How long does EB-5 project approval take?

You can submit the I-526 petition before USCIS gives exemplar approval for the EB-5 regional center project.The adjudication of the I-526 petition may take 14 months, more or less. Once the I-526 petition is approved, then the investor can apply for the conditional residency visa at the U.S. consulate and this may take, on average, four months.

It is about one year. Individual I-526s are about 13-14 months. I recommend that you conduct due diligence of a project and invest in a project that has prior I-526 approvals or exemplar approval. This, however, will not guarantee that your I-526 will be approved. I recommend that you engage the legal services of an experienced EB-5 immigration attorney who will properly prepare your I-526 petition and track your source of funds.

USCIS does not require project pre-approval for an I-526 filing. Therefore, your I-526 would be reviewed for project compliance and investment compliance. If a regional center has applied for project pre-approval, that can take up to a year of processing.

The time involved depends on if the project is a regional center proposal or direct investment. Regional centers are given priority according to USCIS. You can probably figure on one year. If you file your application, it must be tied to the project. So they would not know how to adjudicate your application.

It generally takes about one year. If the regional center is approved you do not have to wait for a project exemplar to be approved.

USCIS reports that it takes 12 months or more to review and approve a project. The I-526 is taking about 14 months. You could file your I-526 before the project is approved, but you are taking a chance that the project may not be approved later and your I-526 would be denied. Thus, it is usually better to invest in a project that has had the approval to possibly shorten the processing time or to be better assured that your I-526 could be approved if your Source of Funds is carefully tracked.