Since the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 became law on 15 March 2022, a regional center must hold designation on Form I-956, file a Form I-956F for every offering it sells, submit an annual Form I-956G, collect Form I-956H bona fides certifications from the people who run it, register the agents who market its deals on Form I-956K, and pay an annual fee into the EB-5 Integrity Fund. USCIS is required to audit each designated center at least once every five years, and a center that fails badly enough loses its designation.
For an investor about to wire $800,000, the compliance file is the most useful set of documents a sponsor can hand over. It is the closest thing this industry has to a public record.
What changed on 15 March 2022?
Under the old rules a center could be designated once and then left largely alone. Annual reporting ran on Form I-924A, which asked for far less detail than what replaced it. Audits were discretionary. Overseas promoters were unregistered and effectively unaccountable. The 2022 statute, enacted inside Public Law 117-103, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022, rewrote INA 203(b)(5) and attached obligations to nearly every actor in the chain.
Centers designated before that date had to file a fresh I-956 to keep operating. A number never did, and the roster of active centers contracted. If the structure itself is new to you, start with how an EB-5 regional center investment works and what it costs.
Five forms carry the compliance load
- Form I-956 is the designation application. It fixes the geographic scope of the center and names every person behind it.
- Form I-956F is filed for each project and carries the business plan, the economic report supporting the job claims and the offering documents. An investor may file Form I-526E as soon as the center has filed the 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. Holding your own filing back until approval arrives surrenders months of priority date and buys nothing.
- Form I-956G is the regional center annual statement. It reports capital raised, how that capital was deployed, the jobs claimed and any litigation touching the center.
- Form I-956H is a bona fides certification signed by every person in a position of substantive authority. Certain criminal convictions and securities bars disqualify a person outright.
- Form I-956K registers direct and third-party promoters. A center may not pay a fee to a promoter who has not registered.
Who pays for the oversight?
The industry does. Each regional center pays an annual EB-5 Integrity Fund fee, $20,000 for most centers and $10,000 where the center had 20 or fewer investors in the previous fiscal year. Every I-526E petition adds a further $1,000. That money pays for site visits and for overseas verification of source of funds. It also funds the audit program itself.
Audits, site visits and what an examiner actually opens
USCIS must audit each designated center at least once in a five year cycle. An audit follows the paper trail behind the money: subscription agreements, bank records for the new commercial enterprise, construction draws, payroll records supporting direct jobs and the inputs fed into the economic model. Site visits are a separate exercise and can arrive unannounced. Obstructing an audit is grounds for termination on its own, with no finding of fraud required.
Job claims draw the sharpest scrutiny, which is why testing whether a project can really deliver ten jobs deserves an evening of your time. Indirect jobs produced by an economic model get tested against the construction spend and revenue the model assumed, not just against the model output. Ten full time jobs per investor remains the number you have to hit.
Fund administration and separate accounts
Each new commercial enterprise must either retain a fund administrator or have an annual financial audit performed by an independent public accountant in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Commingling is out. Capital raised for one enterprise sits in its own account.
Ask which of the two routes your sponsor chose. A fund administrator who countersigns disbursements is a stronger control than an audit delivered fourteen months after the money moved.
Termination, debarment and the 180 day rescue
USCIS can suspend or terminate a center for a false statement on any I-956 series filing, for failure to pay the Integrity Fund fee, for keeping a disqualified person involved or for conduct that threatens program integrity. Sanctions reach entities and people alike. A regional center, a new commercial enterprise or a job creating entity can be terminated or debarred, and an individual can be barred from any further involvement in the program.
An investor caught in that is not finished. 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(M), titled "Treatment of good faith investors following program noncompliance", gives a good faith investor 180 days to take remedial action after a termination or debarment, and the priority date survives. The catch is practical. Remediation costs money and needs cooperation from people who have just been thrown out of the program, which is the story told in the lessons investors have learned from regional center failures.
Ask for these five things before you wire the money
- The I-956F receipt notice for the exact offering you are buying into. A designation letter for the center is a different document and proves nothing about your project.
- The two most recent I-956G annual statements, with the deployment and job numbers left in.
- Evidence of the fund administrator engagement, or the independent annual audit of the enterprise.
- The I-956K registration of whoever is selling the deal to you, including any agent in your own country.
- Written disclosure of every fee paid to that agent, in dollars, in a language you read.
A sponsor who hesitates on any of the five has told you something useful. Work through the due diligence checklist for choosing a regional center and put the same five requests to at least three sponsors before you narrow the field. Part G of Volume 6 of the USCIS Policy Manual sets out the agency reading of these requirements, and it costs nothing to read.
Where compliance stops and risk begins
Compliance is a floor rather than a guarantee. A fully compliant center can still finance a hotel that never fills, and your capital stays at risk by law until the I-829 is decided. Any promoter who tells you the government has vetted or blessed the offering is misleading you, which is why the SEC publishes an investor alert on claims that the SEC has approved an offering. Suspected misconduct goes to the USCIS fraud reporting channel.
Three dates that shape compliance risk
Regional center authorization runs through 30 September 2027. Grandfathering under 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(S), titled "Protection from expired legislation", covers petitions filed on or before 30 September 2026 and keeps them alive for processing even if the authorization expires afterward. Minimums hold at $800,000 inside a targeted employment area and $1,050,000 outside one until the first inflation adjustment on 1 January 2027.
Both dates push sponsors to raise capital quickly. Speed and compliance pull against each other, and that tension is where the next round of problems will come from.