The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 redirected demand more than it reduced it. Setting the minimum at $800,000 inside a Targeted Employment Area and $1,050,000 outside one priced out the buyers who had been shopping on cost alone. The reserved visa categories did the more interesting work: 20 percent of the annual supply for rural projects and 10 percent for high unemployment areas handed investors from heavily backlogged countries a queue they could realistically finish. Infrastructure projects take another 2 percent.
Money then moved toward rural deals and toward investors already living inside the United States. Sponsors who could survive an audit absorbed most of the rest.
Inside the 2022 statute
The Act arrived as part of the March 2022 appropriations package, so the enacted text sits in Public Law 117-103 on govinfo, and the legislative history is on the congress.gov page for H.R. 2471. The operative rules now live at 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5), readable in the House of Representatives US Code viewer.
Four changes moved capital. Investment minimums rose to $800,000 and $1,050,000. Reserved visas appeared for the first time. Concurrent filing opened for people already holding valid status, and regional centers picked up a compliance load that shows in every offering budget.
Higher minimums thinned the buyer pool
For most of the program's history a Targeted Employment Area investment cost $500,000. A gap of $300,000 explains who left. Families stretching to reach half a million did not stretch another $300,000, and what replaced them is a smaller pool with more liquidity and more tolerance for a lockup running well past the two year sustainment minimum.
The first inflation adjustment is scheduled for 1 January 2027, with later adjustments on the same five year cycle. That single date has shaped filing behavior more than any marketing campaign ever did, because an investor who files before it files at today's amount.
How reserved visas rewrote the queue
Set-asides matter because the annual EB-5 supply is small and the per country limit at 8 U.S.C. 1152 holds natives of any single country to 7 percent of the preference visas issued in a year. An Indian or Chinese investor in the unreserved queue can wait years for a number. Filing that identical case into the rural category draws from a pool that far fewer people are standing in, and reserved numbers left unused in a fiscal year carry into the next year in the same category before they spill over.
Rural filings also carry priority processing by statute. Sponsors noticed within months, and the deal pipeline followed the incentive. EB-5 Visa Categories: Rural Set-Aside, Reserved and Unreserved Explained covers how the three categories interact, while EB-5 TEA Projects in Cities: Are Urban Deals Still Worth $800,000? argues the other side of that trade.
Who files from inside the United States now
An investor lawfully present with a visa number immediately available may file Form I-485 to adjust status at the same time as the I-526E. Work authorization on Form I-765 and travel permission on Form I-131 flow from that filing rather than from an approved petition. Students on F-1 and workers on H-1B became a live market segment almost overnight.
That provision explains a large share of post-2022 domestic demand. It also explains why rural offerings sell hardest to families whose children are close to aging out.
Age-out math is where advisers get careless. The Child Status Protection Act subtracts the time a petition spent under adjudication. It does not subtract years spent waiting for a visa number, and for a backlogged country that wait is where nearly all the time sits.
Someone pays for the new compliance load
Regional centers file Form I-956 for designation and Form I-956F for each offering. Form I-956G is the annual statement. Form I-956H covers the bona fides of people involved with a center, anyone marketing an offering registers on Form I-956K, and each investor pays a $1,000 EB-5 Integrity Fund fee alongside a regional center petition.
One timing rule is worth memorizing, because getting it wrong costs a priority date. An investor may file Form I-526E as soon as the regional center has filed the Form I-956F application for approval of an investment in a commercial enterprise for that specific offering. USCIS must approve the I-956F before those petitions can be approved. Waiting for that approval before filing simply hands away queue position.
Audits, annual statements and sanctions for noncompliance also changed how investors shop. Track record now beats brochure, which is the point of EB-5 Fundraising Trends 2026: Direct Investors vs Pooled Regional Center Funds.
Did the country mix really change?
Partly. China and India supplied enormous volume before 2022 and still do, so the leaders did not change. What widened is everything around them, because an investor from a country with no meaningful backlog now weighs a reserved category against a straightforward unreserved filing, a calculation that barely existed before the Act. Vietnamese demand held up well enough to deserve separate treatment in Vietnam EB-5 Outlook: Will Demand Stay Strong for US Green Cards.
Two dates that govern everything after this
Regional center authorization runs to 30 September 2027. Watch that date if you are choosing between a regional center offering and a direct investment you would manage yourself.
Congress wrote the second date into the statute as a protection. Under 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(S), titled Protection from expired legislation, petitions filed on or before 30 September 2026 stay valid for adjudication even if the regional center program lapses afterward. A petition lodged on the 30th still counts. A separate provision at subparagraph (S) gives good faith investors a 180 day window to act when their regional center is terminated or debarred, which is a different protection addressing a different problem.
History is the better guide to what a lapse feels like from an investor's chair, and When EB-5 Shuts Down: How Past Program Lapses Hit Investors and Projects walks through the earlier shutdowns in detail. If you are still deciding whether any of this suits you, start instead with EB-5 Visa Program Explained: How the Immigrant Investor Route Works.