IN THIS GUIDE · Preparing an EB-5 petition from Montréal-Ouest while holding another U.S. status
Start with the EB-5 eligibility and application overview
A filed petition is not permission to work
A receipt notice records that USCIS has your petition; it does not itself grant residence, work authorization or travel permission. Employment authorization, travel permission and lawful status each come from their own basis, and an approved petition does not change what your current visa category lets you do. If your work is tied to a sponsoring employer, that relationship still governs your day-to-day activity while the EB-5 file is pending.
Adjustment is not automatic, and neither is concurrent filing
Adjusting status inside the United States requires that you are actually eligible for it and that an immigrant visa number is available to you. Neither follows from having filed. Whether an adjustment application can be filed alongside or after the petition depends on your category, your chargeability and the current Visa Bulletin, so treat any blanket promise about concurrent filing as a claim to verify with counsel.
The investment itself still has to stand up
Qualifying capital is US$1,050,000, or US$800,000 in a targeted employment area or qualifying infrastructure project, with statutory adjustments starting January 1, 2027. The money must be at risk, lawfully sourced, and traceable along its path to the enterprise. At least ten qualifying full-time jobs must be created, and you, your spouse and your children are not counted among them.
Petition route and residence milestones
Use I-526 for a standalone investment or I-526E for a regional center investment. Approval and visa availability support the later immigrant visa and admission, or eligible adjustment, leading to conditional residence. Eligible concurrent adjustment filing needs separate review. I-829 is ordinarily filed during the 90 days before the second anniversary of conditional residence. Regional center designation does not approve an individual petition or guarantee a project.
The status calendar most files are missing
A first review of these files usually finds four dates in four places: the I-94 expiry in a browser download, the extension filing window in somebody’s head, a child’s twenty-first birthday on a family calendar, and the petition receipt in a folder. The record that fixes this is a single one-page chronology, dated and kept at the front of the file, updated whenever any one of those moves. It takes minutes, and it is what makes counsel’s advice specific rather than general. The condition it protects is plain: a filed petition neither extends the status you hold nor authorizes work, and each authorization has its own basis. Hypothetical example: an insurance consulting specialist on employer-sponsored status keeps that chronology and notices the extension window opens well before the petition is likely to be decided.
Deciding what you may do inside your own enterprise
The question that trips people is not whether they may invest but whether they may work in what they own. Ownership and employment are different acts, and only one of them requires authorization. The record that lets counsel answer is the enterprise’s own governance document — the operating agreement or the bylaws — read next to a written list of the tasks the applicant expects to perform, because the answer turns on the tasks rather than the title. Bring both to the meeting. The governing terms are unchanged by the enterprise’s size: EB-5 capital must be at risk and lawfully sourced, the required job creation must occur, and permanent residence obtained through this route is conditional, with a later petition to remove those conditions. Hypothetical example: a claims analytics investor drafts a two-column list of board decisions and daily operational tasks before asking which column their current status permits.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.