The programme

Capital investment project

Also called EB-5 project.

A capital investment project is the specific undertaking that a regional center's business plan describes and that the pooled investor capital funds, whether it is carried out by a separate job-creating entity or by the new commercial enterprise itself. It is the project a Form I-956F is approved for, not the entity the investor subscribes into.

What it decides

The phrase runs through 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5) sixteen times and is never defined there. It first appears at (F)(i)(I), which requires the project application to contain a comprehensive business plan for a specific capital investment project. USCIS sets out the structure in Policy Manual Volume 6, Part G, Chapter 5, Section A, Subsection 1: the offering runs through a new commercial enterprise that generally funds a capital investment project undertaken by a separate job-creating entity, or undertaken directly by the enterprise itself. The split has consequences. Under (Q)(vi)(III) a separate account may hold only the pooled funds of investors in one enterprise with respect to a single capital investment project. Under (F)(v) redeployment turns on the enterprise having executed the business plan for the project in good faith without a material change. Under (D)(iv) a capital investment project administered by a governmental entity is what makes an infrastructure project. Marketing calls the whole deal the project; the documents do not.

Governed by 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(F)(i)(I), (F)(v), (D)(iv) and (Q)(vi)(III), read on the govinfo mirror of the 2024 edition of the US Code; USCIS Policy Manual Volume 6, Part G, Chapter 5, Project Applications, Section A, Subsection 1, whose most recent substantive update is the policy alert of 16 July 2024. Neither the statute nor 8 CFR 204.6 defines the phrase, so the definition here is drawn from how the statute and the Policy Manual use it rather than from a definitional provision.

Where this is explained properly

Pages here that go into capital investment project rather than mentioning it.

Related terms

Form I-956FForm 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.
New commercial enterpriseA 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.
Job-creating entityA 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.
Infrastructure projectA 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.
Comprehensive business planA comprehensive business plan is the document showing that a new commercial enterprise will need at least ten qualifying employees within the next two years, with approximate hiring dates; a standalone investor files it with the petition, while a regional center offering now carries it in the regional center's Form I-956F project application instead.

Checked against primary sources on 10 August 2026. Back to the glossary