Plan the physical move around one date: the day you first enter the United States on the immigrant visa. That entry converts an approved EB-5 petition into two year conditional permanent residence, and it starts your US tax year, your insurance enrollment window and the clock on maintaining status. The visa foil in your passport is normally valid for six months from issue, so you have a fixed window to sell property, book shipping, enroll children and land. Choose the date on purpose.
The six month window between visa and landing
Consular officers tie immigrant visa validity to your medical examination, and six months is the usual result. Miss it and you repeat the medical and pay for it again. Families tend to spend that window on the house search and neglect the paperwork, which is the harder thing to fix from 8,000 miles away.
Pay the USCIS Immigrant Fee online before you fly. USCIS produces the physical green card only after that fee clears, and investors who skip it land, wait, then discover no card is coming. Your admission stamp works as evidence of status for about a year, which buys time but does not replace the card itself.
What should you ship, and what should you sell?
Household goods you owned and used abroad for at least a year generally enter duty free as personal effects, declared on CBP Form 3299 when they arrive unaccompanied. A 20 foot container suits a small apartment. A 40 foot container takes a four bedroom house, and ocean freight from Asia or Europe commonly runs six to ten weeks door to door, so your container lands well after you do.
Furniture is rarely worth the freight. Irreplaceable and sentimental items make the cut. So does specialist equipment that would be expensive to buy again. Remember that US mains power runs at 120 volts and 60 hertz, which turns most European and Asian appliances into paperweights.
Dogs are their own project. CDC import rules tightened in 2024 and now require a form completed online before the flight, along with rabies documentation appropriate to the country you are leaving. Airlines add embargoes during summer heat. Start the pet file the week the visa is issued.
Pack a document folder your future self can hand to a bank
American institutions ask for original documents at inconvenient moments, and ordering a certified copy from your home country after you have moved is slow and expensive. Carry originals plus two certified copies of birth certificates, marriage certificates, divorce decrees and academic transcripts. Have sworn English translations done before departure, where they cost a fraction of the US price.
Bank statements matter more than most families expect. Twelve to twenty four months of statements, plus your last three years of home country tax returns, will do more for a first US mortgage application than anything else in the suitcase. No lender here can read your foreign credit history, so they ask for proof of funds instead.
Social Security, banking and the credit file you do not have
Request the Social Security number on the DS-260 immigrant visa application. Do that and the card arrives by mail a few weeks after landing, which saves a field office visit. If the box was missed, apply in person about ten days after entry, once the systems have synced. The Social Security Administration guide to numbers and cards lists what each applicant must present.
You arrive with no US credit file. None at all. Thirty years of flawless repayment in Mumbai or Shanghai counts for nothing here, and your first apartment application will demand a score you cannot produce. Open a secured credit card in month one and put a utility bill on autopay. Expect a usable score in roughly six months. Banks with international arms will sometimes open a US account before you land, off the back of an existing relationship. Ask yours. Moving the capital itself has its own mechanics, set out in EB-5 Currency Transfers and US Banking: Moving $800,000 Legally.
Carrying more than $10,000 in cash or monetary instruments through the airport means filing FinCEN Form 105 at entry. Filing costs nothing. Failing to file can cost you the money.
Driving comes next. Every state runs its own licensing agency, and most give new residents a short grace period, commonly 30 to 90 days, before a foreign license stops working.
Where to land first
Rent for the first year. Buying within three months of arrival is the most common expensive mistake EB-5 families make, because school district quality, commute reality and state tax burden all look different from the ground than they did from a browser. Texas and Florida levy no state income tax. California tops out above 13 percent. Against an $800,000 investment and ongoing worldwide income, that spread is serious money. EB-5 Visa California vs Texas: Where to Live as a New Investor works through the comparison state by state.
Nothing obliges you to live near your EB-5 project. Regional center investors are passive limited partners, and USCIS does not expect to find you at the construction site.
Health insurance has a 60 day window
Permanent residents can buy coverage on the ACA marketplace, and a permanent move to the United States counts as a qualifying life event, opening a special enrollment period of 60 days from arrival. Miss that and you wait for annual open enrollment, uninsured in the meantime. Travel medical policies cover the first few weeks and almost nothing chronic.
Federal Medicaid carries a five year bar for most new permanent residents. Medicare also requires five years of residence, and premium free Part A needs 40 quarters of covered US work, roughly ten years, which an investor who lands at 55 and lives on passive income never accumulates. Budget for private premiums accordingly. EB-5 Healthcare and Insurance for New Green Card Holders: Costs and Rules puts numbers on it.
Schools enroll your children regardless of paperwork
Public districts must admit resident children and may not condition enrollment on immigration status. They will ask for proof of address, immunization records matching the state schedule and, for older students, transcripts. Vaccination schedules differ between countries. Missing doses get given locally, so bring the record rather than assume it transfers.
Teenagers hit the credit evaluation problem. Districts want detailed course descriptions to place a student correctly, and a badly evaluated transcript costs a year. University deadlines ignore your visa timeline entirely, and in state tuition normally requires twelve months of domicile first, a gap examined in EB-5 Green Card Cost vs US Tuition: Schools and College for Children.
Your first US tax year starts the day you land
Green card holders owe US tax on worldwide income from the first day of physical presence as a permanent resident. IRS guidance on determining an individual’s tax residency status sets out the trigger, and the year you arrive is usually a dual status year, nonresident up to entry and resident from then on.
Reporting obligations arrive with the status. Aggregate foreign account balances above $10,000 at any point in the year trigger the FBAR, filed through the FinCEN report of foreign bank and financial accounts, while specified foreign financial assets above $50,000 for a single filer bring in Form 8938 under FATCA. Penalties for missing either are brutal relative to the tax at stake. Foreign pensions, cash value life policies and non US mutual funds all behave badly under American rules, and those are problems to solve before you land: start with Pre-Immigration Tax Planning for EB-5 Investors: What to Do Before Landing, then read US Taxation for New EB-5 Green Card Holders: Worldwide Income, FBAR.
Traveling once you are a resident
Conditional residence runs two years and is genuine permanent residence with one condition attached. Absences matter from day one. Trips beyond six months invite questions about abandonment, and an absence past one year generally ends the status unless you obtained a re-entry permit on Form I-131 before leaving, which can be granted for up to two years. USCIS explains the expectations in its pages on maintaining permanent residence and on international travel as a permanent resident.
Investors who keep a business back home face the hardest version of this. Managing it from the United States works. Managing it by spending eight months a year overseas is how green cards get lost. Once conditions come off, the card is simply replaced on Form I-90 every ten years. Naturalization opens after five years of permanent residence.