Live wherever you want. EB-5 puts no geographic condition on your home address. The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 fixed the minimum at $800,000 in a targeted employment area and $1,050,000 outside one, and the petition regulation at 8 CFR 204.6 adds ten full time jobs and a documentary record of where the money came from. Neither asks where the investor sleeps. A family whose capital funds a hotel in rural Montana can settle in Irvine on the day they land. Your choice of state decides other things: the income tax you pay, the schools your children can attend, what a comparable house costs, how easily you build the physical presence record that naturalization later demands.
Does USCIS care which state you settle in?
For a regional center investment, no. You hold a limited partnership interest or a non-managing membership unit, your role is passive by design, and the project location is the regional center's operational problem rather than yours. Direct EB-5 changes that. An investor there has to be engaged in the enterprise through day to day management or policy formation, and running a Miami restaurant from an apartment in Vancouver is the kind of arrangement that draws a request for evidence. Our comparison of Regional Center vs Direct EB-5 works through what each structure actually demands of you.
One duty applies in every state.
A green card is a residence status, and USCIS says so plainly on its page about maintaining permanent resident status. Absences of more than six months invite questions at the port of entry. A year abroad is treated as abandonment unless you obtained a reentry permit on Form I-131 before departing. Investors who intend to keep running a business in Seoul or Sao Paulo should solve this before choosing a city, because the honest answer often decides which airport they want to live near.
The number that moves most: state income tax
From the day you are admitted as a permanent resident, the federal government taxes you on worldwide income. The IRS sets out the green card test on its page for determining an individual's tax residency status, and unlike the substantial presence test used for nonimmigrants, it does not count your days. Federal rates are identical in Fargo and in Beverly Hills. State rates are not.
California has a top marginal individual rate of 13.3 percent and taxes long term capital gains as ordinary income, so a founder who sells a company after landing can write Sacramento a very large check. Texas and Florida impose no personal income tax at all. Nevada does not either. New York City stacks a municipal income tax on top of the state rate. Property tax pulls the other way: Texas funds its schools largely through property levies, and effective rates above 2 percent of assessed value are common in suburban districts, which quietly eats part of the income tax saving for a family buying a $2 million house.
Sequence beats geography for a one time liquidation. A sale of foreign company shares completed before you become a US tax resident is generally outside the US net. The same sale a week after admission is inside it. For an investor holding concentrated foreign assets this is the most expensive detail in the whole process, and it belongs in front of a cross border tax adviser months before the immigrant visa interview, never after.
Two federal reporting duties follow you to whichever state you choose. Foreign accounts whose combined balance passes $10,000 at any point in the calendar year trigger an FBAR, filed through the FinCEN foreign bank and financial accounts report. Your foreign banks report those same accounts to the IRS under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act whether you file or not.
Why California keeps coming up
Searches for "EB-5 visa California" stay steady for reasons that survive the tax rate. Los Angeles and Orange County hold two of the largest Chinese and Iranian diaspora communities in the country, which shortens the settling-in period for a family whose English is still improving. The University of California charges residents a fraction of nonresident tuition, and California, like most states, expects roughly a year of established domicile before a student qualifies. Nonstop flights to Asia leave LAX and SFO daily.
The bill arrives in two places: the 13.3 percent ceiling, and housing. A house that costs $700,000 in a strong Dallas school district costs several times that on the San Francisco peninsula. Families who plan to work in technology or entertainment usually decide the premium is worth paying. Retirees rarely do, which is why Florida keeps winning that group, and we work through the arithmetic in EB-5 for Retirement in the US.
What a spreadsheet will not tell you
Public schools are zoned and funded locally, so the school your child attends is decided by the street on your lease. Two addresses four miles apart can sit in different districts with very different outcomes. Private day schools in major metros run into tens of thousands of dollars a year for each child, which for a family with three children can swamp any state tax difference.
You buy healthcare in the United States. A green card brings no automatic coverage, so you take an employer plan or a marketplace policy, and premiums swing by state and by county. Medicare normally requires 40 quarters of covered work, or five years of continuous residence plus payment of the Part A premium, which matters a great deal to an investor who arrives at 63.
Apply for a Social Security number early through the Social Security Administration number and card service. Without one you cannot open most bank accounts or begin a credit file. A family that lands with no US credit history usually pays cash or a heavy deposit for a car and an apartment through the first year.
Rent first, buy later
Sign a twelve month lease before you sign a deed. Neighborhoods that look identical on a listing site differ on commute time and on school assignment, and neither is visible from abroad. Buying a house also does nothing for the immigration case: residential property bought for personal use creates no qualifying jobs and satisfies no part of the EB-5 test, a point we set out in why buying US property gets no green card.
Where the rest of the family can work matters more than most investors expect. Your spouse and unmarried children under 21 receive the same employment rights you do once they are admitted, so a metro with depth in their field can be worth more than a lower tax rate, and Employment and Business Opportunities After EB-5 covers what they may do. Families weighing more than one petition should read EB-5 for Multiple Family Members before deciding whose name goes on the filing.
Decide the project before you decide the city
Your project has a clock. Your city does not.
The regional center program is authorized through 30 September 2027, and petitions filed on or before 30 September 2026 carry the grandfathering protection at 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(S), which keeps a properly filed petition adjudicable even if authorization lapses. You can read the provision in the official text of 8 U.S.C. 1153. A first inflation adjustment to the $800,000 and $1,050,000 minimums takes effect on 1 January 2027. Picking a state can wait until your interview is scheduled. Picking a project cannot.