4 things to consider before applying for EB-5 visa programme

EB-5 visa programme has always been popular for Indians who want to make their ‘The Great American Dream’ come true.

Indians are willing to shell out half-a-million dollars to get the EB-5 visa, which is an investor visa program giving opportunity to foreign nationals and their immediate family to obtain US green cards and permanent residency.

The EB-5 visa programme gains more significance after all the hullabaloo over the H1B visa programme, which is a work visa and your employer must be willing to sponsor your H-1B application.

“The certainty of securing an H-1B visa has gone down in recent years because applications have increased and the limited H-1B visas are distributed on a lottery basis. Chances of winning the lottery cannot be determined definitively but are approximately 30%. In the FY 2016, USCIS received 233,000 applications for H-1B visas, while only 65,000 visa slots were available for this program,” said Suresh Rajan, CEO of LCR Capital Partners.

Experts say EB-5 visa is a better option than the H-1B one as the latter does not secure permanent residency status.

“The EB-5 visa is not a work visa, it’s an investor immigration program that provides an opportunity for an investor to obtain a Green Card for his/her family though investment and job creation. With this visa, you earn the freedom to work in any field you like with no sponsorship requirement and the randomness of a lottery system,” said Rajan.

In 2014, 55 Indians and in 2015, 111 EB-5 visas were issued to Indians.

If you are making up your mind for EB-5 visa programme, here are four things you should consider:


1. Where is the investor’s capital deployed into the capital stack?
2. Does the investment offering use a Broker-Dealer in the transaction?
3. Does the investment offering employ a third party “fund administrator”?
4. Does the investment offering require third party “annual” auditing?