The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, USCIS, has recently unveiled data for the second fiscal quarter of 2024, highlighting a significant increase in application volume and improved processing efficiency for the EB‑5 visa program. This period, spanning from January 1, 2024, to March 31, 2024, underscores a pivotal development in the administration of the EB‑5 visa.
The US EB‑5 Entrepreneur Visa is granted to third-country nationals who invest at least $800,000 in the US business and create at least 10 permanent jobs for qualified American workers. The entire visa obtaining period is spanned to 5 or more years and is divided into two major steps:
Submitting Petition I‑526 — an initial application for a Conditional Green Card, requiring candidates to make an investment and prove the legitimacy of their invested funds.
Submitting Petition I‑829 — filed after two years of holding a Conditional Green Card to remove conditions and obtain a Green Card, requiring proof that the 10-job creation requirement has been met.
Petition I‑526 statistics for Q2 2024
In the second fiscal quarter of 2024, USCIS received a record 1,879 new applications for the EB‑5 visa, marking the highest number of quarterly applications since the program was amended in 2022. For comparison, during the same period in fiscal 2023, there were only 535 new applications.
Most applicants preferred the Regional Center option, which simplifies certain aspects of the investment process. Meanwhile, 69 investors chose to launch their own businesses.
During Q2 2024, USCIS processed 1,874 applications submitted before March 2022 and 172 new forms filed after that period. The denial rate was 23%, resulting in 431 applications being rejected.
Overall, 2,046 I‑526 petitions were reviewed during this quarter, the highest number since March 2022. Additionally, the backlog of investors waiting for their applications to be reviewed dropped to 10,605, the lowest in recent years.
Data on Petition I‑829
In Q2 2024, USCIS received 237 applications to remove conditions on permanent resident status and reviewed 1,938 petitions. The agency approved 1,868 applications and rejected only 70, making the denial rate just 4%—a decrease from earlier figures.
The number of pending applications for this petition now stands at 7,367, continuing the trend of a decreasing backlog.
The statistics of the Q2 2024 confirm growing popularity of the US EB‑5 visa following its amendment and demonstrate the rising efficiency of USCIS processes.
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