The United States State Department announced in the May 2015 Visa Bulletin that conditional resident status based on the EB-5 immigrant investor visa is currently available only to individuals born in China whose I-526 immigrant petitions were received on or before May 1, 2013. EB-5 remains immediately available to immigrants born in all other countries. Further, this backlog does not impact pending I-526 and I-829 petitions, regardless of country of birth.
The fiscal year begins on October 1. According to the State Department’s Visa Control and Reporting Division Chief, 2,525 EB-5 visas remain available this fiscal year to people born in all countries other than China. China has already used 6,819 or 88.56% of the EB-5 allotment for this fiscal year. Vietnam is the second largest user this year, with a mere 244 EB-5 visas, followed by Taiwan, India and South Korea. The State Department anticipates that the other countries will not use up all of the remaining EB-5 visas and estimates about 1,000 more EB-5 visas will be released to immigrants from China before the current fiscal year ends on September 30, 2015.
EB-5 immigrants from all countries can continue to file and obtain approval of I-526 immigrant petitions. In fact, filing the I-526 as early as possible is more important than ever, since it is the I-526 receipt, also known as the priority date, that is ultimately used for quota purposes. Approximately 10,000 new EB-5 visas will become available on October 1, 2015, when the new fiscal year begins.
For more information, check out the May 2015 Visa Bulletin.
