Can Multiple People Get An EB-5 Green Card If They Share And Pool Capital?

You’re interested in investing in the EB-5 Program in order to obtain an EB-5 green card, but you don’t have quite enough capital raised ($1,000,000 or $500,000 in a rural or high employment area). What can you do?

Your first thought might be to gather your friends and share and pool enough money, a minimum of $500,000 in order to invest in an EB-5 project. You can do this, however, only one of you will be on the application and only the one person on the application will receive a green card. His or her spouse and children may also receive green cards, but the friends that contributed capital, are not eligible to receive green cards.

For this reason many families will pool money together, knowing that it’s worth it for the spouse and children to be able to obtain U.S. green cards.

Each EB-5 investor must invest at minimum $500,000 in a qualified EB-5 project. The EB-5 project must also create 10 full-time jobs.

With this in mind, it is possible for EB-5 investors who have the minimum $500,000 to pool their money with other qualified EB-5 investors into a large EB-5 project development. This is a great way to fund large projects such as hotels and mixed use projects. Fifty EB-5 investors can pool $25,000,000 in capital for a project, however, in return, they must be credited with creating 500 jobs in order to have their petitions approved and receive a green card.

If you’d like to learn more about the EB-5 Program’s requirements for sources of funds, click here. This article discusses the extensive evidence needed for the sources of funds. USCIS is primarily concerned with ensuring that the capital invested came from lawful sources of funds. Find out what “Probative Value of Income” means by clicking here.