The EB-5 visa program is a popular pathway for getting a US green card, which grants permanent residency and citizenship in the United States. The demand for US EB-5 visas is witnessing an increased trend from global investors. According to a new report from the American Immigrant Investor Alliance (AIIA), demand for EB-5 visas has surged, especially since April 2024.
AIIA sourced the filing, approval, and denial data for EB-5 investors as of January 2025 from the USCIS and found that demand for EB-5 visas has increased since April 2024, within every Targeted Employment Area category and every country group.
Also, the demand for Rural TEA visas has consistently outpaced demand for high unemployment and that China continued to show the strongest demand growth, followed by India.
The updated data contains the distribution of I-526 and I-526E receipts by Targeted Employment Area (TEA) and country of chargeability, which is crucial for understanding visa backlogs and estimating waiting times in the reserved visa categories.
Form I-526 is to be filed for the EB-5 immigrant investor visa while the Form I-526E or Immigrant Petition by a Regional Center Investor, is a document for foreign investors seeking a US green card through the EB-5 program by investing in a USCIS-approved regional center.
Out of 9,878 I-526/I-526E petitions filed between April 1, 2022 and January 31, 2025, 18% or 1,790 petitions were filed by Indians. Within that 847 were in Rural and 883 in high unemployment (HUA) set-aside category while 60 were in Other category.
According to the AIIA report, as of January 2025, there was demand for 10 times as many High Unemployment visas and 4 times as many Rural visas, compared to their respective annual visa supply numbers.
The report says, if visas were issued first-in-first-out (FIFO) with no country limit, it would mean about a 10-year wait time for high unemployment and a 4-year wait time in Rural areas for investors with priority dates after January 2025.
Since there are country limits on visa allocation, actual visa wait times could be much less for new investors from the Rest of the World and much greater for new investors from Mainland China and India.
AIIA after studying the monthly visa issuance data and the fact that only 3% of the visas for the year have been issued, is of the view that the US visa bulletin will remain current for the rest of the year, as only 351 HUA and 1,126 rural petitions have been approved as of January 2025.
The AIIA report has a special note for the Indian EB-5 investors:
Take the example of an Indian investor today considering a TEA investment. Should he expect to wait 5 to 10 years or more for a visa, considering the number of rural and high-unemployment investors already queued up?
The answer would be ‘Yes,’ if TEA investors could only get TEA visas. However, a TEA investor may also choose after I-526E approval to be allocated an Unreserved visa.
The Unreserved category also has backlogs, but the Unreserved pre-RIA backlog for India-born petitioners may be cleared within 5 years – making it possibly the soonest-available visa for India-born investors in 2025 regardless of whether they choose to invest in a rural or high unemployment TEA.
The backlog situation and visa wait times for India TEA investors can also be improved if many Rest of World TEA investors elect to take Unreserved visas following I-526E approval. Otherwise, if TEA investors from India were limited by TEA category and country caps, then wait times would be astronomical, given that pipeline visa demand from China and India far exceeds 7% of rural and high-unemployment visas.
The EB-5 Unreserved category includes standard EB-5 visas not for Rural, High Unemployment, or Infrastructure Set-Aside programs, allowing all applicants, regardless of investment location, to apply.