Investing in an EB-5 project can be expensive. Potential investors may be wondering if they can pool their funds, share an EB-5 investment and still receive green cards.

While a group of EB-5 investors can all invest in the same commercial business project, they must each make their own investment. They cannot share an EB-5 investment. Each foreign investor must invest the minimum amount of $500,000 into a project of their choosing.

One exception is if the group of foreigners is immediate family, such as a spouse or unmarried children under the age of 21 years. They can all share an EB-5 investment; they can all apply for green cards under one EB-5 application.

Although the minimum investment amount is high, it does not have to be made in only cash. The investment can be a cash equivalent such as equipment, property, or other inventory that is placed into the EB-5 qualified business.

If an investor puts less than the minimum investment amount into the project, they will not be approved to receive conditional green cards.

In addition to the requirement of investing $500,000, each EB-5 investor must also be credited with creating 10 qualified jobs for U.S. workers. For this reason, EB-5 investors usually look for projects with a capital structure that only uses a comparatively small amount of EB-5 funding. This is to ensure that there will be a large job creation buffer. EB-5 investors’ primary goal is to receive their green cards in exchange for their investment, and a large job creation buffer will help them achieve that goal.

For more information about sharing EB-5 investments, send us a message.