Process and timing

Site visit

Also called USCIS site visit, EB-5 site visit.

A site visit is an in person inspection USCIS makes of a regional center, a new commercial enterprise, a job creating entity or a location where claimed jobs are said to sit, and since 15 March 2024 a performed site visit is one of the statutory conditions for removing conditions on residence.

What it decides

8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(F)(iv) puts two duties on the Secretary: perform site visits to regional centers no earlier than 24 hours after giving notice of the visit, and perform at least one site visit to each new commercial enterprise or job creating entity, or to the business locations where jobs claimed as created are said to sit. The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act then added 8 U.S.C. 1186b(c)(1)(C), which makes a performed site visit a condition for removing the conditional basis of status, alongside the petition and the interview. That subparagraph took effect on 15 March 2024, two years after enactment, and the same section exempts an I-829 whose underlying petition was filed before 15 March 2022. The duty runs to USCIS, so the investor files nothing and cannot request a visit: the exposure is a case that waits on an inspection USCIS has not yet made. A site visit taken as fieldwork in a regional center audit is a different exercise from a Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate site visit.

Governed by 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(F)(iv), clause headed Site visits inside subparagraph (F), Business plans for regional center investments; 8 U.S.C. 1186b(c)(1)(C), added by Pub. L. 117-103, div. BB, sec. 104(a)(5)(B)(iv), effective 15 March 2024 under sec. 104(b)(2)(A), with the pre-enactment carve-out at sec. 104(b)(2)(B). The audit versus FDNS distinction comes from the USCIS page EB-5 Regional Center Audits, last reviewed 9 April 2024, which is good for that point and says nothing about 1186b(c)(1)(C).

Where this is explained properly

Pages here that go into site visit rather than mentioning it.

Prepping for the IIUSA Industry Forum: What’s on the 2026 Agenda?

Related terms

Compliance auditA compliance audit, which USCIS calls a regional center audit, is the review USCIS must conduct on every designated regional center at least once every five years under 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(E)(vii)(II), examining the records the center must keep and the flow of investor capital into its capital investment projects.
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.
Removal of conditionsRemoval of conditions is the last EB-5 filing, Form I-829, submitted in the 90 days before the second anniversary of conditional residence, in which the investor shows the required capital was invested and kept invested for the period the law requires and that ten full-time jobs were created or can be expected within a reasonable time.
Form I-829Form I-829, Petition by Investor to Remove Conditions on Permanent Resident Status, is the petition an EB-5 conditional permanent resident files in the 90 days before the second anniversary of that status, asking USCIS to confirm the capital was invested and the ten jobs created and to make the green card unconditional.
Regional centerA 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.

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