Start with the EB-5 eligibility and application overview
Know when borrowed money counts as capital
Cash proceeds of a loan may form part of EB-5 capital and are evaluated as cash, not as indebtedness. They are not disqualified merely because the loan is unsecured, because the investor did not pledge personal assets, or because the investor is not personally and primarily liable; the investor must instead own and control the proceeds, document their lawful source and path, and place them at risk in the new commercial enterprise. Produce the executed loan agreement, disbursement records and account statements. If a company rather than the investor receives or owns the proceeds, establish whether the money ever became the investor's capital before it moved.
Document the lawful source of everything, including the security
The file has to explain the lawful source and path of both the savings and the loan proceeds. For an institutional loan, produce the executed agreement, the lender's disbursement record and consecutive statements showing the advance arriving and the investment leaving. Records about collateral, including a mortgage over farmland, may help explain the transaction and the investor's access to the proceeds, but investor-owned collateral and personal-and-primary liability are not categorical requirements for cash loan proceeds. A lender's approval letter alone proves neither disbursement nor the path into the enterprise.
Count the jobs before choosing the company
At least ten full-time positions of thirty-five hours a week or more must be created for qualifying U.S. workers, and the investor, the spouse, their children and non-immigrant workers do not count. In a direct investment the enterprise itself must create them, and existing positions are not new ones. Ask the company for a position-by-position list with hours and start dates, separating the workforce it already has from the roles the capital funds. Then write a hiring schedule with dates and wages the business could actually meet.
Be engaged in the business, in writing
A direct investor must be engaged in management or policy formulation rather than holding a passive interest. Record what that means in the operating agreement and in practice: which decisions require the investor's approval, how often members meet, what reporting is provided, and what responsibility the investor carries. Attend the meetings and keep the minutes. Engagement claimed in a petition but absent from the company's own records is the inconsistency that surfaces two years later, when the condition on residence has to be removed.
Set up now for the petition you file in two years
Approval brings two years of conditional permanent residence for the investor, the spouse and unmarried children under twenty-one, and the condition is removed only on evidence that the capital remained invested and the jobs were created and sustained. Agree at the outset who produces quarterly wage filings, payroll registers and financial statements, and in what format. The loan continues through this period, so keep the repayment record and the security in order: the funding story does not stop being relevant after the first approval.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.