Can A Group Of Foreigners Share An EB-5 Investment And Receive Green Cards?

 

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.