1 September 2011.  Effective immediately.  We have moved to a new London office in Berkeley Square and the telephone number is (0)20 7887 1326.

EB-5 Visa - 'The Investment Green Card'

The USCIS (the US Citizenship and Immigration Service) refers to this category as an Investment Green Card since it is based on making a substantial financial commitment to create additional employment in the US.

The EB5 Visa, based on a qualifying US investment, apporoves you for a green card before you emigrate. It does not require you to manage the day-to-day affairs of a business; you may invest in an existing or a new business; more than one person may invest and you may be a minority owner.

With a Green Card, you may live anywhere in the US, no matter where the investment is made, and are free to do whatever you wish, be it work, run a business or retire.

You may qualify for an EB-5 in three different ways:

1. Invest $1,000,000 into a trading company and hire ten US employees anywhere in the USA, or

2. Invest $500,000 and hire ten employees in an area where the unemployment rate exceeds the national average by 150% or the rural population is less than 20,000, or

3. Invest in a Government designated Regional Center and avoid direct employment.  The investment sum is usually $500,000, but in some cases it is $1 million.  A Regional Center is allowed to rely on 'indirect' employment, rather than direct employment.

American Life uses an economist to quantify sufficient indirect employment before making its properties available to EB5 applicants. It also has its Regional Centers certified as a high unemployment areas, which keeps the minimum required capital to $500,000.

Funds may come from any legal foreign or US source; including gifts, loans, executive pension funds, trusts and divorce settlements. Whoever receives the visa must make the investment. Borrowed investment funds qualify as long as they are not secured by the assets of the target US investment.

The visa requirements are summarized at the USCIS web site (www.uscis.gov) as the Fifth Preference under Permanent Workers. These pages will open in separate windows.  Please see our FAQ page for further explanation of the process.