Flagship program｜EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program
EB-5 Investor Green Card
Invest compliant capital in a verifiable commercial project, meet the job-creation requirement, and pursue permanent residence for the whole family.
Short answer
Whether this pathway succeeds usually comes down not to how polished the paperwork looks, but to whether the underlying facts hold up: are the requirements genuinely met, can the resources be verified, and does the timeline match your family's plans. The sections below are organized around those three questions.
Before you read on
EB-5 is the route where lawfully sourced capital goes into a business project that must meet job-creation requirements, and the investor applies for permanent residence together with a spouse and unmarried children who meet the derivative requirements (age limits and CSPA are covered in the full content below). It does not depend on an employer, a degree or achievements.
Jump to the full professional content belowRead this first if
- · You have capital to invest but are unsure how the investment-amount and targeted-employment-area rules currently apply
- · You have heard of “direct investment” and “regional center” but cannot say what separates them
- · What actually worries you is the principal, not whether the petition is approved
Three things to hold on to
- Approval and your principal are two separate things
- An approved petition does not mean the invested capital is safe, and does not mean it will be returned. These are judged separately and asked about separately.
- The source of funds must be fully documented
- What gets examined is not that you have money, but where it came from and how it moved — whether every step matches a document. Commingled funds do not automatically mean failure; what matters is whether traceable evidence can separate this money from other funds. The real difficulty is an origin that cannot be traced to verifiable documents.
- The investment must be at risk
- A promise of principal back, or a redemption right, given to the investor conflicts with what this route requires. That is a different level from the project's internal structure: a loan from the new commercial enterprise to the job-creating entity, collateral or guarantees are project-level risk mitigation. They may reduce certain risks, but they do not remove risk and are not a guarantee to the investor. Any talk of “guaranteed repayment” should be checked against what the project documents actually say.
A few terms
- Direct investment / regional center
- Direct investment is like planning your own trip; a regional center is like an organized group tour. The comparison is only about how much you take part and how much you control — it says nothing about which carries more risk and promises nothing about returns. Direct investment means participating in operations and information more directly; a regional center means taking part along a set project plan driven by its management team.
- Job creation and cushion
- A project must create the required jobs. The methodology and the cushion — the margin above the minimum — determine whether a shortfall turns straight into petition risk.
- TEA (targeted employment area)
- How an area is designated affects the applicable investment amount and some set-aside categories. Confirm the criteria and figures against the latest USCIS publication.
A fictional example
The example below is entirely fictional, used only to explain a concept. It is not a case and not an expected outcome
In a fictional example, Mr. Wang plans to invest in a warehousing project. He asks three questions: does every step from company dividend to personal account to investment account have tax and bank records; beyond meeting the minimum, how much cushion does the job-creation model leave; and what source funds repayment or exit, with what preconditions. The sponsor has documents for the first two and only a verbal answer for the third — that is the item still to be established.
Core service line — English summary
EB-5 turns on two things: whether your capital can be fully explained, and whether the project genuinely creates and maintains qualifying jobs. We compare third-party regional center offerings and direct-investment projects we take part in operating on one identical due-diligence field set, coordinate source-of-funds preparation with independent counsel, and track post-investment evidence through I-829.
- · Source of funds and path of funds are two separate evidence sets
- · Capital must be at risk: the applicant must accept possible loss. Project-level collateral or guaranties do not automatically give an individual investor a principal guarantee — check the beneficiary, the scope and the at-risk terms
- · Regional center vs. direct investment differs on job counting, control, transparency and exit — neither is inherently safer
- · Affiliation, compensation and conflicts are disclosed in the specific project materials
- · Legal conclusions and filings are handled by an independent licensed U.S. immigration attorney
- USCIS: EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program
- USCIS: About the EB-5 visa classification (investment amounts, TEA)
- USCIS: Form I-526, standalone investor petition
- USCIS: Form I-526E, regional center investor petition
- USCIS: Form I-829, removal of conditions
- U.S. Department of State: Visa Bulletin
Rules and figures change. Official publications and a case-specific attorney judgment govern.
Detailed Chinese guide / English consultation available. This page is a summary, not a full translation.
Two EB-5 choices
Direct investment is like a self-planned trip, a regional center like an organized group tour: start with how much operating initiative you want
The first EB-5 decision is not which project, but how you participate. Direct investment is closer to a self-planned trip: you take part in operations and hold information more directly, and adjust arrangements within what the business plan and applicable requirements allow. A regional center is closer to an organized group tour: you take part along the project's set plan, which the management team organises and drives, and individual room to adjust is usually small. This is an analogy for how you participate; actual rights follow the specific project documents.
Direct (standalone) investment: more direct hold on the business, the capital and operations; generally requires at least 10 qualifying direct full-time jobs. Where you hold the corresponding management authority, budget, hiring and execution pace can be adjusted within limits inside the EB-5 business plan and applicable requirements, so deviations can be addressed earlier. Profit, growth in value and proceeds from disposing of the interests are attributed to the investor through the ownership interests held, so you share in the company's results more directly. As the business and real jobs develop, the same company may open more pathway planning room for qualifying people, assessed case by case.
Regional center: investing through a project management team; the project generally proceeds along its fixed financing and development plan, and a single investor has little ability to change the operating direction or the use of funds. Indirect jobs may count under the applicable rules; regional center compliance, the NCE and the project entity must each be checked.
New to EB-5? Start with the ten basics lessons: the money, the entities and the filings →
Then read one worked case end to end: a California smart logistics center →
Who this fits
- · Families who want a route that does not depend on an employer, a degree, or a professional achievement record
- · High-net-worth families with a clean, fully documentable source of funds
- · Applicants whose primary goal is their children's education and the family's long-term plans
Key requirements
- · Investment amount and Targeted Employment Area (TEA) qualification must meet current rules — confirm against the latest USCIS publication
- · The lawful source and path of the invested funds must be fully documented
- · The investment must be at risk, and the job-creation and job-maintenance requirements must be met
Timing and Visa Bulletin factors
- · I-526E processing time varies by project and category
- · Visa Bulletin availability for applicants born in mainland China follows the Department of State's monthly bulletin
- · I-829 must be filed within the required window after conditional permanent residence begins
Common failure modes
- · A broken or unexplainable chain of source-of-funds evidence
- · Job-creation projections that are too thin, with no employment cushion
- · Commercial failure of the project causing loss of principal (a separate issue from immigration approval)
Cost structure and who is paid
- · Investment capital (paid to the project entity / NCE, not a service fee)
- · Offering and administration fees (paid to the project sponsor)
- · Attorney fees (paid to counsel or the law firm)
- · Government filing fees (paid to USCIS / DOS)
- · Service and coordination fees (paid to the service company)
TIHU's role
- · Pathway assessment and family timeline modeling, with legal judgment led by counsel
- · Access to TIHU-operated or TIHU-affiliated SPV direct-investment opportunities, when genuinely available
- · Access to third-party regional center projects, compared on the same standard
- · Disclosure of any affiliated relationship, compensation source, or conflict of interest
EB-5 related reading
Content directly relevant to this pathway
Every article spells out requirements, timing, cost, and failure modes, and notes the last update date and official sources.
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Execution guide
Consular processing and adjustment of status: two parallel routes
Immigrant eligibility and physical entry to the United States are two separate problems. A lawful immigrant case can be started and completed from abroad; adjustment of status is a different procedure with its own admission, status, visa-availability and admissibility conditions. This guide walks through both routes, the four clocks, and the legal detail.
Read the execution guidePlanning case
One operating business, three immigration paths
One operating U.S. company (warehousing, trucking, e-commerce) and three people mapped to EB-5 investment, EB-1C management and an EB-3 professional position. The case explains governance, the separate statutory tests, and the limits of shared evidence — not approved outcomes.
Read the planning caseBoutique team, by appointment
Book a structured initial consultation
We start with your family structure, timing requirements and available resources, tell you which parts are workable and which are not, and then recommend a next step. An initial consultation does not create an attorney-client relationship and is not legal advice.
We only collect basic contact details and one short question. Please do not send passport data, A-numbers, receipt numbers, bank statements or a full case history.