FY2012 EB-5 Petition and Visa Statistics

IIUSA has published the EB-5 processing statistics through Q42012 recently released by USCIS to AILA. The report shows that USCIS has been particularly busy with I-526 petitions, of which it received 6,041 and processed an impressive 4,634 in FY2012 (ending 9/30/2012). This year saw a record number of I-526 approvals and a record number of I-924 denials. The approval percentages for investor petitions fell slightly from FY2011, down to 79% for I-526 and 92% for I-829, while approvals for Regional Center applications and amendments tanked to an average 36%.

Source: USCIS

IIUSA has also published FY2012 EB-5 visa statistics released by the US Department of State. These numbers are significant because they show that EB-5 visas are, for the first time, threatening to exceed the annual allocation of about 10,000 visas. The State Department’s Visa Bulletin for December 2012 notes that “It appears likely that a cut-off date will need to be established for the China Employment Fifth preference category at some point during second half of fiscal year 2013. Such action would be delayed as long as possible, since while number use may be excessive over a 1 to 5 month period, it could average out to an acceptable level over a longer (e.g., 4 to 9 month) period. This would be the first time a cut-off date has been established in this category, which is why readers are being provided with the maximum amount of advance notice regarding the possibility.”

Source: IIUSA

IIUSA  has published an article on “THE IMPACT OF CHINESE QUOTA RETROGRESSION ON EB-5 INVESTORS AND EB-5 INVESTMENTS“ by Tammy Fox-Isicoff and H. Ronald Klasko.

I also recommend Kate Kalmykov’s blog post on Understanding the Implications of Retrogression in the EB-5 Category and her follow-up post EB-5 Retrogression for China Unlikely in 2013, According to Department of State.

Also note that the State Department website now has an informative EB-5 page.

EB-5 Visa Stats by Country

The U.S. Department of State website has finally published the Report of the Visa Office 2011. The data is old news by now, but I still enjoy looking at the table that details EB-5 visas and status adjustments by country and type of investment. Now we know that in all the world in FY2011, only one Chinese investor and up to four Dutch took advantage of a Regional Center offering at the $1 million level. During the same period, there were over three thousand visas/adjustments in connection with Regional Center TEA/$500,000  investments. Stand-alone (non-Regional Center) EB-5 investments included a relatively large percentage at the $1 million level, with 230 visas associated with investments outside of TEAs as compared with 152 visas associated with TEA/$500,000 investments. Props to the lone Australian who is the only person in all of Oceania to have gotten an EB-5 visa in FY2011, and who didn’t even add spouse/children to the visa count. The total number of EB-5 visas issued nearly doubled between 2010 and 2011 and is projected to nearly double again in 2012 according to a State Department estimate. The annual limit for EB-5 is approximately 10,000 visas (7.1% of the total 140,000 employment-based immigrant visas.) Changing the visa allocation would require an Act of Congress.

The following charts summarize data from the FY2010 and FY2011 reports from the State Department Visa Office as well as the preliminary data for FY2012 reported to AILA in July 2012.

EB-5 visas issued and adjustments of status, by region
	FY 2012 as of 06/2012	FY 2011	FY 2010
Asia	4,220	3,035	1,358
Europe		211	289
North America		89	111
South America	82	81	45
Africa		46	58
Oceana		1	24
Grand Total	(Estimate for FY 2012: 6,200)	3,463	1,885

EB-5 visas issued and adjustments of status, by foreign state chargeability
Country	FY 2011
China-mainland born	2,408
Korea, South	254
China-Taiwan born	122
Iran	117
Great Britain	57
Mexico	53
Venezuela	46
India	37
Russia	30
Vietnam	26
Canada	26
Netherlands	26
Japan	20
Turkey	20
South Africa	19
Italy	16
Brazil	16
Germany	15
Egypt	12
France	10
All other countries	133
Total	3,463

EB-5 Stats up to Q3 FY2012

USCIS has released EB-5 statistics through the third quarter of FY2012 in advance of  the 7/26 EB-5 Stakeholder Engagement teleconference. Please read the linked document for all the details. A few points of interest to me:

• Approval rates for I-526 and I-829 have remained fairly high in FY2012 though slightly below the 2011 average (79% approval percentage for I-526 compared to 81% last year, and 94% for I-924 compared to 96% last year)
• USCIS received 69% fewer I-829 in the first three quarters of 2012 than in the first three quarters of FY2011
• USCIS received (and also processed) 38% more I-526 in Q1-3 2012 than it did in the first three quarters of FY2011
• 60% of the I-924 Regional Center applications and amendments processed in Q1-Q3 2012 were denied
• There are currently 209 approved Regional Centers, up from 174 in FY11, 114 in FY10, 72 in FY09, 25 in FY08, and 11 in FY07.

EB-5 Visa Stats as of 03/2012

The State Department Visa Office has still not released its report for 2011 (and about time, too, since its FY2011 ended last September), but IIUSA has obtained a report on EB-5 visa usage up to 03/2012. IIUSA thoughtfully provides charts that illustrate the increase in visa usage by year and track trends by country. I’m interested to note that Iran and Venezuela have moved into the top five countries by visa usage, and that Chinese nationals continue to dominate the list (accounting for nearly 70% of EB-5 visas issued in 2011 and 2012 to date).

FY12 Q1 EB-5 Statistics

USCIS has released new statistics as part of the presentation for the 1/23 EB-5 Stakeholder Meeting. This data shows us that USCIS has generally liked what it’s seen in I-526 and especially I-829 filings, and has found a lot not to like in recent Regional Center applications and amendments.

Form I-924 (& Pre-I-924) Regional Center Initial Applications
Fiscal Year or Quarter	Receipts	Approvals	Denials
FY12 Q1	41	14	22
FY11	192	80	51
FY10	110	36	30

• Note: There are currently 194 approved Regional Centers (RCs), operating in 40 states, including the District of Columbia and Guam. A complete list of approved RCs is also available online at http://www.uscis.gov/eb-5centers . 

Form I-924 (& Pre-I-924) Regional Center Amendment Requests
Fiscal Year or Quarter	Receipts	Approvals	Denials
FY12 Q1	17	4	3
FY11	86	43	7
FY10	42	42	11

Form I-526 Petition Final Actions
Fiscal Year and/or Quarter	Form I-526 Approvals	Final Action %	Form I-526 Denials	Final Action %
FY12 Q1	1,076	83%	222	17%
FY11	1,563	81%	371	19%
FY10	1,369	89%	165	11%
FY09	1,262	86%	207	14%
FY08	640	84%	120	16%
FY07	473	76%	148	24%
FY06	336	73%	124	27%
FY05	179	53%	156	47%

• Note: Approximately 92% of the individual Form I-526 petitions filed each year are filed by Investors who are investing in RC-affiliated commercial enterprises.

Form I-829 Petition Final Actions
Fiscal Year and/or Quarter	Form I-829 Approvals	Final Action %	Form I-829 Denials	Final Action %
FY12 Q1	144	93%	11	7%
FY11	1,067	96%	46	4%
FY10	274	83%	56	17%
FY09	347	86%	56	14%
FY08	159	70%	68	30%
FY07	111	69%	49	31%
FY06	106	64%	59	36%
FY05	184	62%	112	38%

EB-5 Visa Usage
Fiscal Year	Total EB-5 Visas Issued
FY12 YTD*	2,364
FY11	3,463
FY10	1,885
FY09	4,218
FY08	1,360
FY07	806
FY06	744
FY05	158
*Estimate of FY12 Visas Issued YTD, reported by the Department of State as of 01/17/2012.

• Note: This includes visas issued to the investor and dependents. Historically an average of 2.5 visas are issued per principle applicant.

FY 2011 Q1 EB-5 Statistics

Here are interesting EB-5 statistics presented at the 3/17/2011 EB-5 Stakeholder’s Meeting at the USCIS California Service Center.

Current Regional Center Stats as of 3/17/2011

# of Active Regional Centers	125
# of Pending Initial RC Proposals	156
# of Pending RC Amendments	34

Stats  on Initial Regional Center Proposal Filings

	FY 2010 (Oct 2009 – Sept 2010)	FY 2011 Q1 (Oct – Dec 2010)
# of Initial RC Proposal Filings	110	116
# of Amended RC Proposal Filings	42	24
% of Initial RC Proposals Denied	45%	24%
% of RC Amendments Denied	29%	22%

Statistics I-526 and I-829 Petitions

(Recall that petitions are not necessarily adjudicated in the year in which they are received!)

	# of I-526 Received	# of I-526 Approvals	% of I-526 Approved
FY11 Q1	701	190	77%
FY10	1955	1369	89%
FY09	1028	1262	86%
FY08	1257	640	84%
FY07	776	473	76%
FY06	486	336	73%
FY05	332	179	53%

	# of I-829 Received	# of I-829 Approvals	% of I-829 Approved
FY11 Q1	531	39	75%
FY10	768	274	83%
FY09	437	347	86%
FY08	390	159	70%
FY07	194	111	69%
FY06	89	106	64%
FY05	37	184	62%

USCIS noted that it is still working on a system to distinguish RC from stand-alone filings and that an estimated 90-95%  of I-526 petitions are currently associated with Regional Centers.

EB-5 Visa Statistics

	Total EB-5 Visas Issued
FY11 Q1	1,421
FY10	1,885
FY09	4,218
FY08	1,360
FY07	806
FY06	744

The presentation notes: “USCIS interprets the set aside of visas to ensure that a minimum of 3,000 visas are available for regional center based applicants. We do not see the set aside as limiting the number of visas that can be granted to regional center based applicants, to the extent that such applicants can be allocated up to 10,000 visas, along with the non-regional center based applicants.”

EB-5 Visa Usage by Country 2010

The U.S. Department of State has published their final visa usage statistics for FY2010. A total of 1,885 EB-5 visas were issued, with the following countries making up the Top 10:

1. People’s Republic of China (772 or 40.9%)
2. Republic of South Korea (295 or 15.6%)
3. Great Britain/Northern Ireland (135 or 7.1%)
4. Taiwan (94 or 5.0%)
5. India (62 or 3.3%)
6. Iran (55 or 2.9%)
7. Mexico (50 or 2.6%)
8. Canada (45 or 2.4%)
9. Russia (41 or 2.2%)
10. South Africa (34 or 1.8%)

Thanks to Peter Joseph at the IIUSA blog for tabulating these stats from the State Department’s master list. Several points of comparison with visa usage statistics from FY2009:

• The top four countries by visa usage are the same as in 2009.
• Iran and South Africa have moved into the top ten, and Mexico has moved up in the list, while Japan and the Netherlands dropped out.
• USCIS issued 55% more EB-5 visas (4,218) in FY 2009 than in FY2010. According to investigation by IIUSA, this 2009 spike occurred because USCIS expedited EB-5 visa processing in advance of the 2009 program sunset date.
• Although EB-5 visa issuance was down in 2010, the number of I-526 petitions filed in 2010 increased by 90% compared to the previous year.