What is the difference between EB-5 project types?

An EB-5 investor can only invest their personal funds into an actual EB-5 project. An application for regional center designation can be based upon a hypothetical project with data and information on a potential business activity which does not exist.

As an EB-5 investor, you would be investing in an actual project. One cannot invest in a hypothetical project. These terms are relevant only to regional centers that are seeking their initial designation from USCIS. Documents describing a hypothetical project would be submitted to USCIS and would allow the entity to receive its regional center designation prior to identifying an actual project and seeking EB-5 investors.

As an investor, you will only invest in actual, shovel-ready projects. Regional centers use hypothetical projects to obtain their regional center designation, but will have a real project ready to go for the investor to review and invest in. If a regional center is offering investments into a hypothetical project, you may wish to reconsider.

For a prospective EB-5 investor, you will need to invest in an actual project in a regional center to qualify for the EB-5 visa. Other differences in projects do not matter for you as an EB-5 investor.

As an investor, you want an actual project. A hypothetical project is used as an example for an application for a regional center. You need an actual project so as to perform due diligence on the project.

These questions relate to obtaining a regional center approval. As an investor, you must invest in an actual project to get a green card.

By hypothetical EB-5 project, you may be referring to an "exemplar petition." An exemplar petition is filed by the regional center (not the individual EB-5 Investor). It is sort of a "sample" petition with all the project informaiton, etc., minus the specifics of the investor. Once USCIS approves such an exemplar petition, the project is deemed "pre-approved" by USCIS or at least "vetted" by USCIS for approvability of petitions to be filed by the EB-5 investors.

A hypothetical project means just that; a regional center application or exemplar subsequently is filed describing a hypothetical project in general where the developer has not yet pinned down all the details, but gives a broad outline of the type of project that will be covered. As you would imagine, the actual EB-5 project can be described in great detail where the developer has gone far enough in the project to be able to describe it in all of its particulars.

This goes to the way the project documents are submitted. As an investor, you should only consider actual projects, which means it is readily available for investment. The hypothetical project is a sample and not ready for investment.