The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced it is adjusting immigration and naturalization benefit request fees as part of a comprehensive fee review at the agency. The USCIS says the fee increase will allow the agency to help recover operating costs, reestablish and continue timely case processing and prevent future case backlog.
While the USCIS will not raise costs for everyone, EB-5 investors will bear the brunt of the fee hikes and will pay $11,160 for I-526 petitions and $9,535 for I-829 petitions. Application fees for the EB-5 visa, which will increase from...
USCIS INCREASES FILING FEES FOR EB-5 INVESTORS
January 12, 2023The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 No Longer Allows "Pooled Direct" EB-5 programs
May 5, 2022During the recent eight-month sunset of the Regional Center program (June 30, 2021, to March 15, 2022) which prohibited any new RC-based I-526 Petitions, some business promoters heavily marketed “Pooled Direct” investments as a currently available alternative EB-5 opportunity that could be filed with USCIS for $500,000. They would subscribe many EB-5 investors to a single New Commercial Enterprise and aggregate their capital to fund a new business venture, much like RC-based arrangements. Here, however, each Pooled Investor is required to create 10 direct full-time, permanent W-2 employees...
December’s Visa Bulletin is Current for Chinese Nationals who filed a direct investment EB-5 petition
November 17, 2021The US Department of State published the December 2021 Visa Bulletin revealing some significant announcements. The non-regional center program will be current for all countries, Mainland China included. The EB-5 cut-off dates for Regional Center visa applicants is unchanged due to the lapse of the Regional Center Program.
This is the first time since the Spring of 2015, there will be no backlog in the EB-5 investor category for people born in Mainland China.”
No more backlog for direct EB-5 investors from Mainland China
Historically more than 90% of the EB-5 applications...