FY2025 Visa Limit Announced

Department of State has just updated the Immigrant Visa Statistics page with Annual Numerical Limits for Fiscal Year 2025. As expected, there are an estimated 150,000 total EB visas available for FY2025 (only slightly above the 140,000 baseline, as consular operations have mostly recovered from the Pandemic). EB-5 gets 7.1% of new EB visas, or about 10,650 in FY2025, plus carryover visas.

According to EB-5 carryover rules, the FY2025 Reserved limit will be increased by Reserved visas that were newly-issued but not used in FY2024, while the Unreserved limit will be increased by Reserved visas that were newly-issued in FY2023 and then not used in 2023 or 2024. Here’s how I calculate the FY2025 total including carryovers.

We’ll have our eyes particularly on the approximately 4,400 Rural Visas and approximately 2,200 High Unemployment visas available this year. The race is on for USCIS to approve enough of the 3,000+ pending Rural I-526E and 4,000+ pending High Unemployment I-526E to generate applicants for this year’s visas. See also my post on the latest Q4 adjudication numbers and receipt data and my analysis of family sizes in EB-5. (These important new articles were inadvertently not emailed out upon publication).

EB-5 family size trends

In the spirit of the holidays, I’m sharing a few data-rich charts on the topic of EB-5 family sizes. How many EB-5 investors even have families, on average? It’s a critical and controversial topic, because EB-5 visa availability depends on how many visas go to spouses and children. The estimated market size for EB-5 investment can vary by a factor of three, depending on whether each EB-5 investment absorbs closer to one visa or three visas. The EB-5 backlog is either catastrophic or not-too-bad, depending on the multiplier used to convert I-526E receipt numbers to an estimated number of family vises.

It’s dangerous to generalize from limited samples and personal experience, because EB-5 investor family size numbers have varied by country, by immigration path, and over time. Government data is available from two sources. The annual Yearbook of Immigration Statistics counts the EB-5 visas issued to principals, spouses, and children through status adjustment and to new arrivals. The Department of State periodically provides tables showing the percent of principals (investors) among EB-5 applicants registered at the National Visa Center.  I made charts showing the past seven years of EB-5 data from the Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, and illustrating the most recent report from Department of State for all applicants in the NVC inventory (from Slide 6 of the May 2024 DOS IIUSA conference presentation).

The charts illustrate trends and variation, and set some guardrails. You can examine them for yourself, and draw your own conclusions. Looking at the charts, I’d say it’s clear that 1.5 is too low and 3 is too high to use as the number for average EB-5 family sizes. From 2017 to 2023, 2.6 was the average total EB-5 visas per investor visa. The seven-year average was higher for EB-5 investors abroad (2.9) than for U.S.-based investors (2.2), but the gap narrowed during the period. Maybe consular visas have steadily fallen over time due to children aging out, while adjustment visas show an upward trend as young investors start to build families.  I don’t know the story behind the Pandemic-adjacent dip in people immigrating together with spouses.  Looking at the country-specific differences in NVC data, we can guess about the impact of shifting the EB-5 market from one place to another.

The NVC data has the limitation of covering consular processing only, but the strength of covering the current population of applicants for future visas (including set-aside applicants with priority dates through 2024). The Yearbook data covers historical visa issuance only, but it reports on status adjustment as well as new arrivals from consular processing.

For my post-RIA EB-5 backlog estimates, I have been using 2.0 as the minimum multiplier to convert I-526 filings to estimated EB-5 visa demand. I don’t feel justified going any lower than that given the data on family sizes in the current EB-5 inventory and historical visa issuance, as detailed in the charts below. Estimated failure rates are another factor in the multiplier, but we should hesitate to count on high failure rates for Pre-RIA investors. “Don’t worry about the backlog because most of them will probably fail” is not a good sales pitch.

We should keep reminding Congress that the economic impact of EB-5 could be so much bigger, if family members didn’t get counted against the EB-5 visa limit. Does Congress realize that under current rules, fewer than 4 out of 10 of the visas designated to incentivize investment can actually go to investors?

FY2024 Q4 EB-5 Form Data

USCIS has finally updated the Citizenship and Immigration Data page with form receipt and adjudication numbers through September 2024, the end of the fiscal year. The numbers continue to show encouraging EB-5 processing improvements and robust but sadly unsustainable EB-5 demand.

I put the FY2024 data in context of the fifteen years since I launched my business plan writing service and started blogging about EB-5.

The chart shows that USCIS just had its best EB-5 processing year since 2018. EB-5 form completions more than doubled from the previous year, and reduced the I-526 and I-829 backlog to the lowest level since before 2015. USCIS also managed to process 1,119 post-RIA I-526 and I-526E, thus generating a significant number of applicants for set-aside visas in 2025. If the processing capacity applied to pre-RIA I-526 in 2024 is moved to I-526E in 2025 (as it might be, considering that the net backlog for I-526 is only 300 forms), then nearly all currently-pending I-526E could be processed in 2025. This is the good news.

Meanwhile, I-526E receipts in FY2024 reflect EB-5 demand at its highest level since before 2019, and once again shooting above the level possible to accommodate under the EB-5 numerical limit (i.e. about 10,000 visas annually, of which historically an average 38% go to investors while the rest to go spouses and children). Incoming EB-5 demand is largely aimed at the fraction of visas in set-aside categories, and lacks an escape route since Department of State is still working through the legacy Unreserved visa backlog generated by excess EB-5 demand from 2012 to 2019, as illustrated in the above chart. When the Unreserved backlog disappears (which I calculate could happen by 2030), thus clearing the way for post-RIA applicants to access Unreserved as well as Set-Aside visas, the 10,000 annual visa limit would still not be sufficient to accommodate new investors coming in at a rate of nearly 5,000 per year, as happened in FY2024.

The above chart illustrates that EB-5 needs, overall, about 30% more annual visas than it has, in order to close the gap between actual/potential and sustainable demand. (If we drilled down to historical imbalances by country and TEA category, the gap would be greater than 30% in some cases and less in others.) If the visa demand gap isn’t closed by increased visa supply, it will be closed by plummeting EB-5 usage when prospective investors see the gap producing backlog delays.

I am committed to doing whatever I can to support relief from the current unsustainable situation in EB-5, whether that be any possible EB-5 visa relief, or measures to make visa wait times more tolerable. I have been in advocacy conversations about legislative options, and have tried to support data and education to make visa wait times at least more understandable and predictable. I oppose measures such as the IIUSA sustainment lawsuit that would make visa wait times more painful and unattractive by linking repayment timing to visa timing for post-RIA investors. I also made the tough decision this year to stop writing regional center EB-5 business plans, given my backlog analysis, though that work had been my bread and butter for over a decade. Not that my small professional sacrifice will make a difference, but it reflects how seriously I take the current EB-5 backlog problem.  I don’t want to help dig the hole deeper, and I hope for the day when EB-5 can become sustainable — which it may, if many people take the current problem seriously. Immigration opportunity in exchange for economic development and job creation is a beautiful thing, when it’s real. EB-5 investment has supported so many good projects and business ideas, and it needs to be able to realize its immigration promise to investors, including investors from China and India.

And now for a full set of charts for the FY2024 Q4 data. I notice that I-956 and I-956F receipts have been falling while adjudication volumes continue to grow – an interesting industry phenomenon and a good sign for processing times. I-829 receipts reached an unprecedented high this year. Are people increasingly removing conditions individually rather than as families with the principal applicant? Denial rates remain very low for post-RIA forms and I-829, and elevated for legacy I-526. I included a summary table for the pending I-485 inventory as of November 2, 2024, showing over 12,000 EB-5 adjustment forms pending.  And I note that Department of State has also published the first month visa issuance report for FY2025. Only 6 post-RIA visas were issued through consular processing in October 2024 (3 high unemployment, 2 rural, and 1 unreserved), but the Visa Bulletin suggests that Department of State expects this pace to increase shortly. I’ve also updated my Processing Data page with the Q4 data.

EB-5 Set-Aside Visa Retrogression in 2025?

We’ve known that EB-5 set-aside visa retrogression is coming, but not when. Excess demand has been evident in data for I-526 and I-526E receipts for High Unemployment and (soon) Rural categories. (AIIA just published a FOIA response based on a September 2024 query, and before that we had the IIUSA FOIA data queried in July 2024, the WR Immigration FOIA data queried April 2024, and AIIA’s FOIA of 2023 data.) But when will high unemployment and rural investors reach the visa stage with their families in sufficient numbers to max out available visas? I had predicted that sluggish USCIS processing might slow-walk the backlog and keep the Visa Bulletin “current” through 2025 for EB-5 set asides. However, USCIS has apparently accelerated the volume of petition processing since last report in June 2024. The January 2025 Visa Bulletin includes a note with this warning signal for potential retrogression this year.

E.  VISA AVAILABILIY IN THE EMPLOYMENT FIFTH PREFERENCE (EB-5) SET ASIDE CATEGORIES

The Department of State and USCIS note increased I-526E petition approvals, and both agencies see increasing numbers of individuals processing their applications to completion in the EB-5 set aside categories.  It may become necessary to establish Dates for Filing and Final Action Dates during the fiscal year to ensure that issuances in these categories do not exceed annual limits.  This situation will be continually monitored, and any necessary adjustments will be made accordingly.

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Is this announcement significant? What changes, when the Visa Bulletin changes and imposes cut-off dates?

Let’s start with what doesn’t change: visa bulletin retrogression does not make expected visa wait times longer than they were already. A high unemployment investor with an August 1, 2024 priority date has a wait time that’s a function of the 3,995 other high unemployment investors who have earlier priority dates, and who will be joining their spouses and children to compete for available HU visas (2,200 or so visas this year, and 1,000 annually thereafter). A rural investor with an August 1, 2024 priority date has a wait time that’s a function of the 2,809 other rural investors who have earlier priority dates, and who will be joining their spouses and children to compete for available HU visas (4,400 or so visas this year, and 2,000 annually thereafter). The picture is a bit complicated by the fact that expected wait times for Chinese and Indians can be increased over time by subsequent Rest of the World investors, while ROW investors benefit when the Visa Bulletin limits China and India. But basically, an investor’s visa wait time originates in the demand/supply balance on the day he joined the back of the visa queue by filing I-526E. The wait time is not created or changed on the day that the front of the visa queue exceeds annual limits and triggers a cut-off date in the visa bulletin. The Visa Bulletin reflects a backlog situation; it does not create that situation. If anything, an early Visa Bulletin cut-off date would be good news for visa timing overall, because it would mean that USCIS petition processing is proceeding more quickly than expected, and that 2025 set-aside visas may be maximized instead of lost.

Visa Bulletin retrogression will change the EB-5 market, because many people don’t believe in backlogs until reflected in the visa bulletin. I sadly keep getting marketing emails and seeing published articles with variations on this false/misinformed statement: “There is no significant retrogression concern for the time being for post- RIA investors who invest in rural and high unemployment projects (all of which remain current as of the latest State Department Visa Bulletin).” When the Visa Bulletin is silent, people don’t do the math with I-526/I-526 receipt numbers, and don’t calculate for themselves that all rural visas this year and all high unemployment visas this decade could be absorbed by the investors+family already in line as of mid-2024. When the Visa Bulletin speaks, then industry and prospective investors don’t need math or FOIA data to see oversubscription. For the sake of EB-5 program integrity, I’m glad that the Visa Bulletin is starting to give warning of a backlog situation that should already be informing industry and investor decisions. It’s highly material for issuers and investors to know whether the incentive supporting the investment exists or not.

Does it matter that the warning in the January 2025 Visa Bulletin might not be fulfilled, and that set-aside cut-off dates may not actually appear in 2025? For historical reference, the December 2012 Visa Bulletin first warned 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.” But as it happened, China EB-5 did not get its first cut-off date until the May 2015 Visa Bulletin — thanks again to slow/low-volume I-526 and consular processing. Did past Chinese EB-5 investors with priority dates between 2013 and 2015 benefit from the delay in imposing cut-off dates? Not really, because excess demand was a fact regardless of when reflected in the visa bulletin. A delay in processing the China EB-5 crowd just resulted in lost EB-5 visas in 2013 and 2014. Subsequent visa bulletins show that China-born EB-5 applicants with April 2015 priority dates did not start getting visas until 2017 or finish getting visas until 2022, no matter the word “Current” in the April 2015 Visa Bulletin. On the other hand, a delay in imposing cut-off dates was great for the EB-5 market, which stayed hot under the attractively “current” visa bulletin and was able to raise over $14.3 billion dollars from China-born investors from FY2013 to FY2015. The harvest would likely have been much smaller, had Chinese investors realized at the time that everyone with priority dates from May 2013 would end up experiencing retrogression delay.

As discussed above, a Final Action Date in the Visa Bulletin does not suddenly make wait times longer than they were already. So it’s not quite honest to say “hurry to secure your place in line by filing I-526E before the Visa Bulletin imposes Final Action Dates.” Two Indian high unemployment investors, one with April 31, 2025 priority date and one with a May 1, 2025 priority date, would have nearly the same place in line and thus nearly the same visa wait time outlook regardless of whether May 2025 happened to be the month when the Visa Bulletin showed retrogression. No matter the visa bulletin status on the date of filing, these two investors will wait for as long as it takes to grant green cards to other Indian HU applicants with earlier priority dates, and to rest-of-world HU applicants with earlier and later priority dates.

However, there is some sense in a message “hurry to file I-526E before the Visa Bulletin imposes a Date for Filing for your country/category” — at least for investors based in the United States. While Chart B Date for Filing does not change the time to get a visa, it does change the opportunity for concurrent filing. A Date for Filing stops new investors from filing I-485 with I-526E, meaning they can’t immediately file for employment and travel benefits.  And these interim benefits are valuable. I’ve had direct EB-5 clients who made recent EB-5 investments for the sake of EAD and advance parole, even understanding the likelihood of severe green card delay. Our hypothetical friends with the April 31 and May 1 priority dates may have the same green card waits but very different experience during the wait, if hypothetical Visa Bulletin retrogression in May 2025 meant that one could get I-485 on file and thus able to apply for and enjoy interim employment and travel benefits, while the other couldn’t.

For additional analysis, see Lee Li’s new article for IIUSA January 2025 Visa Bulletin: EB-5 Dates Remain Unchanged, Noting Possibility of Cut-Off Dates for Reserved Categories. and IIUSA’s newly-refreshed EB-5 Visa Data Dashboard. I have been working on detailed analysis that I haven’t yet published, but note that I continue to make timely updates to my Key EB5 Backlog Data file (always linked to the top of the EB5 Timing and Processing Data pages so the public can access as much data input as I have at any given time). Recently I am particularly benefiting from AIIA’s FOIA requests for Pre-RIA I-526 inventory data and Post-RIA I-526 and I-526E receipt data, because these datasets provide a breakdown by month that can be used in forecasting visa bulletin cut-off dates. Combining the recent wealth of FOIA data with newly-available granular NVC and I-485 numbers, I’m considering reopening my customized EB-5 timing service in the new year.