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