EB-5 Grandfathering Deadline September 30, 2026: What It Means and How to File in Time

The EB-5 grandfathering deadline is September 30, 2026. An EB-5 petition filed on or before that date is protected by statute: USCIS must keep adjudicating it even if the Regional Center Program lapses after its September 30, 2027 sunset, and the agency may not deny it solely because the program expired.

As of June 25, 2026, no bill has changed either date. Congress has not moved the grandfathering cutoff, has not extended the program past its 2027 sunset, and has not enacted any new EB-5 reauthorization. Everything below reflects the law as it stands today.

If you have been circling an EB-5 investment, this is the deadline that turns a vague "someday" into a calendar problem. Below is what the cutoff actually protects, how it differs from the program sunset one year later, where the looming price increase fits in, and the realistic timeline to get an I-526E on file before the window closes.

What is the EB-5 grandfathering deadline?#

The grandfathering deadline comes from the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act, enacted March 15, 2022 as Division BB of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 (Public Law 117-103). That law reauthorized the Regional Center Program and, critically, wrote a safety net into the statute for investors who file before a fixed date.

That safety net lives at INA 203(b)(5)(S) (codified at 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(S)). In plain terms: a petition filed on or before September 30, 2026 continues to be processed even if the Regional Center Program lapses, and USCIS may not deny it based on the program's expiration. The word "grandfathering" is shorthand for that protection. Your petition is treated as if it belongs to the world that existed when you filed it, regardless of what Congress does or fails to do afterward.

This matters because EB-5 has lapsed before. From June 2021 to March 2022, the Regional Center Program sat expired, and regional center petitions could not be approved during the gap. The 2022 law was written by people who lived through that freeze. The grandfathering clause is their answer to it: file early enough, and a future lapse cannot strand your case.

For a plain-language definition of grandfathering and the other terms used here, see the EB-5 glossary.

What does filing on or before September 30, 2026 actually protect?#

Precision matters, because the protection is narrower than some marketing decks suggest. Here is what INA 203(b)(5)(S) does and does not do.

What it protects:

• Continued processing through a lapse. If the Regional Center Program expires and Congress has not reauthorized it, USCIS must keep adjudicating your petition rather than shelving it.
• No denial for program expiration alone. The agency cannot use "the program ended" as the reason to refuse a grandfathered petition.

What it does not change:

• The merits still apply. Grandfathering protects your place in line, not the quality of your case. Source-of-funds documentation, the job-creation requirement, admissibility, and the integrity of the regional center and project are all judged on their own.
• It is not a price lock. Grandfathering and the investment minimum are two different mechanisms with two different dates. More on that below.

So filing by September 30, 2026 buys insurance against a political failure in Washington. It does not buy a weaker standard of review. A petition that would have been denied on the facts is still denied on the facts.

One practical note: USCIS treats a petition as filed when it properly receives it, not when you drop it in the mail. Building in margin for mailroom intake, rejected filings, and re-submission is part of hitting the date with confidence. Confirm the receipt-date mechanics with an EB-5 immigration attorney before you cut it close.

How is the grandfathering deadline different from the September 30, 2027 sunset?#

These two dates are exactly one year apart, and conflating them is the single most common mistake we see. They are not the same event.

The sunset is the program's expiration date. The grandfathering cutoff is the date by which you must already be in the system to be shielded if that expiration arrives without a fix. The one-year gap is deliberate: it gives investors a defined window to file under protection before the authorization itself runs out.

A petition filed after September 30, 2026 but before the 2027 sunset can still be adjudicated while the program is live. What it loses is the statutory shield. If the program lapses after September 30, 2027 with no reauthorization, a non-grandfathered petition has no statutory protection and is exposed to exactly the kind of freeze that hit regional center cases in 2021. The reauthorization outlook is its own topic; we cover the scenarios in what happens to EB-5 after September 2026.

Where does the January 1, 2027 price increase fit in?#

There is a third date that sits between the two above, and it is about money rather than program survival.

The 2022 law set the current investment minimums at $1,050,000 for a standard project and $800,000 for a project in a targeted employment area (TEA) or infrastructure project, under INA 203(b)(5)(C). It also built in automatic inflation indexing. Beginning January 1, 2027, and every five years after that, the minimums adjust for cumulative CPI-U inflation. The standard amount rounds down to the nearest $50,000, and the TEA amount is set at 75 percent of the standard. USCIS publishes the new figures through a technical amendment in the Federal Register.

No official 2027 amounts have been published yet, and every specific 2027 dollar figure floating around online is a third-party projection rather than a confirmed number. What is certain is the mechanism and the trigger date: petitions filed on or after January 1, 2027 will face the higher, inflation-adjusted minimum, whatever it turns out to be. We walk through how the indexing math works in the 2027 CPI minimum-investment increase.

So an investor weighing timing is really looking at three lines on a calendar:

1. September 30, 2026 to secure grandfathering protection.
2. January 1, 2027 to file before the price index kicks in.
3. September 30, 2027 when the program authorization itself expires absent reauthorization.

For most people the first two cluster together: file before fall 2026, and you clear both the grandfathering line and the price line at once. We compare the two pressures directly in filing before September 2026: grandfathering vs. the price increase.

Why does the grandfathering deadline matter right now?#

Two forces make the September 2026 cutoff more than a theoretical line.

First, the visa queue rewards filing early. EB-5's total allocation is roughly 9,940 visas per year as a baseline (7.1 percent of the worldwide employment-based level). For high-demand countries that pool retrogresses. The July 2026 Visa Bulletin shows the unreserved category for India as unavailable for the remainder of fiscal year 2026, with China's unreserved final action date back at December 1, 2016. The set-aside categories tell a different story: rural (20 percent), high-unemployment (10 percent), and infrastructure (2 percent) reserved visas are current for every country in that same bulletin. Set-asides stay current precisely because the unreserved lane is congested, which is why the reserved categories are a genuine pull factor for investors from backlogged countries.

Second, processing is not instant. Adjudication of an I-526E takes a meaningful stretch of time, and that clock does not start until USCIS receives a complete, fileable petition. You can check current adjudication times on the processing times tracker. The point for grandfathering is simpler: the protection attaches at filing, so the relevant deadline is when your petition lands at USCIS, not when it is approved. That reframes the question from "can I get approved by 2026" to "can I get filed by September 30, 2026," which is a much more achievable target if you start now.

How do you file an I-526E in time?#

The I-526E is the petition a regional center investor files to start the EB-5 process. Filing it cleanly before September 30, 2026 is a project with a critical path. Here is the realistic sequence.

What are the steps to file?#

1. Choose a regional center and project. This is the longest and most consequential step. You are evaluating the sponsor's compliance history, the project's job-creation model, the capital structure, and whether it targets a set-aside category that stays current for your country.
2. Document your source of funds. USCIS requires a lawful, traceable path for the full investment amount. Gathering bank records, tax filings, sale documents, and gift or loan paperwork across jurisdictions is frequently the slowest part of a clean filing.
3. Wire the investment. The capital must be invested or actively in the process of being invested into the new commercial enterprise.
4. Prepare and file the I-526E. Your attorney assembles the petition, the supporting exhibits, and the filing fees, then submits it to USCIS.

Run the document side of this against a structured list so nothing surfaces at the last minute. The filing checklist tool lays out what each step requires.

What does it cost to file the I-526E?#

The current USCIS fee for the I-526E is $3,675. (A higher 2024 fee was stayed by a federal court in November 2025, and USCIS reinstated the prior amount, so the $3,675 figure is the one in effect as of June 2026.) A separate $1,000 EB-5 Integrity Fund contribution is collected with each I-526E. Those government fees sit on top of the investment itself ($800,000 for a TEA or infrastructure project, $1,050,000 for a standard project) plus regional center administrative fees and legal costs.

How much runway do you actually need?#

The honest answer is that source-of-funds preparation, not the form itself, sets the timeline. For an investor with straightforward, well-documented finances, assembling a fileable petition can take a few months. For an investor with complex sources, multiple jurisdictions, or funds that need to be sold or gifted first, it can run substantially longer. Working backward from September 30, 2026, an investor who has not yet selected a project is already in the zone where every week counts. Starting the source-of-funds file and the project diligence in parallel, rather than in sequence, is how serious filers protect the date.

What happens if you file after September 30, 2026?#

Nothing changes about your ability to file. The Regional Center Program remains authorized through September 30, 2027, so petitions submitted after the grandfathering cutoff are still accepted and adjudicated while the program is live.

What you lose is the statutory shield at INA 203(b)(5)(S). A petition filed October 1, 2026 or later has no grandfathering protection. If the program then lapses after the 2027 sunset without reauthorization, that petition is exposed to a freeze, the same outcome that left regional center investors waiting during the June 2021 to March 2022 gap. And if you file on or after January 1, 2027, you also face the higher CPI-indexed minimum.

This is why the planning advice is consistent across the EB-5 bar: if you intend to file and your finances are in reach, treat September 30, 2026 as the real deadline, not the 2027 sunset. The earlier date is the one that comes with statutory insurance attached.

Sources#

• USCIS, About the EB-5 Visa Classification
• 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5) (statute, including INA 203(b)(5)(S) grandfathering and (E)(i) sunset)
• U.S. Congress, Public Law 117-103 (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, Division BB)
• USCIS, Court Order on Partial Stay of the DHS 2024 Fee Rule
• USCIS, EB-5 Integrity Fund
• U.S. Department of State, Visa Bulletin for July 2026