US EB5 Visa – Business Visa, Investor Visa

The government of the USA, in a bid to boost the slowing down economy of the country, launched a fabulous program, to attract investments from foreign countries via individual investors, way back in 1990 which has come of age. This scheme, that bestows upon the investors with the permanent residency of the country, has been working successfully now and attracting a lot of attention of investors world over.

The EB5 Visa, as it is popularly called, has been envisaged as a way to boost the investment scenario of the country and provide necessary impetus to the sagging American economy by raising the possibilities for employment and business. The government of the USA is aware of the fascination of the people across the world – about gaining an opportunity to obtain entry into this land of opportunities, which it has decided to use to its advantage.

The EB5 Business Visa was initiated as an ambitious pilot project that required the immigrants to plough in funds in tune of US$ 1,000,000. This category was later complimented with another category that required the investors to bring half the amount. The addition has brought in lot of success for this scheme, and Thegovernment has, till now, been able to accumulate a fair amount of success from the current format.

The government, every year, allots 10,000 slots for this category. Although the response to the program was not as encouraging as it was expected, the scheme has eventually started gaining in terms of repute and popularity with the passing time; at the start of the program, hardly anyone filed in requests, but since last five or six years, owing to the success of regional center concept, there has been spurt of applications being filed and accepted. 

In last five years, year 2009-2014, over 36000 people have been offered conditional green card through the US EB4 Business and Investor Visa, highest being 10692 in 2014. This trend seems to be pretty encouraging, as well as lucrative, because just by ploughing in the prescribed amount into investments, the applicants can obtain a permanent residence of the country – though conditional for two years initially.

The EB5 Business And Investor Visa is a fabulous scheme for the people with adequate funds and intentions of entering the country. The success of the scheme has motivated many people to take a go at this program and opt in for the most successful scheme of this immigrant investment program – the regional center concept.

The EB5 Investor and Business visa program has set some predefined qualification parameters for the applicants – that are broadly categorized in pre and post entry phases. The pre – application qualification parameters require the people to do following things:

Infuse prescribed amount of funds into any of the following investment venues:

·         Independent investment venues that mandate a infusion of US$ 1,000,000 by establishing a commercial enterprise anywhere in the country; or

·         US$ 500,000 into an independent enterprise in a TEA – Targeted Employment Area; or

·         US$ 500,000 into a regional center

The commercial enterprises being established, under the EB5 Visa, in a high volume independent investment category or a TEA can be a fresh enterprise, started from the scratch, or an existing entity, that has been in red for not less than 2 years from the date of procurement.

The people entering through the US EB5 Visa – Business Visa, Investor Visa must fulfill employment creation criteria. It is necessary for the investors to evidence creation of at least 10 jobs – direct or indirect – for nationals and permanent residents of the USA, self and family not included in this criteria.