The programme

EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program

Also called 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.

What it decides

Congress created EB-5 in 1990 and USCIS administers it. The investor files Form I-526, Immigrant Petition by Standalone Investor, or Form I-526E, Immigrant Petition by Regional Center Investor, and 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5) sets the terms: $1,050,000 of capital, or $800,000 in a targeted employment area or an infrastructure project, and full-time employment for not fewer than ten qualifying workers, who cannot be the investor or the investor's spouse, sons or daughters. Both figures adjust for inflation for the first time on 1 January 2027. The infrastructure route sits inside the regional center program, so it belongs to Form I-526E rather than to a standalone petition. Approval of the petition confers no status by itself. Once an immigrant visa is available, the investor applies abroad on Form DS-260 or files Form I-485 in the United States, and conditional permanent residence begins on admission or on approval of the adjustment. It runs two years under 8 U.S.C. 1186b, and the conditions come off on Form I-829, Petition by Investor to Remove Conditions on Permanent Resident Status, filed in the 90 days before the second anniversary. Naturalization is a later and separate process with its own rules.

Governed by 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(A)(ii) (ten qualifying workers, excluding the investor and the investor's spouse, sons or daughters); 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(C)(i) and (ii) ($1,050,000 and $800,000 for a targeted employment area or an infrastructure project); 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(C)(iii) (first adjustment 1 January 2027); 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(D)(iv) (infrastructure project, under the regional center program); 8 U.S.C. 1186b(a)(1), (c)(1) and (d)(2)(A)(i) (conditional basis on obtaining residence, removal petition in the 90 days before the second anniversary); USCIS, About the EB-5 Visa Classification, last updated 18 November 2025 (https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/permanent-workers/employment-based-immigration-fifth-preference-eb-5/about-the-eb-5-visa-classification); USCIS, EB-5 Immigrant Investor Process, last updated 18 November 2025 (https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/permanent-workers/employment-based-immigration-fifth-preference-eb-5/eb-5-immigrant-investor-process). The general USCIS EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program page (https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/permanent-workers/eb-5-immigrant-investor-program) supports the 1990 creation and the fifth preference name, but it was last reviewed 1 March 2023 and still displays the vacated 2019 rule figures of $1.8 million and $900,000, so do not cite it for the investment amounts.

Where this is explained properly

Pages here that go into eb-5 immigrant investor program rather than mentioning it.

Related terms

EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022The 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.
8 U.S.C. 1153(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).
Regional Center ProgramThe 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.
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.

Checked against primary sources on 6 August 2026. Back to the glossary