When must EB-5 funds be put into the escrow account?

It will be better from your own account to the escrow account. When the fund is ready, you can wire it to the escrow account.

A lawful EB-5 investment must be a personal investment of funds, even if the source of those funds is a loan, gift, etc. USCIS has accepted funds to be "invested or in the process of investing" once they are deposited in escrow. Since you need to show USCIS you have invested or are in the process of investing, you should get that done before the I-526 is filed. Most EB-5 projects and regional centers will require that anyway.

If a new commercial enterprise has an escrow account set up to receive EB-5 investments, the funds must be remitted into that escrow account before I-526 filing. EB-5 investment capital received as a gift is recommended to be received by the gift recipient (EB-5 petitioner) first before being transferred to the escrow account, so that personal ownership and control of the capital is established.

It is better if you receive the funds first, but not absolutely required. The funds must be fully at risk (placed into an irrevocable escrow with an automatic release provision) before the I-526 petition is submitted.

The funds are usually required to be placed in escrow upon your entry into the EB-5 program. One important thing is that you must be able to track the source of the funds, to show that it was gifted to you, and is indeed YOUR funds.

EB-5 funds must be put into an escrow account only if the project/developer has agreed in your documentation that funds will be put into an escrow account. Such documents would provide the conditions upon which the escrow funds would be released in order to be invested directly into the project in question. There is no legal requirement per se that there be an escrow account, although for some period of time that was the normal practice. Today, given the long delays in obtaining adjudications of the I-526 petitions, many projects have not specifically provided that there will be an escrow account or even when they do, typically, funds may be released after approval of either the related exemplar or one or more I-526 petitions.

Best to gift to you, then transfer to escrow.

The investment money coming from a gift can be handed to the escrow account either through the investor himself or deposited directly into the account. The entire investment fund must be deposited into an escrow account prior to applying for the two-year conditional green card. Generally, the gift must be from a legal source.

As most of the regional center escrow accounts normally are identified with the investor's name, your donor could directly wire to that. However, in order to show the trail of the gift from your donor to you and then when you invested into the EB-5, I normally prefer that the funds be deposited into your account before wiring to the EB-5 investment escrow. This is more precise and clean.

The funds can go directly into escrow. You must be able to trace the funds back, however, even if gifted. Also, the funds are put in escrow prior to the application process, when the agreements are signed.

It needs to go to you in your account. When the funds are to be deposited in the escrow is usually covered in documents provided by the EB-5 entity. They should be in an escrow account at the time of filing your petition.