Form I-829 must reach USCIS during the 90 days immediately before the second anniversary of the date you became a conditional permanent resident. Not two years after your I-526E was approved, and not two years after the date printed on the card if the two differ. File inside that window and the receipt notice extends your status while USCIS decides. Miss it and your conditional residence terminates automatically, which puts you in removal proceedings even when the underlying investment and job creation are flawless.
Counting the 90 days from the correct date
Conditional residence begins on the day you were admitted at a port of entry with an immigrant visa, or on the day USCIS approved your adjustment of status inside the country. Add two years, subtract 90 days, and that is when your filing window opens. The rule sits in the regulations on 8 CFR 216.6, petitions by entrepreneurs to remove conditions, and USCIS explains the status itself on its page about conditional permanent residence.
Two failure modes follow. File before the window opens and USCIS rejects the petition, which wastes weeks and can push you against the deadline. File after it closes and you must persuade USCIS to accept a late petition on a written showing of good cause and extenuating circumstances. That is discretionary. Do not build a plan around it. Put the date in a calendar the week you are admitted, and again a year later.
Your spouse and children are normally included on your petition rather than filing their own. If a marriage has ended, or a dependent no longer lives with you, a separate petition may be necessary, and that is a question for counsel well before the window opens rather than during it.
What USCIS is actually deciding
Three questions, and only three. Did you invest the required capital in a genuine new commercial enterprise. Did that capital stay at risk for the required period. Were the required jobs created. Everything else in the file exists to answer one of those.
On sustainment, the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 changed the shape of the rule. USCIS reads it as requiring capital to remain at risk for at least two years from the point it was made available to the job creating entity, rather than for the whole of your conditional residence. If capital came back early, or was redeployed into a different asset, the petition has to document exactly what happened and when. The agency's interpretation is set out in the USCIS Policy Manual, Volume 6 Part G on immigrant investors.
On jobs, the standard is 10 full time positions for qualifying US workers attributable to your investment. In a regional center case, direct, indirect and induced jobs all count and are proved through an updated economic report tied to actual expenditure. In a direct case you are largely limited to people on a payroll, evidenced person by person. The distinction is covered in I-829 Prep: How to Prove EB-5 Job Creation and Capital At Risk.
The evidence file, exhibit by exhibit
- The form and fee. The current edition of Form I-829, Petition by Investor to Remove Conditions on Permanent Resident Status, with the correct payment. Fees change, so confirm against the USCIS filing fee schedule on the day you file.
- Status proof. Copies of the conditional green card for you and every dependent, front and back.
- Capital in and capital sustained. Wire confirmations, the subscription agreement, capital account statements from the new commercial enterprise, its financial statements and tax returns across the period.
- Evidence the enterprise operated. Leases, licenses, permits, construction contracts, invoices, bank statements. A shell that never traded fails regardless of paperwork.
- Job evidence. For direct cases, I-9s, W-2s, quarterly state wage reports and payroll registers. For regional center cases, verified construction and operating expenditure, draw schedules, pay applications and a revised economist report.
- Regional center compliance. Confirmation the center remained in good standing, its annual statement filings and the approved project filing your investment relied on.
- A cover letter and index. Tie every exhibit to a legal element. Adjudicators do not go hunting for your best document.
The receipt notice and what it lets you do
After filing you receive Form I-797C. That notice extends your conditional resident status while the petition is pending and, read together with your expired card, evidences your right to work and to re-enter the country. Older notices carried a 24 month extension; more recent ones have carried considerably longer periods. Read your own notice, because it states its own validity, and diary the expiry.
If the extension runs out before a decision, you can request an extension notice or obtain an ADIT stamp in your passport at a field office, which is the practical solution for anyone who needs to travel or renew a driver license. Living on those notices for years is now a normal part of the process, described in I-829 Delays 2026: Living for Years on Extension Notices as an EB-5 Investor.
How long the I-829 really takes, and how to check status
Long. Adjudication has been measured in years rather than months, and it varies by service center workload, case complexity and whether an RFE is issued. Anchor your expectations to the processing times USCIS publishes for the form itself rather than to forum anecdotes, since the picture shifts.
Practical status checking is simple. Take the receipt number from your I-797C and use the USCIS online case status tool, then compare against the published processing time for Form I-829. If your case sits outside the posted range you become eligible to submit a case inquiry, which is worth doing precisely once and in writing. For the full arc from wire transfer to naturalization, see EB-5 Timeline: How Long from $800K Investment to US Citizenship?.
One point that comforts people: the five years of permanent residence required for naturalization counts your conditional years too. Many investors reach naturalization eligibility while the I-829 is still pending. USCIS will not normally finish a naturalization case before conditions are removed, but the clock is running rather than paused.
RFE, notice of intent to deny, interview and denial
A Request for Evidence is common and not fatal. Most concern job creation arithmetic, unclear evidence that capital stayed at risk, or gaps in payroll records. You get one properly considered response, so answer every point and supply documents rather than argument alone. A Notice of Intent to Deny is more serious: USCIS has formed a negative view and is giving you a final chance to rebut it.
Interviews are not routine for I-829 but they do happen, and preparation matters when they do, as set out in EB-5 I-829 Interview 2026: Tough Questions, Documents, and How to Prepare. If the petition is denied, conditional status terminates and USCIS issues a notice to appear. You can renew the I-829 before an immigration judge, so denial is not the end of the road, but it is an expensive and slow place to be.
Mistakes that cost investors years
- Counting the two years from I-526E approval instead of from admission or adjustment approval.
- Letting the regional center or a consultant assemble and file the petition without your own review. It is your petition and your status.
- Moving house without updating your address with USCIS, then missing an RFE deadline.
- Failing to keep personal copies of every wire, capital account statement and distribution notice as they happen.
- Accepting a redeployment of capital without written documentation of where it went and why.
- Spending long stretches outside the country during conditional residence, which raises abandonment questions entirely separate from the I-829.
If you want to see what a clean approval looks like on the other side, read I-829 Approval 2026: Life After EB-5 Conditions Are Removed.