Jobs

Construction job proration

Also called Prorated construction jobs, Construction activity jobs.

Construction job proration is the rule that a regional center project's direct construction jobs count only in proportion to how long the build lasts: where construction runs less than two years, the estimated direct jobs are multiplied by the fraction of a two year period the work takes, so an 18 month build yields 75 percent of them.

What it decides

8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(E)(v)(II)(cc), headed Construction activity jobs, says that where the number of direct jobs has been determined by an economically and statistically valid methodology and those jobs are created by construction activity lasting less than 2 years, the number that may be considered direct is the total estimate multiplied by the fraction of the 2 year period the construction lasts. An 18 month build claiming 100 direct construction jobs contributes 75; a 12 month build contributes 50; a build of 2 years or more is not prorated at all, so the multiplier can never exceed one. The prorated figure is what counts as direct for the purposes of clause (iv), so it feeds straight into the caps: at most 90 percent of an investor's ten jobs may be indirect, and on the same short construction project that ceiling drops to 75 percent under clause (iv)(II). The formula sits inside subparagraph (E), the regional center program, so a standalone investor counting actual employees of the new commercial enterprise never meets it.

Governed by 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(E)(v)(II)(cc) for the formula and the valid methodology precondition, and 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(E)(iv)(II) for the separate 75 percent cap. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 6, Part G, Chapter 5, Section A, subsection 4, under the heading Construction Activity Lasting Less than 2 Years, states both limits and its footnotes 19 and 20 cite exactly those two provisions; that chapter is good for the rule but omits the valid methodology precondition, which only the statute carries. The regional center scope is confirmed by Volume 6, Part G, Chapter 2, Section D, which places the construction limits under the heading New Commercial Enterprise Located Within a Regional Center, footnote 123. Both chapters were last changed by the technical update of 26 February 2025; the last substantive EB-5 alert on Chapter 5 was 16 July 2024.

Related terms

75 percent cap on short construction jobsWhere 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.
90 percent cap on indirect jobsThe 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.
Direct jobsA 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.
Economic impact reportAn 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.
Direct EB-5Direct 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.

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