I am often asked about the government filing fees and other expenses for EB-5 cases. They include the following:

For immigrant investors:

I-526 EB-5 investor petition per family – $1,500.00
Consul application fee per person – $345.00
Green card issuance fee per person – $165.00
If a person is in the U.S. and applies for an adjustment (change) of status to a green card (and will not apply at the Consul) – $1,070.00
I-829 removal of conditional resident status petition per family – $3,750.00 (which includes the principal petitioner and the dependents)
Plus biometrics (fingerprinting) fee per person – $85.00
A medical exam.
There may be fees for photocopies and FedEx.
Translation costs of non-English documents vary depending on the volume and language. We give our clients suggestions for keeping the translation costs down.
For Regional Centers:

I-924 for setting up or amending an existing Regional Center – $6,230.00
There is no government fee for a Regional Center’s annual reports (I-924A).

EB-5 China Quota Retrogression Update

The Department of State (DOS) continues to expect it will be necessary to establish an EB-5 China (only) cut-off date no later than this summer. The Visa Office is closely monitoring demand for visa numbers and is gathering data from USCIS and the consular post in Guangzhou, China. The DOS expects the retrogression to be significant, with a cut-off date in summer 2013 being the worst case scenario. However, cases are taking at least 14 months to process in most cases now. Initially the delay will not be great, but the following year the backlog will be considerable without more visas.

Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year (the Year of the Sheep) is late this year, on February 19th. Business in China will soon slow as does business in the U.S. during December. Few are making new deals and many travel in late January and February. This is a good time for Regional Centers to put together their deal packages and supporting documents for investor I-526s and get ready for marketing in the new year of the Sheep.

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

新年快乐！