An EB-5 conditional resident holds the same green card rights as any other permanent resident: work for any employer, live in any state, travel abroad, pay tax as a US resident. Two features make the status conditional. The card expires two years after admission, and you must file Form I-829 during the 90 days before that second anniversary, showing that the capital, $800,000 in a targeted employment area or $1,050,000 outside one, stayed at risk and that ten full time jobs exist. Miss the window and conditional status terminates by operation of law. A late petition is excused only where USCIS accepts that you had good cause and extenuating circumstances.
One correction before anything else, because it turns up constantly in secondhand advice. EB-5 investors never file Form I-751. That form belongs to conditional residents who obtained status through marriage, and the evidence it asks for has nothing to do with your case.
What the card lets you do from the first day
You do not need a work permit. Filing Form I-765 as a permanent resident burns a fee and several months for nothing, since the card is itself the work authorization. Apply for a Social Security number if the immigrant visa process did not already generate one for you.
Nothing ties you to the project's state. An investor whose capital sits in a hotel in rural Georgia can live in Seattle and run an unrelated software company from an office in Bellevue. USCIS cares about where the capital sits. Your home address is a separate question entirely.
Children enroll in public school immediately, and permanent residents qualify for federal aid under the rules published by Federal Student Aid for non-citizen students. In-state tuition is decided state by state and usually demands a residency period of its own, commonly a year of physical presence in the state before the discount applies.
You may also petition for a spouse or an unmarried child in the family second preference category, although that line moves slowly and the timing deserves a conversation with counsel first.
Four things a green card does not include
Four gaps remain, and every one of them bites.
- Voting. Registering to vote as a noncitizen, even by accident at a motor vehicle counter, is a ground of removal and can end any chance of naturalizing. Decline the offer every time it is made.
- A US passport. You travel on your original passport and remain a citizen of your home country.
- Most federal jobs and security clearances. Citizenship is a statutory condition for a great many of them.
- Unlimited absence. Residence has to be real. A green card is not a long stay visitor pass.
Keeping the capital at risk
The investment obligation does not end when you land. Capital has to stay at risk in the new commercial enterprise, which rules out a guaranteed return of principal and any side letter promising a buyback on a fixed date. USCIS guidance under the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 measures the sustainment period as two years from the date the capital was invested in the new commercial enterprise, a clock that for many investors ends before conditional residence does.
Ask your regional center in writing for the date your funds were deployed into the job creating entity, and keep the reply. A phone call is not evidence. A surprising number of investors cannot answer that question at all, and it is the first thing an I-829 preparer will ask them for.
Ten jobs, counted the way the regulation counts them
The employment creation regulation at 8 CFR 204.6 defines a full time position as at least 35 hours per week. Combinations of part time positions do not qualify, even where the hours add up to 35 or more. A job sharing arrangement, meaning two or more employees who share one full time position, does count. Regional center investors may credit indirect and induced jobs generated by an economic model, while a direct investor counts payroll.
One myth deserves a stake through the heart. The 40 percent expansion test is a route for an existing business to qualify as a new commercial enterprise, and clearing it excuses nobody from creating ten full time jobs. The ten stand on their own.
Tax residence begins on the day you land
A green card makes you a US tax resident on worldwide income, and the substantial presence test is beside the point for you. The IRS explains the green card test on its page for determining an individual's tax residency status. File Form 1040 as a resident. Form 1040-NR belongs to nonresidents, and claiming treaty nonresident treatment can be read as abandonment of residence, a question that resurfaces on Form N-400 years later.
Foreign accounts carry their own paperwork. An aggregate balance above $10,000 at any point in the calendar year triggers an FBAR, filed with FinCEN rather than with the IRS, and the FinCEN page on reporting foreign bank and financial accounts covers the mechanics. Penalties for a missed FBAR are severe enough that most EB-5 families hire a cross-border accountant in their first year. Hire one before the first April.
Small duties that quietly end cases
Change of address has its own form and a ten day deadline. File Form AR-11 within ten days of any move, including a move across town. Ten days, every time. USCIS mails requests for evidence to whatever address is in the system, and an RFE delivered to an apartment you vacated becomes a denial you never had a chance to answer.
Men aged 18 through 25 must register with Selective Service. It takes four minutes online, and the omission surfaces years later at the naturalization interview.
Criminal exposure is the other quiet killer. One conviction in the wrong category makes a conditional resident removable, and a plea that a state court treats as trivial can be an aggravated felony under immigration law. Speak to an immigration lawyer before a criminal defense lawyer negotiates anything on your behalf.
Time abroad, and the investor's particular problem
EB-5 families often keep a business running in the home country, which makes long absences tempting. Trips under six months rarely draw comment. Beyond six months a border officer may ask what you have been doing, and past a year residence is presumed abandoned. USCIS guidance on maintaining permanent residence lists the ties officers look for, among them tax filings, a home, employment and family.
Apply for a reentry permit on Form I-131 while you are physically inside the United States. It covers absences of up to two years and it does not preserve the continuous residence that naturalization requires, which is a distinction that catches investors out. More detail sits in Traveling Abroad on an EB-5 Conditional Green Card: Rules and Limits.
Family changes do not restart the clock
Derivatives ride on your I-829 rather than filing petitions of their own. A child who turns 21 after being admitted as a conditional resident keeps that status, since aging out is a risk that belongs to the period before admission. Divorce during the conditional period raises harder questions, and the answer depends heavily on timing and on the cooperation of the parties, so take advice early rather than after the decree. The scenarios are worked through in EB-5 Conditional Residence: Divorce, Death and a Child Turning 21.
How the conditions come off
File Form I-829 in the 90 day window that closes on your second anniversary as a conditional resident. Approval removes the conditions as of that second anniversary, not from the start of your case and not from the date the officer signs. Your replacement card runs ten years and is renewed on Form I-90 when it expires. Naturalization eligibility counts from the day of admission as a conditional resident, so five years from landing is the earliest most investors reach Form N-400. USCIS sets out the framework on its page about conditional permanent residence and how it ends.
Two years is short. The habits that get you through it are dull ones: keep the receipts, answer the mail, tell USCIS where you live.