Both EB-5 stages approve far more petitions than they deny. Across the life of the program USCIS has approved the large majority of Form I-526 and Form I-829 petitions it finished adjudicating, and conditions removal has usually run higher than the petition stage, because a case that reaches the I-829 has already survived one complete review. Percentages shift every quarter. USCIS publishes them itself, by form and by fiscal quarter, so an approval rate quoted at you with no filing period attached is marketing rather than data.
That is the headline. The useful version takes longer, because an approval rate is a ratio and both halves of it behave strangely.
Where the official numbers actually come from
USCIS posts adjudication counts on its immigration and citizenship data page, split by form and fiscal quarter: receipts, approvals, denials, plus the volume still pending when the quarter closed. Those tables are the primary source. Everything else, including this page, is commentary on them.
Read the shape of that data before you read the numbers. A quarterly row counts decisions issued during the quarter, so approvals and denials sitting on the same line often come from petitions filed years apart under different rules. Nobody publishes a true cohort survival rate for EB-5. Nobody can, while a large share of the queue is still pending.
Why a published approval rate flatters the program
Three mechanics push the ratio upward, and none of them involve anyone lying.
- Withdrawals never count as denials. An investor whose source of funds evidence collapses under a Request for Evidence often withdraws rather than take a denial on the record, and that file leaves the statistics without ever appearing in the denial column.
- RFEs push outcomes into a later quarter. A petition that draws a heavy RFE in one period is frequently approved two or three periods later, which makes the quarter of maximum scrutiny look calm and a much later quarter look generous.
- Denials arrive in clusters. When a single offering fails on its job creation model, USCIS can issue dozens of denials tied to that one project inside a few weeks, dragging the quarter down for reasons that say nothing about the rest of the market.
So a program-wide percentage tells you very little about your own file. Your real odds are set by the project you picked and by the paper trail behind your money. Both can be inspected before you wire anything, which is why EB-5 Consulting Firms: What Independent Due Diligence Actually Buys deserves more of your attention than any headline statistic.
Source of funds is still the biggest killer
It has led the denial reasons for as long as anyone has kept score. USCIS wants a documented path from the origin of the money to the escrow account, and a bank balance is not a starting point. A gift from a parent needs the parent's income history behind it. Proceeds from a sold apartment need the sale deed and the tax filings, plus a clean wire trail out of the country.
After funds, the failures cluster around jobs. The regulation at 8 CFR 204.6 defines full-time employment as a position requiring at least 35 hours of service per week, and subsection (e) refuses to let anyone add up part-time positions to manufacture a full-time one. A genuine job-sharing arrangement does count, where two employees split one full-time position. Two half-time cashiers who were never a shared position do not.
One misreading appears often enough to name. The 40 percent expansion test, which lets a substantial increase in net worth or headcount turn an existing business into a qualifying new commercial enterprise, does not replace the ten job requirement. Expansion answers what the enterprise is. Creating ten full-time positions for qualifying employees remains the investor's burden.
Is the I-829 stage really the easy one?
Usually, and for a dull reason. By then the project has either created the jobs or it has not, and the arguable legal questions were settled at the petition stage. 8 CFR 216.6 sets the mechanics: file Form I-829 during the 90 day window before the second anniversary of the date you obtained conditional residence, show that the enterprise was sustained, show the jobs.
Derivatives ride on the principal investor's petition. A spouse and children do not each file an I-829, which surprises families who budgeted for four separate filings.
When approval comes, conditions are removed as of that second anniversary. Approval does not reach back to the day the money was wired. The unconditional card that follows runs ten years, and a permanent resident renews it on Form I-90 when it expires. Residence itself does not lapse with the plastic, and there is no work permit left to keep renewing once conditions are gone.
After 2022, a different set of petitions reaches an adjudicator
The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 rebuilt the regional center side of the program and changed which petitions even arrive on a desk. Regional centers now file Form I-956 for designation and Form I-956F for each specific offering. Form I-956G is the annual statement. Form I-956H covers the bona fides of people involved, and promoters register on Form I-956K.
Timing under those rules has cost investors priority dates. An investor may file Form I-526E once the regional center has filed the I-956F for that offering. USCIS must approve the I-956F before those petitions can be approved, which is a different requirement entirely. Waiting for the I-956F approval before filing surrenders months of queue position and buys nothing.
Set-asides changed the mix as well. Twenty percent of the annual EB-5 supply is reserved for rural projects and ten percent for high unemployment areas, with two percent for infrastructure, so a rural filing can be approved and issued a visa while an unreserved petition from the same month waits behind a country cap. Those mechanics are unpacked in EB-5 Backlog and Retrogression Explained: Country Caps and Set Asides.
Reading your own odds before you wire $800,000
Ask the regional center whether the offering holds an approved exemplar, then read the actual approval notice rather than the summary in the marketing deck. EB-5 Project Exemplar Approval: What It Means for Investors explains what that approval settles and what it leaves open.
Then check the clock. The USCIS processing times tool publishes current adjudication ranges by form and office, and for both I-526E and I-829 those ranges have run in years rather than months. A long wait is not a denial. It is still the thing most likely to reshape your family's plans.
Finally, read the policy that governs your file. Volume 6, Part G of the USCIS Policy Manual is the operating manual adjudicators work from on immigrant investor cases, and an attorney who cannot tell you which part of it your project relies on is not the attorney for $800,000 of your money.
Approval rates describe a population you are not a member of. Your file is a sample of one.