Money and structure
Minimum investment amount
Also called $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.
What it decides
The lower figure has two independent routes, a targeted employment area or an infrastructure project, and infrastructure is a second way in rather than an exception to the targeted employment area test. Both amounts govern petitions filed on or after 15 March 2022, when the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act took effect. Petitions filed before that date were subject to $1,000,000, or $500,000 in a targeted employment area. The amount in force on the filing date controls, so a petition filed on or before 31 December 2026 is measured against $800,000 or $1,050,000 whatever happens later. On 1 January 2027, and every five years after, the standard figure adjusts by the cumulative annual change in the unadjusted CPI-U measured from 1 January 2022, rounded down to the nearest $50,000. The lower figure is not itself indexed: the statute resets it to 75 percent of the adjusted standard figure. Today's $800,000 is 76.19 percent of $1,050,000, so 2027 resets that ratio rather than adding inflation to $800,000. Expect both figures to rise, and do not budget on $800,000 for a 2027 filing. The $1,800,000 and $900,000 printed in 8 CFR 204.6(f) do not apply and never did after mid 2021. That was the 2019 modernization rule, which a federal court vacated in Behring Regional Center LLC v. Wolf, 544 F. Supp. 3d 937 (N.D. Cal. 22 June 2021), before the 2022 statute replaced it. DHS has not removed the text, and the same paragraph still carries a 50 percent targeted employment area rule that the statutory 75 percent displaced.
Where this is explained properly
Pages here that go into minimum investment amount rather than mentioning it.
Related terms
- Metropolitan statistical areaThe 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.
- Census tractA 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.
- Priority processing for rural projectsThe 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.
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