EB-5 Updates

EB-5 Visa Backlog and Outlook as of 2025

5/21/2025 UPDATE: Please see the new version of this post based on more recent data: EB-5 Visa Backlog and Outlook as of 2025 — UPDATED

–ORIGINAL POST–

The EB-5 “investor visa” program obviously depends on visas. It’s tough to get a handle on the EB-5 visa outlook, considering spotty data, moving parts, and disincentives to recognize a threat. I keep working on analysis, because it’s so practically important for EB-5 issuers and investors to assess the visa incentive. I keep hesitating to publish, because conclusions are controversial and tough to fully qualify. But EB-5 is in a visa crisis that keeps getting more severe, and too dangerous not to address as best we can.

I’ve now updated the EB-5 Timing Page by publishing the current fruit of my on-going labor – a detailed Excel model that carefully patches together available facts, adds assumptions step by step, and builds a responsive model for assessing current backlogs and visa wait times. This article gives the tip of the analysis iceberg. For full detail you can download the EB-5 Visa Supply and Demand Analysis Excel model and make your way through it, following the sources and formulas and adjusting assumptions as needed to reach your own conclusions.  As time permits, I may put up additional articles to discuss portions of the analysis in detail. And my paid timing consultations are now available again for those who’d like to discuss one-on-one.

EB-5 already has more pipeline visa applicants than annual visas in the Unreserved, High Unemployment, and Rural categories. This means retrogression coming in each category. I dare say that every analysis of available data leads to that general conclusion. The debatable question is who will be affected, when, and to what extent.

Table 1 gives an estimate of the total pipeline backlog going into 2025, while Table 2 gives the timing predictions that result from one detailed comparison of the existing backlog with forthcoming visa supply. As a base case, I populated the model with assumptions that I consider conservative, and erring on the side of optimism regarding processing speed and retention rates.

Key assumptions behind Table 1 estimates: an average 2-to-1 ratio of visas to I-526/I-526E filings for post-RIA investors (assuming average 2.5 family size and 80% approval rate), accurate NVC records for pre-RIA investors, and minimal visa-stage attrition. “Pipeline backlog” means qualified visa-stage applicants plus future visa applicants coming up from I-526/I-526E processing. Key data behind Table 1 estimate: NVC wait list as of May 2024, pending I-485 as of October 2024, pre-RIA I-526 pending as of July 2024, recent I-526 denial rates and family sizes, post-RIA I-526 and I-526E filed through September 2024, post-RIA filings by country and category through July 2024.

Key assumptions behind Table 2 base estimates: That all available FY2025 visas will be issued, with no limits imposed yet on China or India Rural or High Unemployment in FY2025. (In the likely event that this optimistic assumption is not realized, worse visa wait times would result for China and India.) That the backlog entering FY2025 is as described in Table 1 (and as detailed by priority date in the supporting Excel). That new EB-5 demand in 2025 and future years will mirror the volume and TEA/category distribution of EB-5 demand in FY2024. (To the extent that this proves not true, actual wait times for China Unreserved, China Rural, and India Rural could be less than estimated in Table 2.) That qualified Rest-of-World High Unemployment and Rural applicants are likely to take High Unemployment and Rural visas at least in 2025 (considering that they are first-in-line for Rural and HU visas while thousands of earlier pre-RIA ROW applicants still stand in the way of access to an Unreserved visa), but that Rural and High Unemployment investors from all countries are likely to request/be assigned Unreserved visas as soon as the pre-RIA Unreserved visa backlog clears for their country. That visas are generally assigned in priority date order. (As discussed in the previous post, exceptions to this general rule mean that individual experience can turn out to be faster or more delayed than the average, even assuming that the times in Table 2 are on-target as averages.)

Tables 1 and 3 highlight the basic EB-5 visa predicament: that we’re in a deep and rapidly deepening visa hole. EB-5 entered 2025 with about five times more pipeline visa applicants than base annual visas. 2024 alone brought in 2.3x as many Rural investors and nearly 5x as many High Unemployment investors as can reasonably get visas in a year with their families in a normal year under category limits.

Table 2 summarizes attempts to quantify when investors could dig out of that hole and secure visas. (See individual tabs in the Excel model for sources and derivations for the estimates in this table. And you can use the worksheets to try the effect of different assumptions.) 

Table 2 is a reminder that if something doesn’t give, the only new EB-5 investors in 2025 who can expect to get a green card this decade may be Unreserved and Rural investors from “Rest of World” countries, and possibly Rural investors from India. The supply/demand imbalance in High Unemployment is already large enough to create retrogression for applicants from every country in 2026 (or earlier if USCIS increases processing volume), and to measure theoretical wait times for China and India in lifetimes (though less in practice assuming Unreserved visas can be allocated to post-RIA investors as soon as the pre-RIA Unreserved backlog clears).

Could actual wait times be even worse than the Table 2 estimate? Theoretically yes, if low-volume I-526/I-526E processing continues to hinder visa issuance, if on-going Rest-of-World visa demand increased from 2024 levels, and if family sizes and/or approval rates beat historical averages.

Actual visa wait times could also turn out less than estimated in Table 2, so long as visa demand proves less or supply proves greater than modeled in the Excel workbook. Maybe thousands of the pre-RIA China and India applicants registered at the National Visa Center have withdrawn or will give up or get denied, thus hastening the day when post-RIA applicants can start to access Unreserved as well as set-aside visas. (Visa Bulletin dates may signal this possibility for India – I’ll be interested to see the forthcoming updated NVC waitlist.) Maybe recent applicants will prove to have a high rate of project and/or evolutionary failure, resulting in a visas-to-I-526E ratio of much less than 2.0 for Rural and High Unemployment. Maybe the EB-5 market will shortly collapse over uncertainty around visas, sustainment, and reauthorization, thus stemming the incoming tide of Rest-of-World demand that would otherwise limit future visa supply to China and India. Or maybe politicians will realize that they love the visa category that has given the U.S. innumerable jobs, measurable economic growth, and immigrants such as Elon Musk, and decide to allocate more visa numbers to EB-5.

As illustrated in Tables 1 and 3, stabilizing the EB-5 visa situation could require a one-time infusion of around 40,000 visas to clear the existing backlog, or alternatively about 2.3x more rural visas and 4.9x more high unemployment visas on an annual basis to support ongoing demand potential. There were just under 5,000 EB-5 investments made in 2024, which could be nearly sustainable for a program with 10,000 annual visas — if not for the EB-5 backlog blocking paths for new investors and blocking access to 68% of those visas.  Alternatively, wait times could stabilize at a tolerable level (for those few who can persist) if the EB-5 market contracts by at least half, and/or about half of past Unreserved and High Unemployment investors give up.

Something is certain to give, when theoretical wait times become intolerably long. Consider this exercise: “100 people arrive for breakfast at a restaurant that can serve 20 customers per hour. How long will customer #101 wait for breakfast?” The real-life answer is not “100/20=5 hours” but rather “however long she/others are willing to wait for breakfast before giving up and going to eat somewhere else.” Ideally the restaurant owner is smart enough to rustle up more staff and tables in time to accommodate the profitable crowd, and to avoid discouraging new customers.

In cell D42 of the HU tab of the model, you’ll find a formula 5,252/70=75. The China high unemployment pipeline backlog is on track to be 75x greater this year than annual HU visa supply under country caps. But of course, no Chinese HU investor will wait anywhere near 75 years for a visa. The gap between demand and supply will inevitably close somehow, to reduce wait times to tolerable levels. I sincerely hope that supply-side relief is what ultimately closes the gap, making many more visas available across categories such that HU investors from all countries can get timely access to a HU or Unreserved visa. But for now, please “mind the gap” or risk unexpected failure.

As time permits, I may write additional posts to discuss the methods and thinking baked into the Excel model behind this post, and to walk through using and modifying the model. As time permits, I may redo the model when Department of State publishes the November 2024 NVC Waitlist and the 2024 Report of the Visa Office, and as new processing reports from USCIS and DOS help clarify possible visa issuance this year. If you benefit from the considerable effort that I’ve put into this otherwise thankless analysis, please consider making a contribution to support the work. If you’d like to pay for a consultation to discuss the model and your EB-5/timing questions individually, please book a meeting here.

I would like to thank Lee Li of IIUSA, Connor Chen of EB5 Sir, and Joey Barnett and Charlie Oppenheim of WR Immigration for responding to my requests for advance review of this analysis. And I welcome any additional corrections and feedback to the EB-5 Visa Supply and Demand Analysis model. You can email me at suzanne@lucidtext.com.

Insights from consular visas issued in FY2025 Q1

Department of State has also been updating its data, with monthly immigrant visa issuance reports now published for the first quarter of FY2025 (October, November, and December 2024). While my previous post focused on adjustment of status visas so far this year, the DOS numbers show what’s been happening with consular processing. As illustrated in the summary table below, DOS did great work with Unreserved visa issuance in the first quarter, managing to issue 40% of Unreserved visas available for the year. Chinese applicants particularly benefited from this efficiency. I’m also delighted to announce, for the first time, visas issued in almost every new post-RIA category (only missing infrastructure). However, the set-aside numbers are low. Rural and high unemployment visa issuance at consulates in the first quarter barely reached 1% of visas available this year. With AOS numbers apparently low so far as well, this makes me question whether/when FY2025 limits in those categories could possibly be reached. If this low volume continued, it would mean deferring set-aside retrogression in the visa bulletin (giving more “C” months for filing AOS), wasting some FY2025 set-aside visas, and pushing more of the existing backlog into future years. I trust that we’ll see much higher issuance numbers in coming monthly reports, to get as many set-aside applicants as possible into FY25’s unusually high visa limits.

Insights from pending EB-5 I-485 reports in FY2025 Q1

Last year, USCIS started publishing a valuable monthly report titled “Pending Applications for Employment-Based Preference Categories.” As explained on the AOS FAQ page, “The report provides our estimate of how many Forms I-485 we have in our inventory for each employment-based preference category, by selected country of chargeability, and by the month and year of the estimated priority date.”

I look to the pending I-485 reports for detail on the EB-5 inventory by TEA category, and for evidence of EB-5 processing movement. This post compares the EB-5 I-485 inventory report as of October 3, 2024 (the start of FY2025) with December 3, 2024 (the most recent report). I’m struck by the large number of applicants for reserved visas, by hints of I-526E processing progress by priority date, and by evidence that adjustment of status visas are not necessarily being issued in order by priority date.

Table 1 summarizes the USCIS report of EB-5 I-485 pending as of December 3, 2024. Note that the numbers represent every EB-5 applicant with a pending I-485, including applicants who can’t claim visas yet because the underlying I-526/I-526E has not yet been approved. The USCIS report has “D” in some cells to represent a redacted number less than 11; the figures in Table 1 assume that D=5 on average.

Table 1. EB-5 I-485 Pending as of December 3, 2024 (assumes “D”=5 on average)

In Table 1, I note that Infrastructure investors exist (despite not being recorded on FOIA reports of I-526E filings), and the numbers of high unemployment and rural applicants. If the pending high unemployment I-485 applicants could all get I-526E approval and qualify for visas this year (with 2,200 HU visas available), then we’d have high unemployment retrogression in the visa bulletin for all countries, including Rest of World countries – and that’s not even counting all the HU applicants coming up separately through consular processing.

The USCIS pending I-485 report uses one label for all Unreserved EB-5, but in Table 1 I divided the Unreserved applicants based on priority date into pre-RIA (through March 2022) and post-RIA (after March 2022). This highlights the fact that — so far — not many post-RIA applicants are requesting Unreserved visas.  This may change when ROW applicants who qualify for High Unemployment visas find themselves retrogressed in the crowded HU queue for only 10% of EB-5 visas, and opt to queue up instead behind the pre-RIA Unreserved ROW applicants going for 68% of EB-5 visas.

And now, on to more detailed tables that compare the December 3, 2024 report with the October 3, 2024 report. Looking at inventory changes, I can make some inferences about what happened with EB-5 processing in the first two months of FY2025.

Looking at changes to the Rural I-485 inventory between October and December, I can tell that USCIS has at least been adjudicating Rural I-526E with priority dates up to December 2023. (I-526E approval precedes I-485 approval.) I also note that the inventory isn’t being cleared FIFO in priority date order. Over a wide span of priority date months, we see a few I-485 being cleared while others in the same month get left untouched.  I will guess that this lack of FIFO discipline originates with I-526E processing, where order depends on I-956F timing and not just filing date. Mandamus actions may also play a role. I recently heard reports from investors with November 2023 and March 2024 priority dates who got I-485 approval in January 2025 – six months after I-526E approval, and two months after having Mandamus actions filed for their I-485.

Looking at changes to the High Unemployment I-485 inventory between October and December, I can’t tell that USCIS has moved much beyond 2022 priority dates with I-526E processing. Most HU I-485 visas issued so far this fiscal year were to 2022 PD, with just a handful 2023 and later PD getting visas so far. The delta column in each table doesn’t capture all processing activity, since it’s just the difference between additions and subtractions to the inventory by priority date month. But overall, I get the impression that I-485 approval numbers have been quite low so far this year for high unemployment, and not FIFO.

Changes to the Unreserved I-485 pending inventory likewise do not suggest a FIFO situation. What made those 15 Chinese I-485 applicants with April 2016 priority dates so lucky to be cleared, even as 50 others with priority dates in the same month and at least 337 other Chinese from previous months were left untouched? It’s possible that the change reflects withdrawal rather than approval, but still I wonder.

The pattern illustrates why we need to qualify EB-5 timing prediction for individual cases. A model can estimate how long it will take to issue visas to everyone with April 2016 priority dates, as a function of visas available and the total number of people waiting up to that date. But the model doesn’t know if Investor X will have the luck to be picked out earlier than others, or somehow left behind. At the same time, the pattern shows why we can’t conclude that backlogs have been cleared just because some recent priority dates are getting visas. Apparently two Indian applicants with December 2021 priority dates left the I-485 inventory recently – but that doesn’t erase over 500 Indian applicants with earlier priority dates whose I-485 are still pending.

I’m about to publish my best effort at a comprehensive analysis of the current EB-5 backlog and timing outlook, but wanted to first publish this article to highlight the key issue of order in visa processing.

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.

—

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.  

August 2024 I-485 report with data for EB-5 Set Aside and Unreserved categories

And now another important data drop, as USCIS has added all EB-5 Set-Aside categories for the first time to the report of pending employment-based I-485 published monthly at the USCIS Immigration and Citizenship Data page.

Pending Applications for Employment-Based Preference Categories as of August 3, 2024 (XLSX, 109.41 KB) is wonderfully timely, providing comprehensive I-485 inventory data just a few weeks old. The report now lists pending EB-5 I-485 inventory itemized according to visa category (Unreserved, High Unemployment, Rural, Infrastructure), petitioner priority date (month year), and petitioner country of chargeability (China, India, Mexico, Philippines, or Rest of World). I-485 can now be filed concurrently with I-526/I-526E, so this report is effectively another view into I-526/I-526E receipts by country and TEA category. It’s limited to the portion of investors who are in the USA pursuing status adjustment, not including demand from abroad, but has the advantage of being very recent, and updated monthly.

The August I-485 report reflects late-breaking EB-5 TEA demand trends, and shows continued strong demand for rural TEA investments. (9/20 UPDATE: The chart originally posted here showed a more dramatic trend that resulted not from reality, but from the fact that I made an error in copying and pasting from one spreadsheet to another. Thanks to a vigilant reader who checked my work and found the error!)

The August I-485 report surprised me by recording some petitions in the Infrastructure category. The exact numbers are small, redacted with a “D” (meaning <11) in every month they appear. But still interesting, as I had thought that the Infrastructure category wasn’t being used at all. It’s also interesting to compare the reported I-485 inventory (which includes principals plus family) with our latest data for I-526/I-526E filings through early 2024.

The August I-485 report includes data for EB-5 Unreserved, which is interesting to compare with past reports, to get a sense of who exited the inventory by getting visas over time. (While keeping in mind that the pending inventory is not only reduced by visa issuance, but also expanded as new applicants file I-485.)

I’ve been tracking the monthly I-485 reports since February 2024 (when this report format was first introduced), and have seen USCIS struggle with how to report the EB-5 numbers. The February report only recorded EB-5 priority dates through 2022, the April report had 2023 and 2024 priority dates but only for ROW and all categorized as Unreserved, the May-to-July reports added a lump row for Set-Asides, and August finally figured things out and has data individually recorded for each TEA category and country. The monthly I-485 pending inventory is a very valuable report, and I look forward to tracking ongoing updates.

I-526/I-526E data by TEA and country through early 2024

As I prepared Monday’s post on the Visa Bulletin, I looked at the number 9,158. This number represents 9,158 Chinese investors plus family who contributed at least $500,000 per family in 2014/2015 for the chance to qualify for an EB-5 visa. The Visa Bulletin showed “C” – no restriction – for China EB-5 through 2014 into the first half of 2015 (only beginning to establish cut-off dates in May 2015, and even then only implying a two-year wait with a 2013 date). How many of those people realized that they’d still be here a decade later, visa-less, a statistic on the 2024 NVC waiting list? Visa availability problems were predictable in retrospect, considering the 25,000 I-526 filed in 2014/2015, but we didn’t talk much about pipeline visa demand in those days. In honor of everyone taken sadly by surprise, and hoping not to repeat that history, we are more careful now to track and report not only the visa-stage demand reported in the visa bulletin, but also on pipeline demand coming up from I-526/I-526E filings.

I’m happy to report another important addition to the treasury of I-526/I-526E receipt data, with detail on visa category and petitioner county as needed for visa pipeline analysis. This dataset is courtesy of the efficient Joey Barnett of WR Immigration, who managed to extract a record-quick Freedom of Information Act response from USCIS, and immediately and generously made the full record available to the public. The data is published in a blog post here: “Exclusive New EB-5 Filing Data on Rural v. High Unemployment Area Demand as of April 2024!” You’re invited to join Joey Barnett and Charlie Oppenheim in discussing the data during the next edition of The Bulletin – Chatting with Charlie: EB-5 Investor Outlook on September 26, 2024.

Prior to the WR Immigration FOIA request, the most recent publicly-available TEA-and-country-specific data was from AIIA FOIA Series: Updated I-526E Inventory Statistics for 2023. The AIIA FOIA data was monthly through the end of 2023, and highlighted a handful of high-demand countries. The WR Immigration FOIA data is annual, but extends through the first part of 2024 and lists results for every single petitioner country.

The comprehensive county-specific detail in the WR Immigration FOIA provides interesting material for the question “where are regional centers finding EB-5 investors these days?” I see that AIIA already has a post up from this angle.  

For backlog analysis, the WR Immigration FOIA is critical because it covers at least part of the great filing surge of Q2 2024, when 1,879 I-526 and I-526E were filed. We’ve needed to know where those 1,879 people came from, and where they invested, to help get a handle on potential TEA and country-specific backlogs. And now we have more information about it.

It’s tricky to date FOIA responses, because USCIS only reports the date that they queried the database, leaving us to guess how up-to-date the database was at that point. The WR Immigration FOIA is dated as of April 18, 2024. Comparing the FOIA totals with the totals that USCIS ended up officially reporting, we can conclude that the WR Immigration FOIA report captures cases filed through about February/mid-March 2024.

I’ll let charts tell the story of what happened during the recorded part of the March 2024 filing surge, including how Rural demand surged ahead for the first time (particularly thanks to China), while High Unemployment demand dipped but remained sufficiently strong to continue to dominate the cumulative inventory. (The charts combine AIIA’s FOIA data for 2022-2023 with WR Immigration’s FOIA for 2024.)

And finally, here’s the table that highlights my concern in the data: what’s going to happen to these data points when they’re people with families approaching the visa window?

For a rough estimate of future visa demand from the I-526 pipeline, I conservatively multiply the I-526 receipts by 2. This underestimates typical family sizes, but considers the possibility of denials and other attrition. And then I look at estimated cumulative visa demand and future visa supply and think about the balance.

FY2025 is carryover year, with extra visas available. What would happen in the best-processing case/worst-visa-case scenario that the entire pipeline of investors filing I-526 up to March 2024 reached the visa stage in FY2025? Looking at the numbers, I see that they would find enough rural but not enough high unemployment visas to accommodate them. In that case, FY2025 would end with Visa Bulletin cut-off dates for high unemployment, and a backlog going into FY2026 without the promise of carryover from unused HU visas.  In real life, slow I-526E processing looks likely to continue to slow-walk the backlog (as it has been slow-walked to date) such that FY2025 doesn’t get sufficient applicants to max out FY2025 visas. In that case, the visa bulletin would not move yet in FY2025, and FY2026 would also have extra visas. In that case, the pipeline that had built by early 2024 would be getting visas in 2026 and years beyond.

If I were an investor from China or India, I would look not only at the China or India pipeline, but also at ROW (meaning applicants from the “rest of world”). ROW is important, because the number of annual visas available to me, as an applicant subject to country cap, is equal to 7% PLUS a share of any visas not absorbed by ROW. Every one ROW visa issued is one fewer visa that might be available to my country over the country cap. The ROW pipeline is also a target for people wondering if it’s possible to diffuse demand pressure from TEA set-aside categories. (But notice that High Unemployment shows enough demand from China and India alone to absorb 2+ years of visas even if they were the only applicants, even if 100% of the documented ROW HU pipeline left the HU category and chose to receive Unreserved visas instead.)

Still have questions about what the numbers mean? Note that the FAQ I just finished addresses topics such as which countries are affected by country cap limits and retrogression, how applicants may choose a TEA or Unreserved category, and how annual EB-5 visa availability gets calculated.

FY2024 Q3 EB-5 Form Processing Data

The USCIS Immigration and Citizenship Data page has published performance data for FY2024 Q3 (April 1, 2024 to June 30, 2024), including for EB-5 forms I-526, I-526E, I-829, and the various form I-956s. I regularly consult the All USCIS Application and Petition Form Types  report, the Net Backlog and Frontlog  report, and the Approved EB Petitions Awaiting Visa Final Priority Dates report.

FY2024 Q3 data shows minimal movement for post-RIA I-526/I-526E petitions, and continuing high processing volume and backlog reduction for pre-RIA I-526 and I-829. Receipts fell in Q3, especially for I-526E, but not as much as I expected after the April 1 USCIS form fee increase.

USCIS has worked aggressively in 2024 to clear the inventory of pending pre-RIA forms. By June, USCIS was down to a net backlog of only 100 I-526 petitions, and had reduced the I-829 net backlog to 5,000. (“Net Backlog is Gross Backlog minus any customer induced delays (i.e. RFE, intent to deny, etc.) and visa unavailable cases.”) It is likely that as of today, USCIS has already at least assigned nearly every pre-RIA I-526, except for I-526 from Chinese investors who don’t have visas available. If recent volumes continue, every I-526 and I-829 pending today will have been processed before June 2025. Kudos to IPO staff and Chief Alissa Emmel for making this happen! Meanwhile FY2025 visa bulletins will be interesting, as Department of State works to match FY25 visas to the influx of new Unreserved applicants from I-526 approvals.

Processing activity for post-RIA investor petitions picked up slightly in Q3, but is still extremely low in context of the I-526E backlog and the number of reserved visas waiting for applicants. Two factors give me hope for a major boost to I-526E processing numbers coming soon: the uptick in I-956F processing in Q3 (with I-956F approval being precursor to I-526E approval), and the fact that the disappearance of the I-526 backlog is about to free up major adjudicator capacity that might be moved to I-526E processing. USCIS processed nearly 6,000 I-526 in the past 12 months, and such productivity would quickly decimate the I-526E backlog. I’m optimistic that USCIS/Department of State will at least be able to issue all Reserved visas available in FY2026, considering the processing potential. However, low processing volumes to date may mean that some FY2025 Reserved visas will go unissued for lack of qualified applicants advanced in time.

And a few other points of interest. Both I-526 and I-829 denial rates were down in Q3, to 25% and 5% respectively. A handful of I-526E denials were reported for the first time in Q3 — and I expect to see more soon, considering that USCIS denied 25 I-956F project applications so far this year. The number of I-956 regional center application filings hardly dropped in Q3, despite the massive filing fee increase. And apparently USCIS approved one I-924 in Q3. Mysterious!

I’ve copied below charts to highlight salient features and trends, as well as updating my Processing Data page and Key EB5 Backlog Data excel file. And heads-up for additional data and analysis coming in the next few weeks.

• USCIS still does not report I-526E processing times, but IIUSA has stepped into the gap and worked with regional centers to collect and analyze a large database of anecdotal evidence for actual I-526E and I-956F processing times. I’ve been assisting Lee Li with this important project, and look forward to the results to be released shortly. You’re invited to join us for a webinar on October 2, 2024 on “New Data and Emerging Trends: I-526/I-526E Filings, Adjudications, and Processing Times”
• AIIA continues the critical effort to extract information from USCIS on the breakdown of post-RIA I-526 and I-526E filings by TEA category and applicant country of birth, to help keep a pulse on potential visa backlogs. They hope for a response next month to the FOIA request covering the filing surge in January to March 2024. (Currently, we only have data through December 2023.)
• I’ve been working on a major project to research and write FAQ covering questions about EB-5 visa availability and allocation. The 26 short articles that comprise this project will be published next week – look for an announcement and links here next week Tuesday.

On the visa front, Department of State announced that it succeeded in issuing all EB-5 Unreserved visas available for FY2024 – good news for pre-RIA investors, and particularly for long-suffering Chinese investors who were able to pick up a large number of FY24 visas thanks to the productive consulate in Guangzhou.  I will write separately about the visa outlook for FY2025 (which is unfortunately currently subject to litigation, as discussed by IIUSA and AIIA).

FY2024 Q2 (January-March 2024) EB-5 Form Data Update

Today USCIS published form receipt and processing data for FY2024 Q2 (January to March 2024) on the USCIS Immigration and Citizenship Data page. I’ve updated my Processing Data page with all the FY24 Q2 EB-5 numbers, and provide charts in this post to highlight the big news.

New EB-5 filings skyrocketed in January to March 2024. Meanwhile, IPO took a large bite out of the EB-5 backlog with impressive productivity that recalls the good old days of 2018. We’re setting up for a busy and crowded time at the EB-5 visa windows in 2025 and beyond.  (In other news, I’ve also updated my data repository with key visa-stage EB-5 numbers shared by Department of State at the IIUSA conference last month, to be discussed further in forthcoming articles. See IIUSA’s conference slides and a nice follow-up analysis by Lee Li that gives further detail and clarification.)

Post-RIA I-526 and I-526E Receipt Trend

USCIS reports that a whopping 1,810 I-526E and 69 I-526 were filed last quarter.

Counting up the quarterly reports from April 2022 (following the passage of RIA) to March 2024, we can see that USCIS has reported a cumulative total  5,344 post-RIA I-526 and I-526E filed, and 429 processed. (As a side note, the cumulative count conflicts with the FY24 Q2 period-end pending count. In the past, I’ve noted that the pending number ends up skewed after filing surges – I guess because last-minute end-of period receipts get counted as receipts in the period but only added to pending in the next period.)

In context, since RIA passed two years ago, EB-5 investors have brought at least 5,344*$800,000=$4.275 billion dollars into the U.S. economy. This investment was incentivized by the hope that approximately 5,344/.35=15,000ish visas will be available to these investors plus their spouses and children. (35% is an historical average of principals in EB-5 visas issued.) The number of post-RIA applicants who actually make it to an EB-5 visa will likely be significantly smaller due to country-specific variation and attrition, but the size of the upfront hope is impressive and sobering. Congress has not set aside sufficient annual visa numbers for this level of willingness to invest in economic growth and job creation. We don’t yet know how all I-526E filings break down by country or TEA category (AIIA has another FOIA request in progress for numbers since since November 2023), but this is a lot of prospective EB-5 visa applicants to fit in any lane, including Unreserved given the pre-RIA backlog. EB-5 visa advocacy should already be an urgent priority.

IPO Processing Productivity

As I’ve been reporting based on unofficially obtained data, IPO has made a quantum leap in processing productivity.  The first chart illustrates recent processing volume in historical context. The second chart compares FY24 Q4 processing productivity against the size of the backlog for select EB-5 forms. If IPO keeps processing at this rate, the pre-RIA I-526 and I-829 backlogs at USCIS will be gone within 12 months. And then adjudicators currently proving ability to turn out thousands of decisions per quarter will be able to shift focus and make quick work of the post-RIA inventory and incoming receipts. IPO still hasn’t published the RIA-required timely processing fee study, but even better it has gotten on track to actually realize the RIA timely processing goals in the foreseeable future.