EB-5 Visa and Miami Real Estate: What Investors Should Know

Start with the fact that most listings and sales pitches get wrong: buying a home does not qualify you for the EB-5 visa. Purchasing a Miami condo or house for personal use is not a qualifying EB-5 investment, and owning U.S. real estate confers no immigration status by itself. EB-5 requires an at-risk capital investment in a new commercial enterprise that creates at least 10 full-time jobs for qualifying U.S. workers [1][2]. A single-family home you live in creates no such jobs and is not a commercial enterprise, so it cannot support an EB-5 petition no matter how large the price tag.

That distinction matters because Miami attracts a steady flow of international buyers who are told, incorrectly, that a large property purchase is a path to a green card. It is not. Real estate can play a role in an EB-5 case, but only through a structured commercial development that meets the job-creation test, not through a residence you buy and hold. This post walks through what EB-5 actually requires, the current dollar thresholds, the petitions involved, where the country backlog stands, and how residential real estate does and does not fit.

Last updated: July 2026

What EB-5 actually requires

The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, administered by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, was created by Congress in 1990 to stimulate the economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign investors. The core requirement is straightforward to state and hard to satisfy casually: an investor must place the required amount of capital, at risk, into a new commercial enterprise that creates full-time positions for at least 10 qualifying employees [2]. Full-time means a position requiring a minimum of 35 working hours per week [2].

Every word there carries weight. "At risk" means the capital must be genuinely exposed to loss with no guaranteed return, so a loan secured against the investment or a fixed buy-back arrangement can disqualify it. "New commercial enterprise" means a for-profit business activity, not the passive ownership of a home. "Ten qualifying jobs" is the outcome the whole program is built around. If the money does not produce jobs, it does not produce a green card.

Why buying a Miami condo is not an EB-5 investment

This is the point I want international buyers to hear clearly before they wire anything. A personal residence is not a commercial enterprise, it is not at risk in the EB-5 sense, and it employs no one. You can buy a waterfront unit in Brickell or a house on Key Biscayne and pay all cash, and it will do nothing for an EB-5 petition. The same is true of buying a rental condo or two. Small-scale residential rental does not create the direct, full-time W-2 employment the program counts.

Where real estate legitimately intersects with EB-5 is on the development side. Many EB-5 projects are ground-up commercial or mixed-use developments, hotels, and multifamily buildings that hire construction crews and operating staff and can document the required jobs. In those cases the investor is buying an equity interest in the project entity, not a deed to a home. If someone frames a condo purchase as your EB-5 path, treat it as a signal to slow down and bring in a qualified immigration attorney.

The current investment thresholds

The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 reset the minimum investment amounts. As of July 2026 the standard minimum is $1,050,000, and the reduced minimum for a project in a targeted employment area, meaning a rural area or an area of high unemployment, is $800,000 [1]. Those figures are indexed for inflation, and the statute calls for the first adjustment to take effect on January 1, 2027, so budget with the expectation that the numbers can rise [1].

Those amounts are the capital at risk, and they sit on top of the real costs of an EB-5 case: regional center administrative fees, USCIS filing fees, legal fees, and securities and due-diligence work. Underwrite the whole stack, not just the headline number. And underwrite the downside honestly. Because the capital must be at risk, the project can underperform or fail. Investors have lost both the money and the immigration benefit when a project did not deliver the jobs. This is a business investment first and an immigration strategy second.

Regional centers, set-asides, and the petitions

Most EB-5 investors go through a regional center, a USCIS-designated entity that pools investor capital into larger projects and can count indirect and induced jobs, not only direct hires. The 2022 Act reauthorized the Regional Center Program and also created reserved visa categories, or set-asides: 20 percent of annual EB-5 visas for rural projects, 10 percent for high-unemployment areas, and 2 percent for infrastructure projects [1].

The petitions track the path. A direct investor files Form I-526, while a regional center investor files Form I-526E, and the I-526E cannot be filed until the regional center has filed its related project application and received a receipt from USCIS. If the petition is approved and the investor obtains conditional permanent residence, they later file Form I-829 to remove the conditions once the investment and job creation are sustained and documented [1]. Approval at the I-526 or I-526E stage is not the finish line; the I-829 is where the jobs actually have to exist.

Where the country backlog stands

EB-5 is subject to per-country limits, and that is where an investor's country of chargeability changes the timeline. In the July 2026 Visa Bulletin, the unreserved EB-5 category for China advanced to a final action date of December 1, 2016, and the unreserved category for India became unavailable for the remainder of the fiscal year after heavy demand [3]. At the same time, all three reserved set-aside categories, rural, high-unemployment, and infrastructure, remained current for every country [3].

The practical read for investors born in high-demand countries is that a set-aside project can offer visa availability that the unreserved category cannot, which is a large part of why the reserved categories were created. Country of birth, not citizenship or where you live, usually drives chargeability, so two investors putting in identical capital can face very different waits. Confirm your own category and priority date against the current Visa Bulletin before you build a timeline around it.

How real estate does and does not fit

So where does a Miami real estate agent fit into an EB-5 conversation? Honestly, at the edges. If you are pursuing EB-5 through a regional center project, that is a securities transaction handled by the project sponsor and your immigration and securities counsel, not a home purchase I would broker. What I can help with is the part EB-5 does not cover: once you or your family have lawful status through the proper channel, buying a home to live in is a normal real estate transaction, and I am glad to walk that with you.

Just keep the two lanes separate. The green card comes from a qualifying at-risk investment that creates jobs. The house comes later, or independently, and does not affect immigration status either way. If you want to talk through the residential side of a relocation, a buyer consultation is the place to start, and I will point you to immigration counsel for the EB-5 side.

E-2 and B-1/B-2 are different tools

It helps to know what EB-5 is not. The E-2 treaty investor visa lets nationals of certain treaty countries invest in and actively run a U.S. business, but it is a nonimmigrant visa that does not lead directly to a green card, and it is not available to nationals of countries without a qualifying treaty. The B-1/B-2 visa covers temporary business and tourist visits and carries no investment component and no path to residence. None of these, and no amount of real estate ownership, gives you permanent resident status on their own. Match the tool to the goal with a qualified attorney rather than assuming a property purchase substitutes for any of them.

Frequently asked questions

Does buying a house in Miami qualify me for the EB-5 visa? No. A personal residence is not a new commercial enterprise, the capital is not at risk in the EB-5 sense, and it creates no qualifying jobs. EB-5 requires an at-risk investment in a job-creating business [2].

How much do I have to invest for EB-5 as of July 2026? The standard minimum is $1,050,000, and $800,000 for a project in a targeted employment area, with the first inflation adjustment set for January 1, 2027 [1]. Fees and legal costs are additional.

Can real estate ever be part of an EB-5 investment? Yes, but through a commercial development that creates the required jobs, where you hold an equity interest in the project entity. Buying a home or a small rental for yourself does not count.

Does owning U.S. real estate give me any immigration status? No. Property ownership confers no visa, no residency, and no path to a green card. Immigration status comes only through an immigration benefit you separately qualify for.

How long does EB-5 take? It depends heavily on your country of birth. In the July 2026 Visa Bulletin, unreserved EB-5 for India was unavailable and China sat at a 2016 final action date, while the set-aside categories were current for all countries [3]. Confirm your own priority date with counsel.

Gabriel

Sources

This article is general information and not legal advice. EB-5 is a complex program with securities and immigration consequences, and you should retain a qualified immigration attorney before acting.

Gabriel A. Moyers, PA. eXp Realty. Florida License #3407280. Equal Housing Opportunity. This article is general information as of July 2026 and is not legal, tax, or financial advice. Verify current figures against authoritative sources before acting.