EB5 Regional Center Program to Expire, at Least Temporarily

The regional center portion of the employment-based, fifth preference (EB5) immigrant investor program will expire after June 30, 2021. Congress failed to reach an agreement to extend the program, and it is now in recess until July 9, 2021. There is still reason to believe Congress will eventually renew the regional center program. However, as of July 1, 2021, the USCIS will not adjudicate any immigrant petition by alien investor (form I-526) filed through a regional center project, or any I-485 filed based on such an approved I-526.

While some regional center-based EB5 petitioners are racing to file before June 30th, it should be noted that such petitions cannot be approved until and unless the regional center program is renewed. As previously noted on MurthyDotCom, the expiration of the regional center program is unrelated to the lawsuit that forced the USCIS to return the minimum investment requirement to $500,000. So, assuming that the regional center program is put back in place, it is possible that the $500,000 investment requirement will remain.

Finally, although the regional center program is expiring, EB5 petitions filed based on direct investments will continue to be processed per normal. The minimum invest requirement for direct investment EB5 cases is also $500,000.

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