IN THIS GUIDE · Capital assembled from a share buy-back and a matrimonial division, where every dollar has to be traced to an event a court or a notary recorded
Start with the EB-5 eligibility and application overview
The two amounts, and the date that changes them
Qualifying capital is US$1,050,000, reduced to US$800,000 where the investment is in a qualifying targeted employment area or an infrastructure project, under the framework the 2022 Reform and Integrity Act established. Those figures are not permanent. The statute provides for adjustment beginning on 1 January 2027, so anyone whose timetable crosses that date needs to know which figure applies to a petition filed on either side of it, and to confirm the current amounts officially rather than from a promoter's brochure. A reduced-threshold claim is also a factual claim about a place or a project, not a discount anyone can elect. If an offering asserts a targeted employment area, the designation and the evidence behind it should be produced and reviewed by somebody acting for Solveig rather than for the project.
Ten jobs, and who counts as a job
Each investor must create at least ten full-time positions for qualifying United States workers, and the word full-time carries its own definition of a minimum weekly hours commitment rather than any combination of part-time work. The jobs must be attributable to that investor's own capital, which is why offerings model allocations so carefully and why an over-subscribed project can leave a later investor without jobs to claim. Solveig should ask how many investors the project admits, how the jobs are allocated between them, what happens if construction slows, and whether the model relies on direct payroll or on methods that count indirect effects. The answers belong in the offering documents. Where they are only given verbally, that is itself information about the project.
The investor has to be engaged, and residence arrives conditionally
This is not a passive purchase of status. The investor must be engaged in the enterprise's management or policy formulation, which for a project structured as a limited partnership is ordinarily satisfied by the rights that structure confers, and which for a direct investment means real participation Solveig can describe. If the petition succeeds she is admitted as a conditional permanent resident for two years, and Form I-829 is then filed to remove those conditions, generally within the ninety-day period immediately preceding the second anniversary of her admission in that status. Her spouse and unmarried children under 21 are derivatives on the same petition and their conditions are removed alongside hers. Throughout that period the capital remains at risk; an arrangement guaranteeing its return would not qualify.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.