job cushion is the margin between the jobs a project's economic report forecasts and the jobs its investors need, which is ten full-time jobs per investor. The word is offering document usage: no statute or regulation defines a cushion or sets a minimum one.
Job sharingalso job-sharing arrangement, shared position, job share: A job-sharing arrangement, where two or more qualifying employees share one full-time position, counts as full-time employment for EB-5 provided the position still requires at least 35 working hours a week.
Job-creating entityalso JCE, job creating entity, affiliated job-creating entity: A job-creating entity, or JCE, is the United States business in a regional center EB-5 deal that receives the investment capital, either straight from the investors or through the new commercial enterprise, and is responsible for creating the ten full-time jobs each investor's petition must count.

L

Loan modelalso loan structure: The loan model is the regional center structure in which the new commercial enterprise lends the pooled investor capital to a separate job creating entity, most often a company the project developer controls, instead of taking an ownership stake in it.

M

Metropolitan statistical areaalso MSA: The county-based statistical geography that the Office of Management and Budget builds around an urban area of 50,000 or more. Land inside an MSA can never be a rural area for EB-5, however empty it looks, but a micropolitan statistical area is not an MSA and does not by itself defeat a rural claim.
Mezzanine debtalso mezz, mezzanine loan: Mezzanine debt is a loan ranking below the senior lender and above every equity holder, and in a regional center loan model it is a common position for the loan the new commercial enterprise makes to the job creating entity. It describes that loan, not the investor's own stake, which has to be equity in the new commercial enterprise rather than debt.
Minimum investment amountalso $800,000, $1,050,000, eb5 800k, investment threshold, 800k: $800,000 for an investment in a targeted employment area or in an infrastructure project, and $1,050,000 for every other investment, set by 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(C) (INA 203(b)(5)(C)). The amount that applies is the one in force on the date the petition is filed.
Multiplieralso job multiplier, economic multiplier: A multiplier is the ratio an input-output model applies to an initial change in a project's spending, earnings or jobs to estimate the total change in output, value added, earnings or jobs in a chosen industry and region.

N

NAICS codealso industry code: A NAICS code is the North American Industry Classification System identifier for an industry, six digits at its most detailed level, and in EB-5 it fixes which input-output multipliers a job study applies to a project's spending and revenue.
National Visa Centeralso NVC: The Department of State office that holds an approved EB-5 petition, collects the visa fees and supporting documents, and notifies the investor as a visa number nears, in the gap between petition approval and the consular interview. It handles only investors who will apply for the visa abroad; an investor adjusting status inside the United States never passes through it.
New commercial enterprisealso NCE, new commercial enterprise (NCE): A new commercial enterprise, usually shortened to NCE, is the for-profit entity formed in the United States that receives the EB-5 investor's capital and gives the investor an equity stake in return, and it is the enterprise the petition is built around.

O

Operating agreementalso LLC agreement, limited partnership agreement, LPA: An operating agreement is the contract that governs a limited liability company serving as the EB-5 new commercial enterprise, setting voting, management, distributions, transfers and redemption. A limited partnership uses a limited partnership agreement for the same purpose. Neither is defined by the EB-5 statute or regulations, but the immigration rules test what they say.

P

Per country limitalso 7 percent cap, country cap, per-country limit: The 7 percent ceiling, in 8 U.S.C. 1152(a)(2), on the family and employment preference immigrant visas that natives of any single foreign state may receive in a fiscal year. It is measured against the family and employment preference totals combined rather than against each category separately, and dependent areas get 2 percent.
Preferred equityalso pref equity, preferred interest: Preferred equity is an ownership interest that ranks ahead of common equity for distributions and for the return of its capital, and behind the debt of the entity that issued it. In EB-5 the phrase most often describes the form the new commercial enterprise's investment in the job-creating entity takes.
Preferred returnalso pref, coupon, preferred distribution: A claim to be paid first out of an EB-5 project's distributions, ahead of the sponsor, up to a stated rate. Immigration law does not define the term, which EB-5 borrows from private fund practice, and the rate an offering quotes is a priority rather than a promise: capital carrying a guaranteed rate of return is excluded from the statutory meaning of capital. Rates quoted in EB-5 offerings typically sit far below what a commercial lender or ordinary equity investor in the same project would require.
Priority datealso PD, eb5 priority date, 排期: A priority date is the date USCIS properly receives a complete, signed and paid Form I-526 or I-526E, and it fixes the investor's place in the visa queue for their country of chargeability and their EB-5 category.
Priority processing for rural projectsalso rural priority processing, expedited rural: The statutory instruction that USCIS prioritise the processing and adjudication of EB-5 petitions for rural areas, which moves a case up the assignment queue and changes nothing about the standard for approval.
Program lapsealso 2021 lapse, suspension, shutdown: The period from 1 July 2021 to 14 May 2022 when no statute authorized the EB-5 regional center program, so no investor could file a regional center petition. USCIS rejected regional center petitions received on or after 1 July 2021 and suspended adjudication of those already pending. Standalone petitions were unaffected.

Q

Qualifying employeealso qualifying worker, US worker, qualified employee: A qualifying employee is a US citizen, a lawful permanent resident, or another immigrant lawfully authorized to be employed in the United States, and only their full-time positions count toward an investor's ten. The statute adds United States nationals to that list.

R

Redemption and buy-back optionalso redemption right, put option, sell-back option, mandatory redemption: A redemption or put right is a contract term letting the investor demand that the new commercial enterprise repay or repurchase the investment, and by statute it takes the money out of the definition of capital. A buy back option is the mirror image, exercisable by the enterprise rather than the investor, and it is the one such term the statute allows.
Redeploymentalso redeploy, reinvestment, further deployment, передислокация: Redeployment is the reinvestment of an EB-5 investor's capital into a new use after the job-creating entity pays it back, so the money stays at risk for the rest of the period it must remain invested. USCIS calls it further deployment.
Regional centeralso RC, EB-5 regional center, designated regional center: A regional center is an economic unit, public or private, that USCIS has designated to sponsor pooled EB-5 investment within a defined, contiguous and limited geographic area, and it is the only route on which a petition may count indirect and induced jobs.
Regional Center Programalso RC program, regional center pathway, Immigrant Investor Program: The Regional Center Program is the branch of EB-5 under which an investor files through a designated regional center and may count indirectly created jobs toward the ten-job requirement, and it is authorized through 30 September 2027.
REMIalso REMI model: REMI stands for Regional Economic Models, Inc., the firm whose Policy Insight simulation model the Department of Energy used to estimate direct and indirect job impacts in its State Energy Program evaluation. In EB-5 practice the name is used as shorthand for the model itself, which job studies name alongside RIMS II and IMPLAN.
Retrogressionalso retrogress, backward movement, visa retrogression: Visa retrogression is a Visa Bulletin cut-off date moving backward, so a priority date that was current one month is not current the next, because demand in a category or country outran the visa numbers available.
RIMS IIalso RIMS 2, Regional Input-Output Modeling System: RIMS II is the Bureau of Economic Analysis multiplier set that estimates how much total output, value added, earnings and employment a given change in final demand generates in a chosen group of US counties, and it is the model behind many EB-5 regional center job studies.
Rural areaalso rural TEA, rural project: One of the two routes into a targeted employment area: an area that is both outside every metropolitan statistical area and outside the outer boundary of any city or town of 20,000 or more people.

S

Secured indebtednessalso collateral, loan collateral, secured loan: Debt that the investor is personally and primarily liable for and that is secured by the investor's own assets, which counts toward the EB-5 capital requirement only when the debt instrument itself is what goes into the enterprise, not when the investor contributes cash borrowed against those assets.
Senior debtalso senior loan, senior lender, first mortgage: Senior debt is the borrowing that ranks first in a project's capital stack, normally secured by a first lien on the project assets, and it is paid ahead of every junior claim, an EB-5 loan included, out of project cash flow and out of the collateral if the borrower defaults.
Side letteralso side agreement, side letters: A side letter is a separate written promise between an EB-5 project and one investor, sitting outside the main offering documents and changing what those documents say for that investor alone. It is a securities practice term rather than a USCIS one, and whether it costs the investor the petition depends on which promise it carries.
Sources and usesalso sources and uses table, budget table, uses of funds: The table in an EB-5 business plan or offering that lists every source of money for a project against every category it will be spent on, with the two columns totalling the same figure.
Subordination and intercreditor agreementalso intercreditor, intercreditor agreement, subordination agreement: A subordination agreement ranks one creditor's claim behind another's, and an intercreditor agreement sets the order of repayment, control and enforcement rights among two or more lenders to the same project. Neither is an EB-5 instrument. Both turn up in EB-5 because the new commercial enterprise's loan is usually the junior debt in the capital stack.
Subscription agreementalso subscription docs, subscription documents: A subscription agreement is the contract by which an investor buys an interest in the new commercial enterprise, carrying the price, the investor's representations, the closing conditions and, where the offering uses one, the terms on which money leaves escrow.
Sunset and reauthorizationalso sunset date, 30 September 2027, program authorization: The regional center program's visa authorization runs through 30 September 2027 under 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(E), and only an act of Congress can extend it.
Sustainment periodalso sustainment, two year period, maintaining the investment: The period an EB-5 investor's capital must stay invested. For a petition filed on or after 15 March 2022 it is two years, and USCIS counts it from the date the capital was contributed to the new commercial enterprise and placed at risk, not from admission as a conditional resident. For a petition filed before that date it is instead the two years of conditional permanent residence.

T

Targeted employment areaalso TEA, targeted employment area designation: A targeted employment area, or TEA, is a rural area or an area the Secretary of Homeland Security has designated as a high unemployment area, and an EB-5 investment placed in one requires $800,000 of capital rather than $1,050,000. An investment in an infrastructure project reaches the same $800,000 by a separate route without being a TEA.
Ten full-time jobsalso job creation requirement, 10 jobs, ten jobs: Ten full-time jobs for qualifying employees is the EB-5 job creation requirement: each investor's capital must produce its own ten, which is the number an offering's economic report has to show for every investor it takes in.
Tenant occupancyalso tenant occupancy methodology, tenant-occupancy, tenant jobs: Tenant occupancy is a job counting method that credits an EB-5 regional center project with jobs attributed to the businesses expected to lease the commercial space the project creates or improves, counted on top of the jobs the project itself creates. It is open only to regional center projects, and only where the count rests on an economically and statistically valid methodology and the jobs are not existing jobs that have been relocated.
Tranchealso tranches, staggered closing, closing round: A slice of an EB-5 offering that closes separately from the rest, so a project raises its capital in stages rather than in a single closing. The word is market jargon: no statute, regulation or USCIS policy defines it, so a tranche means only what the offering documents make it mean.
Troubled businessalso troubled business exception: A troubled business is a business in existence for at least two years whose net loss under generally accepted accounting principles, over the 12 or 24 months before the priority date on the investor's I-526 or I-526E, is at least 20 percent of its net worth before that loss.

U

Unreserved visasalso unreserved category, 68 percent, 5th Unreserved: The 68 percent of each fiscal year's EB-5 visa numbers that sit outside the rural, high unemployment and infrastructure set-asides, and go to investors whose project qualifies for none of the three.
USCIS filing feealso form fee, G-1055, fee schedule: The amount USCIS charges to file a given EB-5 form. The fees are set by regulation, under 8 U.S.C. 1356(m) and codified at 8 CFR 106.2, but for EB-5 forms the amount USCIS will actually accept is the one in its published schedule, Form G-1055, because the regulation's EB-5 figures are stayed.
USCIS Policy Manual Volume 6 Part Galso Policy Manual, Volume 6 Part G, 6 USCIS-PM G: The EB-5 part of the USCIS Policy Manual, titled Part G, Investors, sitting inside Volume 6, Immigrants; it runs to eight chapters and is cited as 6 USCIS-PM G.

V

Visa Bulletinalso visa bulletin, DOS bulletin, 排期表: The Visa Bulletin is the monthly Department of State publication that reports, by preference category and country of chargeability, which priority dates have reached the front of the immigrant visa queue.
Visa set-asidesalso reserved visas, set aside, 20 10 2: The reserved slices of each fiscal year's EB-5 visa numbers: 20 percent for investment in a rural area, 10 percent for a high unemployment area and 2 percent for infrastructure projects, so 32 percent reserved and 68 percent unreserved.