An EB-5 visa costs the qualifying investment of $800,000 in a Targeted Employment Area or $1,050,000 elsewhere, plus roughly $85,000 to $165,000 in non-investment costs: regional center administration fees, USCIS filing fees, the EB-5 Integrity Fund fee, immigration attorney fees, and a business plan with an economic report. A realistic all-in budget for a regional-center EB-5 is therefore about $900,000 to $1.2 million, most of which is the investment itself rather than fees.
This is general information, not legal or financial advice. EB-5 fees change often and some are currently affected by litigation, so confirm every figure with a licensed immigration attorney and the USCIS fee schedule before you file. No business plan or article can guarantee a visa outcome.
The investment is the largest cost, but not the only one
The headline number is the qualifying capital: $800,000 if your project sits in a Targeted Employment Area, a rural or high-unemployment region, and $1,050,000 if it does not. This money is not a fee; it is invested in a job-creating enterprise and must be genuinely at risk, meaning it can be lost and carries no guaranteed return. You may get it back if the project succeeds and exits, but that is an outcome, not a promise. For the rules behind the two thresholds and the TEA discount, see the EB-5 minimum investment. Everything below is what you pay on top of that capital.
Regional center administration fees
Most EB-5 investors go through a regional center, a USCIS-designated entity that pools capital into larger projects and handles the job-creation accounting. For that, regional centers charge a one-time administration fee, commonly $50,000 to $75,000, sometimes higher for marquee projects. The fee covers project management, the economic job-creation analysis, compliance reporting, and ongoing monitoring. It is usually the single largest non-investment cost, and it is the line item a direct EB-5 investor avoids by building and managing their own enterprise instead.
USCIS filing fees and the Integrity Fund fee
The government charges separately at each stage of the petition. The main filings are the I-526E (the initial investor petition through a regional center), then either adjustment of status on Form I-485 or consular processing, and finally the I-829 to remove conditions on the green card. Across the full cycle, USCIS fees commonly run from about $9,000 to $11,000 for an investor, more for a family, and regional-center petitions also owe the $1,000 EB-5 Integrity Fund fee created by the 2022 reform law. These amounts have changed repeatedly and parts of the schedule are under litigation, so treat any single figure as a snapshot and verify the current fee on the USCIS website before filing.
Budgeting an EB-5 petition?
We write EB-5 business plans and use-of-funds models to the Matter of Ho standard, the document that supports your capital and ten-job requirement. Share your project for a fixed quote up front.
Request a quoteImmigration attorney and business plan costs
EB-5 is document-heavy and source-of-funds intensive, so legal work is a real line item. Immigration attorney fees typically run $20,000 to $30,000 for a straightforward case and more where the source of funds is complex or an RFE has to be answered. On top of counsel, the petition needs a credible business plan and economic report that document how the capital is spent and how it creates at least ten full-time US jobs. That plan is not optional polish; it is core evidence, and it is exactly what our EB-5 business plan serviceproduces, aligned to your attorney's strategy.
Direct versus regional center: how the cost differs
The two EB-5 routes carry different cost shapes. A regional center investment is more passive: you pay the administration fee but rely on the center to create and count the jobs. A directinvestment skips the administration fee, but you fund and run the business yourself, take on its operating costs, and must document the ten direct jobs without the center's machinery. Neither is universally cheaper once you account for the work involved; the regional center trades a fee for convenience, while direct trades effort for control. Which fits depends on whether you want to operate a business or simply place capital, the same trade-off explored in our comparison with the E-2 visa.
Total EB-5 cost: a realistic budget
Add the layers and a regional-center EB-5 generally lands near $900,000 to $1.2 million all in: the $800,000 or $1,050,000 investment, $50,000 to $75,000 in administration fees, $9,000 to $11,000 in USCIS filing fees plus the $1,000 Integrity Fund fee, and $20,000 to $30,000 or more in legal and plan costs. The investment dominates, so the smart budgeting questions are about the capital, protecting it, sourcing it lawfully, and proving the jobs, which is the focus of what the EB-5 petition must prove. If you are weighing EB-5 against other immigrant routes, our immigration business plan service can model the plan for whichever path you choose.
