New 2020 data on I-526 petitions filed for EB-5 shows the interest is on a declining trend for the thirty year old program.
After USCIS made an announcement in July 2019 on reforms increasing the price to $900K, there is no real huge rush for EB-5 applications filed, taking advantage of the the $500,000 pricing.
The petitions filed from Jul-Aug 2019 stands only 1,191 applications much lower than that of the Q1 petitions filed.
For 2019, the refusal rate for petitions hit peak during Q3 but then dropped sharply. There are a total of 13,763 pending petitions according to the latest USCIS update
| I-526 | Received | Approved | Denied | Refusal % |
| Oct – Dec | 1808 | 2175 | 398 | 22.01% |
| Jan-Mar | 580 | 795 | 180 | 31.03% |
| Apr-Jun | 615 | 333 | 246 | 40.00% |
| Jul-Sep | 1191 | 356 | 190 | 15.95% |
Overall, the petitions filed for 2019 remains low from all time high in 2015 and 2016.
The recent google search trends showed a decline in search interest for EB-5 scheme, since the end of 2019 after the price hike is announced, while the interest for CBI/Golden visa schemes spiked
Despite US passport recently rated as sixth best travel document in the world, the interest for EB-5 is gradually declining, and part of the reasons is long waiting times for chinese and doubling the prices could deter foreign investors. Currently the european golden visa schemes in Greece/Portugal are much cheaper than EB-5 attracting more clients for real estate, with easy simple application process and less waiting times.
The EB-5 still continues to remain as the world’s best immigrant investor program and with the price increase came into effect in Nov 21, 2019.
