The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program can help you fund your enterprise and create jobs for U.S. workers. To determine whether the EB-5 program may provide a realistic opportunity for your project, consider the following basic program criteria:
 

EB-5 Project Requirements

• Your enterprise must be a “new” enterprise. “New” means established after November     29,1990 (the date the EB-5 program legislation was enacted). However, certain types of business transformations may result in even preexisting businesses being deemed “new” for EB-5 purposes.
• Your enterprise must have a commercial purpose, which means it must be a for-profit entity       created to engage in lawful business activity. Carroll & Associates attorneys can advise as to funding structures that may satisfy this requirement even where the primary target enterprise is non-commercial.
• The amount of each investor’s required contribution depends on the location of your enterprise. The basic EB-5 program requires each investor to contribute $1 million. This amount is reduced to $500,000 if your enterprise is located within a “targeted employment area.” In general, a “targeted employment area” is either a rural area (outside a Metropolitan Statistical Area and with a population of 20,000 or less) or an area with an unemployment rate of at least 150% the national average.
• The invested funds must be used to create “permanent” jobs, at least 10 jobs per investor that will last a minimum of several years, through profit-generating activity.
• The EB-5 investors in your enterprise must have some degree of participation in the management of the enterprise, either through actual managerial control or through participation in policy formulation.

Planning for EB-5 Project Development
In the early stages of planning for EB-5 program compliance, it’s helpful to make the following decisions:
 

- total cost of the project;
- the sum to be raised through the EB-5 program;
- the number of investors you’ll need;
- the minimum investment expected of each investor;
- the nature of the commercial activity of the enterprise;
- the return on investment to be offered and the time by which investors will begin to receive a    

   return;
- an exit strategy to facilitate the possible return of the investment to investors.
 

The legal professionals at Carroll & Associates, PC have the knowledge and experience in both commercial and EB-5 immigration law to assist you in making these decisions.