Money and structure

Sustainment period

Also called sustainment, two year period, maintaining the investment.

The period an EB-5 investor's capital must stay invested. For a petition filed on or after 15 March 2022 it is two years, and USCIS counts it from the date the capital was contributed to the new commercial enterprise and placed at risk, not from admission as a conditional resident. For a petition filed before that date it is instead the two years of conditional permanent residence.

What it decides

8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(A)(i), as amended by the RIA, requires capital "expected to remain invested for not less than 2 years". The statute uses the phrase "sustainment period" at 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(D)(ii)(IV)(bb) without defining it, so the content comes from USCIS. For petitions filed on or after 15 March 2022, a USCIS alert of 11 October 2023 puts the start at the date the qualifying investment is made, meaning the date the capital was contributed to the new commercial enterprise and placed at risk in accordance with applicable requirements, including being made available to the job-creating entity where that entity is separate. It does not start on admission as a conditional resident, because the RIA dropped the requirement to sustain the investment throughout conditional residence, which can fall years later depending on visa availability. Two conditions ride with this. USCIS treated the two years as enough only "provided job creation requirements have been met", so the capital cannot simply come out on the second anniversary if the ten jobs are not yet there. And where the investment was made more than two years before the petition, USCIS said it should generally still be maintained when the I-526 or I-526E is properly filed. Petitions filed before 15 March 2022 follow the older rule. 8 CFR 216.6(c)(1)(iii) requires that the investor have "continuously maintained his or her capital investment over the two years of conditional residence", and USCIS defines that period as two years from the date conditional permanent residence was obtained, with no need to hold the money beyond it. That window opens only after the visa queue, and the capital must remain at risk in the meantime, which is why capital repaid by the job-creating entity beforehand has to be redeployed rather than parked in passive investments.

Governed by 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(A)(i) (two year investment requirement); 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(D)(ii)(IV)(bb) (uses "sustainment period", undefined); USCIS alert "USCIS Provides Additional Guidance for EB-5 Required Investment Timeframe and Investors Associated with Terminated Regional Centers", 11 October 2023 (https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/uscis-provides-additional-guidance-for-eb-5-required-investment-timeframe-and-investors-associated); 8 CFR 216.6(c)(1)(iii) for pre-RIA petitions (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-8/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-216/section-216.6); USCIS Policy Manual, Volume 6, Part G, Chapter 7, footnote 4, defining the pre-RIA sustainment period (https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-6-part-g-chapter-7); USCIS Policy Manual, Volume 6, Part G, Chapter 2, on the post-RIA two year requirement, the made available rule and redeployment (https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-6-part-g-chapter-2); USCIS EB-5 Questions and Answers (https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/permanent-workers/employment-based-immigration-fifth-preference-eb-5/eb-5-questions-and-answers)

Where this is explained properly

Pages here that go into sustainment period rather than mentioning it.

Related terms

Capital at riskThe rule that the investor's required capital must be genuinely exposed to loss, with a real chance of gain, and not shielded by a guaranteed return or by any contractual right to repayment.
RedeploymentRedeployment is the reinvestment of an EB-5 investor's capital into a new use after the job-creating entity pays it back, so the money stays at risk for the rest of the period it must remain invested. USCIS calls it further deployment.
EscrowEscrow in EB-5 is an arrangement under which an investor's subscription money is held in a designated account under a written escrow agreement and released to the new commercial enterprise only when a stated trigger occurs, rather than passing to the enterprise on subscription.

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