Direct EB-5 investment means putting $800,000 into your own new US business in a Targeted Employment Area, or $1,050,000 outside one, running or directing that business yourself, and creating ten full-time jobs for qualifying US workers that you can prove with payroll records. There is no regional center, no economic model and no indirect jobs. Every one of those ten positions must be a real person on a real payroll when you file to remove conditions.
That is the whole trade. You get control over your capital and your business, and you take on the burden of proving job creation with documents rather than projections. It suits operators. It punishes passive investors who wanted a business as a formality.
Standalone, not I-526E: get the form right
Since the 2022 reforms, the two paths use different petitions. A direct or standalone investor files Form I-526, Immigrant Petition by Standalone Investor. Regional center investors file Form I-526E. Plenty of articles still tell direct investors to file I-526E. They are wrong, and filing the wrong form wastes months.
The petition has to carry a comprehensive business plan, evidence that the capital has been invested or is irrevocably committed, and full lawful source of funds documentation tracing the money from where it was earned to where it now sits. The governing regulation is 8 CFR 204.6 on employment creation petitions, and USCIS explains its adjudication approach in Volume 6, Part G of the USCIS Policy Manual.
The money, and what "at risk" really means
The threshold is $800,000 if the business sits in a Targeted Employment Area, meaning a rural area or an area of high unemployment, and $1,050,000 otherwise. Both figures are scheduled for their first inflation adjustment on 1 January 2027. Under the current rules, USCIS decides whether a location qualifies as a high unemployment TEA, so you cannot assume a state letter settles it.
The capital must be genuinely at risk. No guaranteed return, no redemption right, no side agreement promising your money back on a date. It also has to be sustained in the enterprise for at least two years, and USCIS wants to see it actually deployed into the business activity described in your plan, not parked in an account. Money that sits idle is a common reason a case that looked strong at filing falls apart at condition removal.
Borrowed capital can count, but only if you are personally and primarily liable for the debt and the assets of the enterprise itself do not secure it. The lawful source of the loan, and of whatever collateral stands behind it, becomes part of your evidence burden. The definition of qualifying capital sits in the statute at 8 U.S.C. 1153 on employment based immigrant visas.
Ten jobs, and exactly who counts
This is where direct cases live or die. The jobs must be full-time, generally at least 35 hours a week, and held by qualifying US workers: citizens, lawful permanent residents, and certain other work-authorized immigrants. A job-sharing arrangement, where two or more qualifying employees share a single full-time position, does count as full-time employment.
Who does not count is just as important. You do not count. Neither does your spouse, nor your children. Independent contractors and staff supplied by an agency generally do not count either, because they are not employees of your enterprise. Part-time roles cannot be stacked together until the hours reach 35 either: the regulation credits a shared full-time position, not a pile of part-time ones. Ten "team members" on a website is not ten qualifying jobs.
The practical test is documentary. Payroll registers, tax filings, I-9 records and quarterly wage reports. If your hiring plan cannot survive that scrutiny, the immigration case cannot either. Direct EB-5 Hiring: How to Build and Prove 10 Full-Time US Jobs goes through the record keeping in detail.
You have to actually run the business
Direct EB-5 requires you to be engaged in management or in policy formation. Serving as an officer or director with real responsibility works. So does a general partner role, or an equivalent position in an LLC where you hold genuine managerial authority under the operating agreement. Holding a minority stake with no voice does not.
Note what this is not. It is not a requirement that you personally staff the counter or work full-time in the shop. Policy formation is enough if it is real and documented: board minutes, signed decisions, employment agreements, evidence you are the one setting direction. Direct EB-5: Hands-On vs Hands-Off, What USCIS Really Expects draws the line more precisely.
What counts as a new commercial enterprise
The business must be a for profit entity formed for the ongoing conduct of lawful business. Buying an existing company can qualify if you restructure or expand it substantially, and expansion cases have their own evidentiary shape, covered in EB-5 Expansion 2026: Use Your Existing US Business to Qualify for a Green Card. A franchise is popular for a reason: known unit economics, a documented staffing model and a corporate hiring plan that maps neatly onto a job creation schedule, as EB-5 Franchise Investment: Is a US Brand the Safest Direct Path? works through.
What does not qualify is passive ownership dressed as a business. Buying a house and renting it out is not a commercial enterprise for these purposes, and neither is a portfolio of securities.
Set-asides are available to direct investors too
The reserved visa categories, 20 percent rural, 10 percent high unemployment and 2 percent infrastructure, attach to where the investment goes, not to whether a regional center sponsored it. A standalone investor whose business sits in a qualifying rural or high unemployment area can use the same reserved categories, which matters enormously if you were born in a heavily backlogged country. This is one of the most underused facts in direct EB-5.
The timeline, and the second test at the end
Petition approval leads to an immigrant visa abroad or adjustment of status inside the United States, and then to two years of conditional permanent residence. Near the end of that period you file Form I-829 to remove the conditions, and this is the filing that decides whether the green card becomes permanent.
The I-829 is not a formality. You have to show the capital was invested and sustained, and that the jobs were created and are real. A business that opened late, hired slowly, or pivoted away from the plan in the petition creates an evidence gap that no amount of narrative fixes. Build the hiring schedule with slack in it, and hire above ten if the business can carry it.
Where direct EB-5 goes wrong
- A business plan written to pass, not to run. USCIS reads it, then measures reality against it two years later.
- Underestimating payroll. Ten full-time employees is a substantial annual wage bill in any US market. Model it before you commit.
- Slow deployment. Capital sitting in an account is not invested in the enterprise.
- Contractor headcount. Building the workforce on contractors and hoping USCIS counts them.
- No operating experience. Running a US business in a second language and a foreign regulatory system, while your green card depends on it, is hard.
Direct EB-5 Nightmares 2026: Common Pitfalls That Kill Entrepreneur Plans catalogues more of these. If several of them describe you, the regional center route is not an admission of defeat, it is a sensible match of structure to skill.