Demand for EB-5 visas three to four times higher than availability

The Demand for EB-5 visas (annual I-526 filings) has been three to four times higher than EB-5 visa availability since 2011, resulting in a backlog now about a decade long.

Here’s the law related to EB-5 visa allocation, with linked citations.

1. The annual worldwide level for all employment-based (EB) immigrants is effectively 140,000. INA 201(d)(1)(A)
2. At most 7.1 percent of the employment-based worldwide level is made available to immigrants in the EB-5 category. INA 203(b)(5)(A)
3. Available EB-5 visas are issued to eligible immigrants in the order in which the immigrant petition was filed. INA 203(e)(1)
4. At least 3,000 EB-5 visas are reserved annually for immigrants based on investment in a Targeted Employment Area. INA 203(b)(5)(B)
5. 3,000 EB-5 visas are set aside annually for immigrants based on investment in a Regional Center. PL 102-395Section 610(b) as amended by PL 105-119 Section 116(a)
6. The EB-5 visas made available to natives of any one country may not exceed 7 percent of the available worldwide total. But if one or more countries gets held back by this rule, resulting in available visas with no one else to take them, then those remaining visas can be made available again without regard to per-country numerical limits for that year. INA 202(a)(2) and INA 202(a)(3) and INA 202(e) and PL 106-313 Section 104
7. EB-5 visa numbers available to China annually under the per-country limit are reduced by 700 to compensate for cases processed under the Chinese Student Protection Act of 1992. PL 102-404 Section 2(d)(B) [Comment: It’s not obvious when this compensation is/was already complete; if the CSPA off-set does still remain in effect now, then Chinese start the year with (9,940*0.07) – 700 = -4 EB-5 visa numbers available to them.

EB-5 Supply and Demand

• Annual EB-5 visa quota: ≈ 10,000 visas for investors + family
• Average visas per EB -5 investor: ≈ 3
• EB-5 investors per year that can be accommodated by the annual quota: 10,000/3=3,300 (rough estimate)

Actual EB -5 investor petitions (I-526) have exceeded 3,300 every year since 2011 .

• 2011-2017: Total ≈ 67,800 petitions received (average 9,700 per year: 3 times too many)
• 2015-2017: Total ≈ 40,700 petitions received (average 13,600 per year: 4 times too many)

Source:  https://blog.lucidtext.com/