The Advantages of a Direct EB-5 Investment Program

Introduction

The EB-5 visa or the Immigrant Investor visa is an opportunity to obtain a green card or a permanent residency status by making an investment of a certain amount in the US and meet some stipulated criteria. It is one of the easiest and fastest way to obtain the residency status in the US today and is a hugely successful program of the USCIS.

Why choose EB-5 visa?

EB-5 is one of the quickest and easiest ways to obtain a permanent residency. It entails quite some investment, but is otherwise hassle-free and simple. It does not require a permanent labor certification or a permanent job offer and it also allows covers your spouse and your other dependents.

The $1.8M direct EB-5 investor program

In the $1.8M direct EB-5 investor program, the applicant has to invest $1.8M plus the processing overhead cost, legal and filing fees of legally obtained capital in a commercial enterprise in the United States and create at least 10 jobs for citizens of the United States. Here, the project has to be the applicant’s own and he or she has to be in a policy-making and decision-making capacity.

The $900,000 direct EB-5 visa program

If the applicant chooses to invest in a targeted employment area as designated by the US government or via a regional center approved by the US government then the mandatory investment amount to obtain the EB-5 visa gets relaxed to $900,000 plus the processing overhead cost, legal and filing fees. The investment still has to generate at least 10 jobs for US citizens. However, in the regional center investments indirect job creation is allowed to be accounted for as well.

Advantages

The EB-5 visa program has multiple advantages for the applicant –

• It is one of the simplest, quickest and easiest way to gain lawful permanent residency in the United States. You get a conditional residency for two years first and after two years when all the requirements have been met and verified, a full permanent residency is issued.
• The visa program covers dependents like spouse, unmarried children under 21 years of age.
• The applicant does not need to procure a perm labor certification indicating the need to show that there is a shortage of US workers to perform the jobs in your project.
• The applicant can apply for the visa even if he or she does not have any other permanent employment in the country, unlike the other business visas.
• The applicant need not continue to keep his business in his home country operational, he is free to abandon the same as it is not required for the visa application