The programme
Troubled business
Also called troubled business exception.
A troubled business is a business in existence for at least two years whose net loss under generally accepted accounting principles, over the 12 or 24 months before the priority date on the investor's I-526 or I-526E, is at least 20 percent of its net worth before that loss.
What it decides
The category lets preserved jobs count toward the ten instead of new ones: the petition must show existing employment maintained at no less than the pre-investment level for at least two years. It does not lower the count. USCIS states the investor must still show ten jobs preserved, created, or some combination, so four new plus six preserved qualifies. USCIS applies the route in the regional center context as well as to standalone investors. The regulation deems a successor in interest to have been in existence for the same period as the business it succeeded. At removal of conditions the investor must again show employment held at the pre-investment level. The provision is regulatory, and DHS says the RIA neither specifically included nor excluded it. It remains in force as at 5 August 2026. DHS proposed on 2 July 2026 to remove it, with comments open until 31 August 2026, and states that removal would not affect petitions filed before any final rule takes effect, nor removal of conditions resting on job preservation.
Where this is explained properly
Pages here that go into troubled business rather than mentioning it.
Related terms
- Expansion of an existing businessExpansion of an existing business is one of the three routes in 8 CFR 204.6(h) to establishing a new commercial enterprise: investing the required amount so that net worth or employee count rises by 40 percent, to at least 140 percent of the pre-expansion figure. The route reaches only petitions filed before 15 March 2022, because the RIA definition of new commercial enterprise at 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(D)(vi) carries no expansion test.
- 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.
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