Can you count the creation of EB-5 construction jobs towards the EB-5 Regional Center Program requirements?

It’s important to know if you can count the creation of EB-5 construction jobs because they’re typically the easiest to prove.

For EB-5 investors, project job creation is crucial. Create the requisite number of jobs and investors can obtain U.S. permanent residency. That’s why it’s so important for EB-5 investors to be able to count EB-5 construction jobs with confidence; their money and time is at risk.

It wasn’t that long ago that construction jobs didn’t count for the EB-5 Program! This changed after the 2008 recession. Banks no longer wanted to lend money so construction projects halted. In order to boost the construction industry, USCIS eased their rules in order to allow regional centers to count construction jobs not only as direct jobs, but also as generating indirect or induced jobs.

Now that it does count, large real estate developments are able to attract dozens, if not hundreds, of EB-5 investors because their forecasts show large numbers of permanent jobs being created per project.

What are the EB-5 Regional Center Program requirements for counting construction jobs? (Being able to count indirect and induced job creation is one of the key benefits of investing in the EB-5 Regional Center Program as opposed to investing in the regular program.)

• A foreign EB-5 investor may count the creation of direct and indirect construction jobs toward the requirement if the jobs last for at least 2 years.
• These construction jobs must be continuous full-time positions that work a minimum of 35 hours a week during the project. They cannot be intermittent, seasonal, or temporary positions.
• In order to prove indirect or induced jobs from construction, project managers would have to prove that their project is expansive enough to take a minimum of 2 years to build. An example of this would be a large 30 story mixed use condominiums and shopping center project in New York City or Miami. They can prove that the project will take this long by submitting evidence such as construction timelines and outlines of project costs. They can also compare the project to similarly completed projects to further support the estimation of the 2 year build time.