Updated November 11, 2026

Golden visa cost USA: EB-5 minimum investment and USCIS filing fees

The U.S. equivalent of a golden visa is the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, which requires a qualifying capital investment in a U.S. commercial enterprise plus government filing fees. For petitions filed on or after March 15, 2022, you must invest at least the Targeted Employment Area (TEA) or infrastructure project minimum threshold in the table below, or the standard non-TEA investment threshold in the table below. That single investment covers you, your spouse and your unmarried children under 21, and you pay USCIS filing fees at each stage.

What is the total cost of the US golden visa (EB-5)?

The United States does not use the term golden visa in immigration law. Congress created the employment-based fifth preference category, known as the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, in 1990 to stimulate the U.S. economy through capital investment and job creation. Under this program, you, your spouse and your unmarried children under age 21 can apply for lawful permanent residence through a single qualifying investment.

Your financial outlay has two distinct components: capital placed at risk in a commercial enterprise, and nonrefundable government filing fees paid to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) from the initial petition through the removal of conditions on permanent residence. The table below lists every investment threshold and government fee across the EB-5 process.

Fees from uscis.gov (Form G-1055), ecfr.gov and federalregister.gov, as of November 2026

Minimum capital investment: TEA and infrastructure vs. standard projects

Under the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022, signed on March 15, 2022, your minimum capital investment depends on project location and project type. Investing in a Targeted Employment Area (TEA) or a qualifying infrastructure project allows you to use the lower TEA investment threshold in the table above. Outside of those designated areas, you must invest at least the standard non-TEA investment threshold in the table above.

Congress established that these minimum amounts adjust automatically every 5 years based on cumulative changes in the CPI-U inflation measure since March 15, 2022. The first statutory adjustment takes effect for petitions filed on or after January 1, 2027.

USCIS evaluates qualifying project categories under specific statutory definitions:

• Rural area TEA: Any area outside a metropolitan statistical area and outside any city or town with a population of 20,000 or more based on the most recent decennial census. Rural investments receive 20 percent of the annual EB-5 visa allocation as reserved set-aside visas, alongside priority petition processing from USCIS.
• High-unemployment TEA: The census tract or contiguous census tracts where the enterprise principally conducts business, including directly adjacent tracts, where the weighted average unemployment rate is at least 150 percent of the national average. High-unemployment projects receive 10 percent of annual EB-5 visas as reserved set-asides. USCIS determines high-unemployment designations directly during petition adjudication.
• Infrastructure project: A capital investment project administered by a governmental entity that contracts with a regional center or enterprise to finance maintaining, improving or constructing a public works project. Standalone investors cannot utilize this category. Infrastructure projects receive 2 percent of annual EB-5 visas as reserved set-asides.
• Two-year TEA validity protection: A TEA designation remains valid for 2 years from the investment date for standalone investors, or 2 years from the proper filing of Form I-956F for regional center projects. If you invest while the designation is active, you do not need to increase your investment capital if local population or employment levels change later, or when filing Form I-829.

Standalone (Form I-526) vs. regional center (Form I-526E) petitions

You can make your EB-5 investment through two distinct pathways, and each requires a different initial petition form. Standalone investors file Form I-526. Since March 15, 2022, pooled standalone investments are prohibited, meaning a standalone commercial enterprise can support only a single immigrant investor. Your enterprise must directly employ at least 10 full-time qualifying U.S. workers for a minimum of 35 working hours per week.

Regional center investors pool capital with other qualified immigrants in a project sponsored by a designated regional center and file Form I-526E. Before any investor files Form I-526E, the regional center must have a properly filed or approved Form I-956F project application for that specific offering. Up to 90 percent of the 10 required full-time jobs can be met through indirect jobs created outside the commercial enterprise as a result of the investment.

Both Form I-526 and Form I-526E carry the initial investor petition filing fee shown in the table above. When submitting an initial Form I-526E, you must also pay the statutory EB-5 Integrity Fund fee shown in the table above. On September 30, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security published a final EB-5 Fee Rule in the Federal Register (effective November 30, 2026) that increased the Integrity Fund fee by 10 percent for CPI-U inflation from 2022 to 2025, and updated the EB-5 fee schedule following the November 12, 2025 federal court stay in Moody v. Noem. Always verify active form editions on USCIS Form G-1055 before filing.

Family green card costs: adjustment of status vs. consular processing

A single EB-5 investment covers the primary investor, spouse and unmarried children under age 21. You do not duplicate the business investment for dependent family members, and you file only one Form I-526 or Form I-526E petition and one Form I-829 petition for the household. However, at the permanent residence stage, each family member pays individual government processing fees.

If you and your qualifying family members reside lawfully in the United States and a visa number is immediately available on the Visa Bulletin, you can apply to adjust status on Form I-485, including filing concurrently with Form I-526 or Form I-526E:

• Form I-485 adjustment of status: Each applicant age 14 or older pays the adult adjustment filing fee in the table above. A child under age 14 pays the reduced child adjustment fee in the table above when filing Form I-485 concurrently with a parent.
• Optional work and travel authorization: Family members with a pending Form I-485 who want employment authorization pay the reduced pending-I-485 Form I-765 fee in the table above. Family members seeking Advance Parole travel permission pay the Form I-131 travel document fee in the table above.
• Form I-693 medical report: USCIS charges no filing fee to process Form I-693, though you pay the private civil surgeon who performs the examination.
• Consular processing outside the United States: If applying through a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad, each family member pays the Department of State immigrant visa application fee, followed by the USCIS Immigrant Fee in the table above for domestic Green Card issuance.

Worked example: USCIS fee totals by family size and filing path

To calculate your total government fees across the entire EB-5 timeline, add the specific filing fees from the table above for each stage of your case, from initial Form I-526E filing through Form I-829 condition removal:

• Single regional center investor adjusting status in the U.S.: Add the initial Form I-526E petition fee, the EB-5 Integrity Fund fee, one adult Form I-485 adjustment fee, and the Form I-829 petition fee from the table above.
• Family of four adjusting status in the U.S. (investor, spouse, child age 15, child age 10): Add the initial Form I-526E petition fee, the EB-5 Integrity Fund fee, three adult Form I-485 fees, one concurrent child Form I-485 fee, and the single household Form I-829 fee from the table above.
• Optional work and travel permits for that family of four: Add the reduced pending-adjustment Form I-765 employment authorization fee and the Form I-131 travel document fee from the table above for each family member requesting those cards.
• Family of four using consular processing abroad: Add the initial Form I-526E petition fee, the EB-5 Integrity Fund fee, four USCIS Immigrant Fees from the table above, and the single household Form I-829 fee from the table above, in addition to Department of State visa fees.

When you pay: the 3 payment stages and payment rules

You do not pay all EB-5 costs at once. Expenses occur across three main phases over several years, subject to lockbox payment rules.

• Stage 1 (Capital commitment and initial petition): You transfer your capital into the commercial enterprise or an approved escrow account, and submit Form I-526 or Form I-526E with its filing fee (plus the Integrity Fund fee for initial Form I-526E filings). If using escrow, release must be contingent only upon petition approval and either visa issuance or Form I-485 approval. For petitions filed on or after March 15, 2022, your capital must be expected to remain invested for at least 2 years from the date the full qualifying amount is placed at risk and made available to the job-creating entity.
• Stage 2 (Conditional permanent residence): Once an immigrant visa is immediately available, you file Form I-485 with individual adjustment fees, or complete consular processing abroad and pay the USCIS Immigrant Fee. Upon approval or admission, you and your derivatives receive 2-year conditional green cards.
• Stage 3 (Removal of conditions on Form I-829): During the 90 days immediately preceding the second anniversary of receiving conditional resident status, you file Form I-829 and pay the petition fee. Filing before the 90-day window opens leads to rejection. Failing to file within the window without good cause leads to termination of permanent resident status.
• Mandatory separate payment rule: Since September 1, 2022, USCIS rejects any filing package that combines fee payments for Form I-526 or Form I-526E with concurrent applications such as Form I-485, Form I-765 or Form I-131. You must provide a separate check or payment authorization form for every individual application.
• Accepted payment methods: USCIS never accepts cash. For mail submissions to a lockbox, pay by credit, debit or prepaid card using Form G-1450, or through ACH bank transfer from a U.S. financial institution using Form G-1650.

What counts as qualifying capital (and what costs do not count)

Every dollar of your required capital must be made available to the business operations creating the 10 qualifying jobs. USCIS draws clear distinctions between eligible at-risk capital and disallowed costs.

• Administrative and legal fees must be paid on top: Regional center administrative charges, syndication costs, management fees and legal retainers cannot erode the capital reaching the job-creating enterprise. You must fund these expenses separately on top of your minimum capital requirement.
• Personal residences do not qualify: EB-5 capital must flow into a for-profit commercial enterprise formed for the ongoing conduct of lawful business. USCIS explicitly excludes noncommercial activities, including purchasing or operating a personal home.
• Guaranteed returns and investor sell-back options are prohibited: Your capital must face genuine risk of loss and chance of gain. Contributions exchanged for debt instruments, guaranteed returns, or mandatory redemption rights exercisable by the investor do not qualify. Discretionary buy-back options held solely by the commercial enterprise are permitted.
• Gifts and loans require verified lawful source of funds: Gifted or borrowed assets are permitted if obtained in good faith and not from illegal proceeds. For borrowed capital, you must be personally and primarily liable, and the loan cannot be secured by assets of the commercial enterprise.
• Seven-year tax return rule: For petitions filed on or after May 14, 2022, you must document the lawful source of your investment capital and any funds used for administrative fees. Evidence must include personal tax returns filed during the past 7 years in any taxing jurisdiction, business financial records, court judgment records, and documentation identifying all individuals who transferred funds to the U.S. on your behalf.

What the officer checks at your EB-5 interview

Before granting conditional permanent residence at a consular post abroad or a domestic USCIS field office, an officer reviews your petition to confirm that your investment is genuine, your capital derived from lawful sources, and your project matches its approved plan. Officers focus on five primary areas:

• Lawful source of investment and administrative capital: The officer verifies that your spoken explanation aligns with the 7 years of tax returns, business filings, asset sales, gift instruments or loan contracts in your petition file.
• Complete path of funds: You must explain how money moved from your accounts into the U.S. enterprise or escrow account, including bank wire confirmations and the roles of any financial intermediaries.
• Commercial enterprise activities: You must be able to describe what the enterprise does, where it operates, and whether it qualifies through a rural TEA, high-unemployment TEA, infrastructure project or standard investment.
• Job creation methodology: Be prepared to confirm whether your petition creates jobs through direct W-2 employees (Form I-526) or econometric modeling of indirect employment (Form I-526E).
• Regional center standing: If your regional center was terminated or your project debarred, be ready to show whether you responded within 180 days to retain eligibility or reassociated under INA 203(b)(5)(M).

Practice example

How did you acquire the funds for your EB-5 investment and administrative costs, and how were those funds transferred to the new commercial enterprise?

A strong, honest answer walks the officer through the exact origin and path of both your investment capital and the separate funds used to pay administrative charges and filing fees. State the specific source clearly in two or three sentences, whether from employment earnings, business proceeds, real property sales, an inheritance, or a loan secured by your own personal assets. Name the dates and totals so they align with the 7 years of personal tax returns, business records, and transaction documents submitted in your Form I-526 or Form I-526E package. If relying on gifted or borrowed funds, explain your relationship to the donor or lender and verify that their lawful source of capital is fully documented. Trace each bank transfer step by step from your personal account into the commercial enterprise or escrow account, and have your wire transfer receipts, bank statements, and the identities of any remitting parties ready to present if requested.

The officer is verifying two core statutory requirements from the USCIS Policy Manual: that your capital and administrative funds originated from lawful sources backed by 7 years of tax filings, and that your path of funds connects directly to the U.S. enterprise without unexplained intermediaries.

This is interview practice, not legal advice. For questions about your own case, talk to an immigration attorney. Visaful is not affiliated with the U.S. government or the Department of State.