In this video, we will be discussing the requirements needed to obtain the EB5 Visa.

EB5 – Requirements

Attorney Menchaca, what are the main requirements to apply for an EB5 visa?

There are three main requirements:

Number one you need to invest and that’s either one million dollars or half a million dollars in the United States.

Number two your investment needs to create ten jobs in the United States.

And number three the money that you invest for the EB5 needs to come from a lawful source.

Ok, so let’s go back to the investment part, half a million dollars and one million dollars are a big difference.
So how much is that we have to invest?

So that’s going to depend on the geographic area in the United States that you choose to invest in.

Let me explain the law, the EB5 law basically says this look the unemployment level in the United States is relatively low, very low and if you invest in an area where the government doesn’t feel like it needs more jobs, because the unemployment rate is already very low then you need to invest one million dollars.

On the other hand if you choose to invest in an area where the unemployment rate is higher, then the government says you know what, in that case you’re creating jobs where I need help, so I’m going to let you apply for the EB5 with a discount, instead of one million you’ll need to invest half of it.

Ok, so how would I know in what area to invest?

You’re going to decide where you want to invest, and then when you come to me, I’m going to say, ok, tell me exactly where you’re going to invest in?

And you’re going to say, I’m going to put my factory or my investment, my business in a certain location and I’ll look up that location, and I’ll tell you whether you qualify for that one million dollars or for the half million dollars.

And what is it that I will be investing my money in?

So it depends on a variety of factors, but I’m going to tell you what most people do, over ninety percent of all the people that apply for the EB5 invest in a regional center.

That’s a fancy name for an investment fund, that manages the money of the people who are applying for EB5 visa.

Ok, and how does this investment fund work?

So, traditionally it works something like this:

There’s over a thousand of these funds right, so I’m just going to give you a general idea of how they work.

So, a regional center will say look, I am developing an apartment complex in some city in the United States or hotel or something, they have a project.

Invest your money in my project, I’m going to manage your money, put your money to work and that money is going to create jobs in the building of my hotel or in the operations of the hotel, or the apartment complex.

And those jobs are going to be credited to you, that way you can tell the government you’ve invested and created the required number of jobs.

How do we find these investment funds?

Very simple, one of the things I do for all of my clients when they hire me is I give them a complete list of all the regional centers that are available out there, and my clients can check them out and pick the one that’s best for them.

Ok, so let’s go back to the beginning you have to invest, you have to create ten jobs, what’s the next requirement?

The third main requirement is that the money you’re investing for the EB5 come from a lawful source.

So we need to be able to prove that.

I’ll give an example suppose, you earned your money through being employed at a company and you have a nice salary and you’ve been saving you money and now you have a million dollars in the bank, so we would need to prove that you’ve had this job, and that you’ve been saving you money and that, that money is accumulated to a million dollars.

And now you would then transfer that money into the EB5 regional center and we would document how you made it, and that you transferred it to the EB5 and that would do the trick.

So I fully understand now, is there any other requirements that the EB5 needs?

Sure, there are a series of other minor requirements, that I go through with my clients on a case-by-case basis depending on what applies to them and what doesn’t.

But those are the main ones invest, create jobs and prove that the money you’re investing comes from lawful source.

Thank you attorney Menchaca.

My pleasure.

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