USCIS released its 4^th quarter EB-5 data for 2018, so here’s a look at what the data show over the year.

I-526 Petition Data

The good news is that for FY 2018, processing times for I-526 Petitions have been ramped up. There was a high of 24,992 I-526 petitions pending in FY 2017, but that’s dropped considerably to just 14,394 I-526 petitions pending in FY 2018.

The Investor Program Office is processing significantly faster than it’s receiving petitions, and what this could mean is that they could get through the entire backlog in 2019. This means that potential investors looking to file now may have less than a year to wait for their petition to be processed.

More good news is that 13,571 cases have been approved for FY 2018, over 2,000 more than the previous year.

In interesting news, the number of EB-5 I-526 Petitions received for FY 2018 is the lowest since 2013 at just 6,424. Fiscal years 2015-2016 saw the highest number of petitions received at over 14,000.

I-829 Petition Data

Unfortunately, most of the good news was with the I-526 Petitions and not the I-829 Petitions.

That said, on bit of good news is that more I-829 Petitions were approved in FY 2018 than any other year. The total petitions approved for FY 2018 was 2,610.

Most of the bad news centers on the backlog of pending I-829 Petitions which has grown from 6,735 in FY 2017 to 7,660 in FY 2018. Perhaps the Investor Program Office can focus more on the pending I-829 Petitions after they tackle the I-526 Petitions this year.

Conclusion

Overall, the future is looking up for new EB-5 investors. For information about getting started investing now, send us a message.