IN THIS GUIDE · Evaluate EB-5 on its investment criteria when a professional-work route does not fit
Start with the EB-5 eligibility and application overview
Define the intended outcome and actual route
EB-5 is an immigrant investor classification, not a way to approve an otherwise unsupported TN job offer. Identify the proposed enterprise, capital and required evidence, and separately assess any temporary work plans while immigrant processing remains incomplete. The immediate decision is whether the person wants a temporary work solution, an immigrant investment assessment, or both on parallel but separate records. Do not use one application’s vocabulary to conceal a missing element in the other.
Use experience for its evidentiary purpose
A professional résumé may explain how income was earned or help describe a proposed business role. It does not replace proof of the funds’ lawful source and path or the actual investment arrangement. Nor does a title that falls outside a TN profession automatically make the same person ineligible for EB-5. Trace each major transfer from the original lawful source through every account to the investment. A résumé may provide context, but closing statements, tax records, bank statements, and agreements are the records that usually settle the funds question.
Apply the EB-5 requirements directly
Current general thresholds are US$1.05 million or US$800,000 for a qualifying targeted-employment-area or infrastructure case, with statutory adjustments beginning January 1, 2027 under applicable filing-date rules. Establish lawful source and path, at-risk capital, ten qualifying full-time jobs per investor and participation in management or policy formulation. The availability of money alone is not the complete test. Decide early whether the proposed structure can document the required jobs and the investor’s management or policy role. If the project changes, retain the earlier and revised evidence so the case does not depend on an unexplained projection.
Keep work authorization and residence milestones separate
Filing or approval of the investor petition does not itself authorize a U.S. job or confer conditional residence. Applicable immigrant admission or adjustment approval begins conditional residence; I-829 is generally filed in the 90 days before its second anniversary. Any work before residence needs its own applicable authorization. Keep the petition record, admission or adjustment record, and post-residence evidence in separate dated folders. That sequence helps prevent the common error of treating an investor-petition event as permission to begin a U.S. job.
Direct and regional center methods are not interchangeable
Ten full-time positions for qualifying U.S. workers, created within the required window, are the condition on which permanent residence ultimately depends. Direct and regional-center cases have different permitted job methodologies; each investor still needs at least ten qualifying permanent full-time jobs.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.