EB-5 Regional Center or direct investment: who carries the risk?

The EB-5 offers two routes: you invest in your own company, which creates ten jobs itself, or you join a project through a Regional Center, which may also count jobs created indirectly. That difference decides how much work you take on, how much risk you carry and which deadlines apply.

The EB-5 asks for two things: an investment of $800,000 or $1,050,000 and ten new full-time jobs for American workers. Who creates those jobs and how they are counted is what separates the two routes the law offers. With a direct investment, you build a business yourself. With a Regional Center, you and other investors finance a project that someone else builds.

Both routes lead to the same green card. But they ask very different things of you, and they carry different risks.

1Two routes, one law

Congress created the EB-5 in 1990. The Regional Center Program followed in 1992, first as a temporary pilot program that was extended again and again. The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of March 15, 2022 wrote it into law anew, with much stricter rules. It runs until September 30, 2027.

A Regional Center is a public or private economic unit in the US that USCIS has approved for a defined, contiguous and limited area. The Regional Center does not have to build anything itself. It pools the capital of several investors in a project company (the New Commercial Enterprise), which passes it on to the business that actually builds or operates the project (the Job-Creating Entity). As of May 11, 2026, USCIS listed 567 approved Regional Centers.

Direct investment, known as standalone, is the original route from 1990. It has no expiry date. Here, the company you invest in is also the one that creates the jobs.

2The comparison in numbers and obligations

The table below sets the two routes side by side. In practice, three differences drive almost every decision:

• How the jobs are counted. Direct means your company employs the ten workers. Indirect means the jobs arise outside the project company, for example at construction firms and suppliers, and are calculated with an economic model.
• How much you have to do yourself. As a direct investor, you run your company or help set its policy. As a Regional Center investor, the rights of a limited partner are enough.
• How long the route is secure. Direct investment is a permanent part of the law. The Regional Center Program has an expiry date.

The minimum investment is the same: both routes require $1,050,000, or $800,000 in a targeted area. Only infrastructure projects, which also qualify for the lower amount, are available exclusively through a Regional Center. The details are in our article on the EB-5 investment amount.

3Direct investment: your company, your ten jobs

If you invest directly, you set up a new company in the US, or buy one and restructure it, and that company has to create the ten jobs itself. It or its wholly owned subsidiaries must be the employer. USCIS checks this using tax records, Forms I-9 or similar evidence, and, for jobs that do not exist yet, a comprehensive business plan.

3.1Which jobs count

• Qualifying employees: US citizens, green card holders and other immigrants authorized to work. You, your spouse, your children and employees on a nonimmigrant visa, such as an H-1B, do not count.
• Full-time: at least 35 hours a week. Two employees may share one full-time job, but several part-time jobs cannot be added together to make one.
• Permanent: seasonal and temporary jobs do not count. Jobs expected to last at least two years are generally treated as permanent.

3.2The job creation timeline

The business plan must show that the need for ten jobs will arise within two years. According to the Policy Manual, those two years start six months after the decision on the I-526 petition. When you apply to remove conditions, the jobs must have been created, or the company must be in the process of creating them and do so before the third anniversary of your green card.

3.3Your role

As a direct investor, you have to manage the company, either day to day or through policy-making, for example as a managing director, officer or member of the board of directors. That suits entrepreneurs who want to run a business in America anyway. A corporation is often the right legal form, because it handles staff, investors and later expansion well.

3.4Special case: a troubled business

If you invest in a troubled business, you can show preserved jobs instead of new ones. A business counts as troubled if it has existed for at least two years and, in the twelve or 24 months before the petition, lost at least 20 percent of its prior net worth. Headcount must then stay at its pre-investment level for at least two years.

If you already run a US business on an E-2, you may be wondering whether it could qualify for the EB-5. That depends on size, jobs and capital; our article on concurrent filing and switching from the E-2 to the EB-5 looks into it.

4The Regional Center: pooled, indirect, regulated

With a Regional Center, the process starts not with you but with the project. For every single offering, the Regional Center must file a project application on Form I-956F with USCIS, including a business plan, an economic report on the jobs and all offering documents. Only then can you file your I-526E petition. If you file a petition on Form I-526 that refers to a Regional Center, USCIS will reject it.

4.1Indirect jobs

The big advantage of the Regional Center: up to 90 percent of the ten jobs may be indirect. These include employees of the job-creating entity (if it is not the project company itself), employees of suppliers and service providers, and jobs created because the new employees spend their income. They are calculated using recognized input-output models. Indirect jobs may also be located outside the Regional Center's area.

Construction projects have a limit: if the jobs come from construction work lasting less than two years, only up to 75 percent may be indirect, and direct construction jobs count only pro rata based on the construction period.

4.2Your role as an investor

Here too, you must be involved in managing the project company, but the bar is low: the rights and duties a limited partner typically has under the Uniform Limited Partnership Act are enough. The law expressly names the limited partnership as a possible form for the project company.

4.3What the Regional Center owes you

Since 2022, the Regional Center must hold each project's capital in a separate account, with an independent fund administrator or an annual independent audit. It must file an annual report with USCIS and give you a copy within 30 days on request, sign written agreements with intermediaries, who must register with USCIS, and disclose all fees. USCIS reviews every Regional Center at least every five years. How to use these rights when choosing a project is covered in our article on project due diligence.

5The deadlines: September 30, 2026 and September 30, 2027

The law makes visas available through the Regional Center Program until September 30, 2027. Whether Congress extends the program after that is not in the law. In case it lapses, the law includes a protection clause: USCIS must keep processing petitions and applications to remove conditions that are based on a Regional Center investment and were filed by September 30, 2026. It may not deny them because of the lapse or suspend the visas of those approved.

A petition filed after September 30, 2026 does not have this express protection. If the program expires on September 30, 2027 without an extension, that petition depends on whatever Congress decides at that point. This affects only the Regional Center; the direct investment has no expiry date. If you invest through a Regional Center, check the contract for what happens to your capital if the petition can no longer be approved for this reason.

Other dates that affect your choice: fees go up for applications postmarked on or after November 30, 2026, and for petitions filed from January 1, 2027 the investment amounts are adjusted to the consumer price index. The details are in our articles on EB-5 total costs and the investment amount.

6Which route suits whom

A rule of thumb, with no guarantee, because every situation is different:

6.1The direct investment suits you if

• you want to run a business in America anyway and ten full-time jobs are realistic;
• you want to keep control of your capital rather than hand it to a developer;
• you want to be independent of the Regional Center Program's expiry date.

The price: the ten jobs depend on your own success, and jobs at suppliers don't count. For a founder new to the US, a business with ten full-time employees is a big step.

6.2The Regional Center suits you if

• your main goal is the green card for you and your family and you don't want to run your own business in America;
• you have other plans in the US, such as a job, retirement or your children's education;
• you are prepared to vet the project choice and documents thoroughly.

The price: you carry the risk of a project you don't control, pay fees to the Regional Center and depend on the program's expiry date.

And sometimes neither fits. If you have a company at home that can transfer you, the L-1 gets you to the US faster and more easily. If you want to build your own business without tying up $800,000, look at the E-2; the comparison is in our article E-2 visa or EB-5 green card.

7Choosing a Regional Center

The USCIS list of approved Regional Centers is a starting point, not a recommendation. USCIS states explicitly that approval is not an endorsement of the activity, does not guarantee compliance with securities law and does not reduce the risk. USCIS also keeps a list of Regional Centers whose designation has been terminated. A terminated Regional Center may no longer solicit investors.

Five questions before you take an offer seriously:

1. Has the I-956F project application been filed or approved?
2. Is the project in a TEA, and on what basis does that designation apply?
3. How many jobs per investor does the economic report project, and how big is the buffer?
4. Who is the fund administrator or auditor, and will you receive the reports?
5. What fees apply, who receives them, and is the intermediary registered with USCIS?

The detailed checklist with the USCIS and SEC warning signs is in our article Project due diligence, risks and capital repayment. And before you choose a project, get your source of funds documents together, because USCIS requires them on both routes.

In short

• With a direct investment, you file the I-526, and your own business must create ten full-time jobs itself; you must manage it or help shape its policy.
• Through a Regional Center, you file the I-526E after the Regional Center has filed the I-956F project application; up to 90 percent of the jobs may be indirect.
• Multiple EB-5 investors in one business and infrastructure projects are only possible through a Regional Center.
• The Regional Center Program runs until September 30, 2027; if it lapses, the law protects only petitions filed by September 30, 2026.

How we help you

• Visa RoadmapIn writing: which visa fits you and your family, prepared with the immigration attorney on the firm's team.
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