How can I turn my business concept into an EB-5 project?

Minimum required investment per investor is $500,000 if a business is in a targeted employment area or $1M if not. Your projects may not be a good fit for EB-5 program.

You should structure your investment to require at least $1,000,000.00 or $500,000.00 if it is located in a targeted employment area or rural area. Make sure the business can create 10 jobs and then contact an EB-5 lawyer to help you make the project compliant with timelines. For finding investors you should contact migration agencies that can introduce your project to investors.

To qualify for an EB-5 visa, a person must invest $1,000,000 (or $500,000 if investing in a rural or high unemployment area) in a new commercial enterprise that creates ten permanent full-time jobs for U.S. citizens or authorized immigrant workers. The investment may only be in one commercial enterprise and the investor may not combine investments from multiple enterprises to satisfy the EB-5 visa requirements. With the I-526 application, the investor must submit evidence such as the business organization documents or articles of incorporation, documents showing evidence of investment, business registration records, and either tax records of employees or a comprehensive business plan outlining the employment of ten U.S. or authorized immigrant workers. Furthermore, the petitioner must demonstrate that he will engage in day-to-day business or policy making for the enterprise.

A $200,000 investment does not qualify anyone for EB-5 (immigrant investor category). Maybe E-2, but there is not much marketing out there to find E-2 investors (non immigrant treaty investors).

Based on the information you provided your projects are probably not suited for an EB-5 as the minimum threshold requirement is $1million unless it is in a rural area or TEA, then it drops to $500k.

It is very costly and difficult to get your regional center designated by USCIS now. It might take you up to two years to get an approval. Even after you manage to establish your regional center, which is approved by USCIS, the competition for foreign investors through the EB-5 Pilot Program is extremely competitive and will require you to pay more than $50,000 commissions per investor to brokers and dealers. Besides, if you are only looking for $200,000 per investor, EB-5 Pilot program is not the right avenue for you.

This may seem self-serving, but there''s no easy way to give you a concise answer on this. Your best bet is to get in touch with EB-5 experts. A qualified EB-5 immigration attorney would be a good start. Perhaps better might be a qualified EB-5 corporate attorney who might think through business ideas/structures/concepts with you first. Ultimately, you''ll need both.

An EB-5 project requires initial funds to set up. Moreover, the minimum investment is $500,000. Therefore it might not be a good fit for your concepts.

You can structure your new businesses as EB-5 compliance businesses. First of all, you need to determine the location of the new businesses. If the new business is in a targeted employment area, then the investment amount of each investor can be decreased to $500,000. That will help you attract investors. Otherwise, each investor must invest at least $1,000,000 in order to qualify for EB-5. The spirit of EB-5 is job creation. Each investor must be able to create 10 new jobs within the new commercial enterprise where they make the investment during the two year conditional residency period. Make sure that your businesses can generate so many direct jobs for the investor(s). For direct EB-5 project, the most reliable channel to find potential investors is by referral. You can also utilize foreign agency companies. Our firm offers free initial consultation for direct EB-5 projects, you can contact us so that I can better assist you.

In order to participate in the EB-5 program, you must invest a minimum of 1 million dollars (or half a million in a Targeted Economic Area) and employ 10 U.S. workers. You can create your own business plan or invest through a Regional Center using their business plan. Really it depends on your goals, if you want a green card then EB-5 is one way to go but if you do not particularly want a green card then there are other options available to operate your business in the U.S. The best way to start is to consult with an Immigration Attorney for guidance to accomplish your goals once they are identified and help you with the process.

EB-5 funding option is not just limited to established businesses or projects. It can be for start-ups or even smaller in total capital needed. In order to attract the EB-5 investors however, you need to have solid credentials in having done something similar in the past or have a solid business plan that you can present to the potential investors. You can also align with an existing Regional Center that may already have successfully marketed to EB-5 Investors and have a successful EB-5 Petition approval record. This would also give you a connection into the Regional Center''s investor connections, etc. Since you were mentioning $200,000 as your required minimum investment in your project, you should know however, that the minimum investment required to qualify for the EB-5 Immigrant investors visa is $500,000 or $1million depending on whether your project is located in the designated Targeted Employment Area. There are many ways in which you can develop your business idea using EB-5 Investor funding, but you need to work with people who have experience and knowledge in these matters to properly guide you.

I suggest that we create a structure to merge the projects to create a $1,000,000 target investment.