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APPLICATION ANSWERS · EB-5 FIELD GUIDE

Does a construction delay automatically make an EB-5 project ineligible?

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THE DIRECT ANSWER

Not every delay has the same effect. Assess the specific change, job and capital requirements and stage of the case. A revised date may be manageable in one situation and consequential in another. Do not assume that retaining the same investment amount resolves every issue or that any delay necessarily ends eligibility.

Ask what has changed besides the date

Review financing, scope, costs and the evidence supporting jobs. Obtain a current explanation rather than relying on marketing updates. Immigration counsel should assess the particular investor’s situation; commercial advisers can separately evaluate the project’s performance and financial risk.

The standard amount is one million and fifty thousand United States dollars, or eight hundred thousand where the enterprise is principally doing business in a qualifying targeted employment area or is an infrastructure project. Job creation is counted for qualifying U.S. workers and the ten is a floor rather than a target, calculated either directly or, in a regional-centre case, through an accepted economic methodology that the project must be willing to explain. Where a broker's memorandum shows jobs the business will create after your capital arrives, treat those as projections that need a documented basis, a hiring plan, funded budget lines, and a timeline your counsel considers supportable on this file.