EB-5 Cost Breakdown 2026: Investment, Fees, and Total Out-of-Pocket

An EB-5 investment in 2026 costs either $800,000 or $1,050,000 in at-risk capital, plus a much smaller stack of fixed costs: roughly $8,400 in USCIS filing fees and the Integrity Fund contribution spread across the life of the case, plus variable regional center administrative and legal costs that the government does not set. The investment is the headline number, but it is capital you are placing into a business, not a fee you are paying away.

As of June 25, 2026, that split is the key to budgeting honestly. This breakdown walks every line item in order, from the investment and USCIS filing fees through the Integrity Fund contribution, the costs that vary by deal, and the green card fees, then ends with a total and the price increase scheduled for January 1, 2027.

What does an EB-5 visa actually cost in 2026?#

EB-5 costs fall into two very different buckets, and conflating them is the most common budgeting mistake.

The first bucket is the qualifying investment: $800,000 or $1,050,000. This is not money you spend. It is capital you place into a new commercial enterprise that must remain at risk and is meant to be returned to you after the project sustains the investment and creates the required jobs. There is no guarantee you get it back; "at risk" is a legal requirement, not marketing language, and fundamentally different from a fee.

The second bucket is everything you actually spend and do not get back: USCIS filing fees, the Integrity Fund contribution, the regional center's administrative fee, legal fees, and the green card application fees if you file from inside the country. This bucket runs into the tens of thousands of dollars, not the hundreds of thousands, and most of it is fixed and verifiable. For the underlying terms, the EB-5 glossary is a useful tab to keep open.

One requirement sits underneath the whole structure: each EB-5 investment must create at least 10 full-time jobs for qualifying U.S. workers. That job-creation test, not the dollar figure alone, is what the petition ultimately has to prove.

How much is the EB-5 investment: $800,000 or $1,050,000?#

The minimum investment depends entirely on where the project sits.

• $800,000 if the project is in a targeted employment area (TEA) or is a qualifying infrastructure project. A TEA is either a rural area or an area of high unemployment.
• $1,050,000 for a standard project that does not qualify for the lower threshold.

These amounts have been in place for petitions filed on or after March 15, 2022, when the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act set them. They trace to INA 203(b)(5)(C). In practice, most regional center offerings are structured around the $800,000 TEA minimum, because the lower entry point and the set-aside visa categories that often come with rural and high-unemployment projects are both attractive to investors from backlogged countries. We cover which projects qualify and why the set-aside lanes stay current in the EB-5 visa bulletin tracker and the India country hub.

A rural area means a place outside any metropolitan statistical area and outside any city or town of 20,000 or more people. A high-unemployment area is a census tract, or group of contiguous tracts, with an average unemployment rate of at least 150 percent of the national rate, designated by DHS. Both let an investor qualify at $800,000 instead of $1,050,000, a $250,000 difference that is usually the single largest swing in any EB-5 budget.

What are the USCIS filing fees for EB-5 in 2026?#

There are two core USCIS filing fees in a regional center case, paid at two different stages.

• Form I-526E (the immigrant petition by a regional center investor): $3,675.
• Form I-829 (the petition to remove conditions on residence, filed near the end of the two-year conditional period): $3,750.

Both figures are current as of June 25, 2026, taken from the USCIS Fee Schedule (Form G-1055) and corroborated by the USCIS court-order alert. They are the fees that were in effect through March 31, 2024, reinstated after litigation in late 2025.

Why are the EB-5 filing fees lower than the numbers you may have seen?#

If you have read older coverage quoting an I-526E fee above $11,000, that figure is not in effect. The 2024 USCIS fee rule raised the EB-5 filing fees sharply, to $11,160 for the I-526E and $9,525 for the I-829. On November 12, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, in Moody v. Noem, stayed those EB-5 increases, and USCIS reverted to the earlier amounts effective November 13, 2025. So the vacated $11,160 I-526E figure should not be used; the operative number is $3,675.

One forward-looking item is worth watching but not budgeting around. A DHS proposed rule published on October 23, 2025 would adjust EB-5 fees again, but it is a proposed rule only, not final and not in effect, and the current fee schedule still lists the lower reinstated amounts. Treat any specific dollar figure from that proposal as speculative until a final rule publishes. An EB-5 immigration attorney can confirm the operative fee on the day you actually file, the only date that matters for what you pay.

What is the EB-5 Integrity Fund contribution?#

Separate from the I-526E filing fee, every investor pays a $1,000 EB-5 Integrity Fund contribution with each initial I-526E petition. It is collected alongside the petition and funds USCIS oversight, audits, and site visits of regional centers under the Reform and Integrity Act. It is statutory, set in INA 203(b)(5)(J), and it does not apply to amended petitions, only to initial filings.

Do not confuse this $1,000 investor contribution with the annual Integrity Fund fee that regional centers themselves pay: $20,000 per year for a center with more than 20 investors in the prior fiscal year, or $10,000 for a center with 20 or fewer. The annual fee is a regional center cost, not something an individual investor pays directly, though it is part of why centers charge administrative fees.

What about regional center, administrative, and legal costs?#

This is the part of the budget the government does not control, and where honest numbers are hardest to pin down.

A regional center administrative fee (sometimes called a subscription fee) is what the center charges to package the offering, manage the investment, handle compliance, and produce the project-level evidence your petition relies on. It is a market price, set deal by deal, and typically a five-figure sum on top of your investment. There is no statutory amount and no USCIS schedule, so any figure you see quoted is specific to one offering and should be read from that project's documents, not assumed.

Legal fees for preparing and filing the petition, including the source-of-funds documentation, are likewise set by the firm and vary with the complexity of your case. A clean, well-documented funds trail costs less to assemble than a complex one involving gifts, loans, or business proceeds across multiple jurisdictions. Because gaps in the source-of-funds trail are among the most common reasons practitioners see a Request for Evidence, this is not the place to cut corners; see the source-of-funds documentation guide for what examiners look for. To keep the moving parts visible while you compare offerings, the filing checklist tool is a practical anchor.

The honest summary: administrative and legal costs are real and can add tens of thousands of dollars, but because they are not fixed by law this breakdown treats them as variable. Ask any regional center for a written, itemized fee table before you commit, and have your own counsel review it.

What does it cost to file for the green card itself?#

If you are inside the United States and a visa number is available to you, you can file Form I-485 to adjust status, often together with your I-526E. That step carries its own USCIS fees, separate from the EB-5 petition fees above. As of June 25, 2026, the USCIS fee schedule amounts are:

• Form I-485 (adjust status, applicant age 14 and over): $1,440 by paper or $1,390 online, per applicant.
• Form I-131 (advance parole, to travel while the I-485 is pending): $630 by paper or $580 online.
• Form I-765 (employment authorization, to work while the I-485 is pending): $520 by paper or $470 online.

These apply per family member, so a family of four adjusting status together multiplies the I-485 line. They only arise if you adjust status inside the country; consular processing applicants pay a different set of Department of State fees instead. For how the concurrent route works and who qualifies, see the concurrent filing guide. To estimate how long each stage takes once filed, pair this with the EB-5 processing times tracker and the 2026 processing times breakdown.

What is the total out-of-pocket cost of EB-5 in 2026?#

Here is the full picture for a single investor in a TEA project, separating the fixed and verifiable costs from the variable ones.

The fixed USCIS-side total is small and knowable: the I-526E fee, the $1,000 Integrity Fund contribution, and the I-829 fee add up to about $8,425, paid at two stages years apart. So the realistic framing is $800,000 of at-risk capital, plus roughly $8,400 in mandatory government fees over the life of the case, plus the administrative and legal costs of your specific deal, plus green card fees if you adjust status from inside the country. Everything except the at-risk capital is money you spend and do not recover, which is why two otherwise-identical investors can end up with different bills.

How will the January 1, 2027 CPI increase change the cost?#

The $800,000 and $1,050,000 minimums are not permanent. The Reform and Integrity Act built in an automatic inflation adjustment that takes effect on January 1, 2027, and every five years after that. The increase is tied to the cumulative Consumer Price Index, with the standard amount rounding down to the nearest $50,000 and the TEA amount 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 as of June 25, 2026, so any specific future figure circulating now is a third-party projection, not a confirmed number. What is certain is the mechanism and the timing: the increase applies to petitions filed on or after January 1, 2027, so filing before that date locks in the current minimums. Confirm the operative minimum and fee on your actual filing date with your own counsel.

Frequently asked questions#

How much does EB-5 cost in total in 2026? The qualifying investment is $800,000 for a targeted employment area or infrastructure project, or $1,050,000 for a standard project. On top of that, plan for about $8,400 in fixed USCIS filing fees and the Integrity Fund contribution, plus variable regional center administrative and legal fees set by the market rather than by the government.

Is the $800,000 EB-5 investment a fee I lose? No. The investment is at-risk capital placed into a business, not a fee. It is meant to be returned after the project sustains the investment and creates at least 10 jobs, although return is never guaranteed because the capital must remain at risk. The fees are the smaller amounts you pay and do not get back.

What is the EB-5 Integrity Fund contribution? It is a $1,000 payment made with each initial I-526E petition, on top of the petition filing fee. It funds USCIS oversight of regional centers under the Reform and Integrity Act, is set by statute, and does not apply to amended petitions.

Why do some sources show much higher EB-5 filing fees? A 2024 fee rule briefly raised them, but a federal court stayed those increases in November 2025 and USCIS reverted to the lower amounts. The higher figures, including the $11,160 I-526E amount, are not in effect, and a separate proposed rule from October 2025 is not final and should not be used to budget.

Will EB-5 cost more in 2027? Yes, the minimum investment is scheduled to rise on January 1, 2027 under an automatic five-year inflation adjustment tied to the Consumer Price Index. The exact new figures had not been published as of June 25, 2026, so filing before that date locks in the current $800,000 or $1,050,000 minimums.

Sources#

• USCIS, About the EB-5 Visa Classification (investment amounts and CPI adjustment)
• USCIS, Fee Schedule (Form G-1055) (current I-526E, I-829, I-485, I-131, and I-765 fees)
• USCIS, Court Order on Partial Stay of DHS 2024 USCIS Fee Rule (Moody v. Noem stay and reinstated fees)
• USCIS, EB-5 Integrity Fund (the $1,000 per-petition contribution and annual center fees)
• 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5) (investment minimums, set-asides, and the Integrity Fund)
• Federal Register, EB-5 Fee Rule, proposed (document 2025-19642) (proposed only, not in effect)