The January 1, 2027 EB-5 Minimum Investment Adjustment: How the Statute Sets It

The EB-5 minimum investment amounts adjust for inflation on January 1, 2027, for petitions filed on or after that date, and DHS hasn't published the new amounts. Our arithmetic on the price data released so far points to a standard minimum of $1,200,000 or $1,250,000 and a targeted employment area minimum of about $900,000. Those are projections, not official figures.

The adjustment changes what a new petition costs. It doesn't change the wait, and for that you want Where am I in line?.

What the statute says#

The rule is in 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(C)(iii), and it's short.

Beginning January 1, 2027, and every five years after that, the standard amount adjusts automatically "for petitions filed on or after the effective date of each adjustment." The adjustment follows the cumulative change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, the unadjusted all-items U.S. city average that the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes, between January 1, 2022 and the date of adjustment. The result is rounded down to the nearest $50,000. DHS then has to publish the new amount in the Federal Register as a technical amendment.

The lower amount, for a targeted employment area or an infrastructure project, doesn't get its own inflation calculation. The statute sets it at 75 percent of the adjusted standard amount.

Today the two numbers are $1,050,000 and $800,000.

Why nobody can give you the official number yet#

Because DHS hasn't published it. We searched the Federal Register on November 11, 2026 and found no technical amendment setting 2027 amounts. The USCIS EB-5 page still lists only the current amounts and says the first adjustment takes effect for petitions filed on or after January 1, 2027.

DHS knows the date is coming. In its July 2026 proposed rule, a footnote says the department will decide when it finalizes that rule whether to include the adjusted amounts in it. That rule isn't final.

So any 2027 figure you see in a pitch deck this month is somebody's projection. Ours are too.

The base date wrinkle#

Two government sources describe the starting point differently.

The statute says the change is measured from January 1, 2022, and DHS's proposed rule repeats that. The USCIS web page says adjustments will use the change in the index "from March 15, 2022," which is the day the reform law was signed.

It matters because prices rose quickly in early 2022. The index was 281.148 for January 2022 and 287.504 for March 2022, according to BLS. Start two months later and you measure about two and a half points less inflation. Because of the rounding, that can be the difference between two $50,000 steps.

The index is also monthly, and "January 1" isn't a month. Someone at DHS has to choose which monthly readings stand in for the start and the end. The statute's phrase "cumulative annual percentage change" leaves room for other methods as well, such as annual averages. We haven't modeled those.

Our projections, labeled as projections#

This is our arithmetic. It is not an announcement, and the official amounts could differ.

We took the latest reading BLS had published when we wrote this, 337.511 for October 2026, and ran the formula from both starting points on the current standard amount of $1,050,000.

For the targeted employment area amount, 75 percent of $1,200,000 is $900,000, and 75 percent of $1,250,000 is $937,500. The preamble to DHS's proposed rule says the department would round that figure down to the nearest $50,000 too, which gives $900,000 in both cases. The proposed regulatory text for that paragraph doesn't repeat the rounding sentence. Our projection is about $900,000, with $937,500 possible.

Two more index readings will come out before or just after the adjustment date, for November and December 2026, and DHS may use one of them. That would have to be a big move to change the result. On the January 2022 start, the projection stays at $1,250,000 unless the index falls below about 334.7 or climbs above about 348.1. On the March 2022 start, it stays at $1,200,000 unless the index reaches about 342.3.

In plain terms, we project a standard petition will need $150,000 to $200,000 more capital in January than in December, and a targeted employment area petition about $100,000 more.

Filing before versus after#

The statute applies each adjustment to petitions filed on or after its effective date. A petition filed in 2026 is measured against the 2026 amounts, and nothing in that text reprices a petition that's already on file.

"Filed" means received. Under 8 CFR 103.2(a)(7), USCIS records the receipt date as the day a filing actually arrives at the right location, and a filing that gets rejected doesn't keep its date. For the current amounts, the petition has to arrive by Thursday, December 31, 2026, and it has to be accepted.

That isn't the test for the new filing fees. Fees turn on the postmark, and the minimum investment turns on the receipt date. Put the two together and late 2026 splits into three windows.

The fee side is covered in our fee article.

None of these windows has anything to do with grandfathering. That protection covers regional center petitions filed on or before September 30, 2026, and a petition filed in any of the three windows is outside it. We explain what that means in where things stand after the cutoff.

Should you rush? If your source of funds file is ready, filing in December instead of January saves real money. If it isn't ready, be careful. A petition that bounces for a missing signature or a wrong fee in the last week of December gets refiled in January at the new amount, and a thin petition filed in a hurry can cost more than the adjustment does. That's a conversation for your lawyer, with a calendar open.

Two things in the proposed rule that touch the amount#

DHS's proposed rule would add a third tier, $1,400,000 for a "high employment area," and tie it to the standard amount so that it adjusts on the same five-year schedule. It would also require that your capital still be invested on the day you file. Both are proposals, and we cover them in the proposed rule explainer.

After January 2027, the next adjustment under the statute comes on January 1, 2032.

When DHS publishes the official amounts, we'll replace the projections on this page with them. Our earlier explainer on the 2027 CPI adjustment has more on the mechanism.

Sources#

• 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(C), Cornell Legal Information Institute (amounts at clauses (i) and (ii), automatic adjustment at clause (iii)), read November 11, 2026
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI for All Urban Consumers, all items, U.S. city average, not seasonally adjusted (series CUUR0000SA0), values retrieved November 11, 2026
• USCIS, About the EB-5 Visa Classification
• Federal Register, EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 proposed rule, 91 FR 40676 (investment amounts at proposed 8 CFR 204.407(b))
• Federal Register, EB-5 Fee Rule, final rule, 91 FR 61940
• 8 CFR 103.2(a)(7), Cornell Legal Information Institute