Questions and Answers > EB-5 Investments

When can relocated employees be counted towards the EB-5 requirement?

My friend is a U.S. citizen who owns a thriving business in Texas. He wants to expand the company to an office in Los Angeles. We are thinking this would be a good opportunity for me to invest and apply for EB-5 at the same time. Will a new location of an existing company be eligible for EB-5 investment? What if some of the employees relocate to Los Angeles? Can we count their new jobs towards my EB-5 job requirement?

Answers

• Steffanie J Lewis

  Immigration Attorney

  Answered on April 15, 2015

  The employees can be counted if the new location meets the criteria of a “new enterprise.” Every qualifying investment in a new enterprise must create 10 new full-time positions. Expansion of an existing business can qualify as a “new enterprise” provided the investment increases the employees by 40 percent. If employees transferred from Texas to Los Angeles, they would not be counted as original employees and would not be included in the 40 percent increase and would not be counted as one of the ten positions to be created in the “new enterprise.”

• J Bruce Weinman

  Immigration Attorney

  Answered on March 27, 2015

  Probably not. Relocating employees is not the same as creating new jobs. If you get creative with the organizational structure, perhaps start a new corporation, then I think you have a shot at this.

• Fredrick W Voigtmann

  Immigration Attorney

  Answered on March 20, 2015

  Relocation of employees does not constitute new job creation. Your business plan would need to demonstrate the need for at least ten new full-time positions for U.S. workers at the new location, and it must provide a credible and feasible timeline for such hiring, along with the other Matter of Ho requirements for a comprehensive business plan.

• Salvatore Picataggio

  Immigration Attorney

  Answered on March 19, 2015

  A new location would probably be eligible (pending EB-5 immigration due diligence). To be safe, all-new employees would probably be the best route to take.

• Robert Lee

  Immigration Attorney

  Answered on March 19, 2015

  Relocation does not really count. If you investing in an existing business you have to create 10 new full time jobs on top of the jobs already existing. You should just create a new business that works in collaboration with the friend's original business. That way the employees that want to relocate can do so under the new company, creating "new" jobs.

• Jinhee Wilde

  Immigration Attorney

  Answered on March 19, 2015

  The EB-5 jobs requirement is for creating new, permanent, full-time jobs. Mere relocation of jobs is not sufficient.

• John J Downey

  Immigration Attorney

  Answered on March 19, 2015

  A new location is certainly eligible. The requirements state "new jobs" so simply transferring existing jobs to another location could prove problematic.

• Lei Jiang

  Immigration Attorney

  Answered on March 19, 2015

  Yes, new jobs in new locations can be counted for EB-5 purposes.

• Michael A Harris, Esq

  Immigration Attorney

  Answered on March 19, 2015

  Transferred employees will not count as new employees. More information is needed otherwise to evaluate your case.

• Daniel B Lundy

  Immigration Attorney

  Answered on March 19, 2015

  We can only count net new jobs for EB-5 purposes. If the jobs that the employees are leaving in Texas will be filled with other people so that those jobs are not lost, then all jobs in California could be counted. However, if the people in Texas are simply transferred to California, and were not replaced in Texas, you could only count the new jobs added in California, not including those filled by the transferees from Texas. Put simply, new jobs would equal total California jobs, minus Texas Transfers, unless you can document that the jobs that the Texas transfers held in Texas continue to exist and are filled by new people in Texas.

• Shahzad Q Qadri

  RC Creator

  Answered on March 19, 2015

  Relocated employees cannot count towards the EB-5 job creation. It has to be new jobs.