Start with the EB-5 eligibility and application overview
Learn what full-time means before choosing the business
A qualifying position is employment of at least thirty-five hours a week for a qualifying U.S. worker. Two part-time positions cannot be added together to make one, although a genuine job-sharing arrangement can qualify. Intermittent, temporary and seasonal positions do not count. Where headcount triples for eight weeks, what matters is the number of year-round full-time positions the investment creates, which may be far smaller than the number of people on site in season. Get the actual hours before capital is committed.
Identify who is a qualifying worker
The investor, the investor's spouse, their children and non-immigrant workers do not count toward the ten, and neither do positions held by people without authorization to work. Ask the target business for a position-by-position list showing weekly hours, status category where relevant, and start dates, and separate the existing workforce from the positions the investment will create. In a direct investment the enterprise itself must create the jobs, and pre-existing positions are not new ones outside the troubled-business context.
Design the investment around year-round work
If the seasonal pattern cannot produce ten year-round positions, the answer is to change what the capital buys. Extending the season with additional product lines, adding a cold-storage or repackaging operation, or funding maintenance and quality functions that run through the winter all create year-round employment. Each of those is a business decision first and an immigration one second, and each should be tested with the company's own management rather than assumed. Write the hiring schedule with start dates, wages and weekly hours, because that schedule becomes the evidence later.
Document the source and the path of the money
Proceeds from selling a pharmacy business and proceeds from selling its building are two separate components with two separate chains. Produce the sale agreements, closing statements, the accountant's calculations and the deposit records for each, with tax filings for the relevant years and any mortgage discharge. Then produce consecutive statements for every account the funds passed through, including the currency conversion. Keep the path short: a detour through a relative's account adds explanation and nothing else.
Keep the evidence the second petition will need
Approval leads to two years of conditional permanent residence for the investor, the spouse and unmarried children under twenty-one. The condition is removed by a later petition showing that the capital remained invested and that the jobs were created and sustained, which means quarterly wage filings, payroll registers and hours for every position counted. Agree at the outset who produces those records and in what form, because reconstructing two years of employment evidence under a ninety-day deadline is a poor way to end a successful investment.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.