The four dates that matter
- 30 Sep 2026
- Grandfathering cutoff. Petitions filed on or before this date keep processing even if the programme lapses.
- 1 Jan 2027
- Automatic inflation adjustment to the minimum investment. Statutory, every five years. No figure published yet.
- 30 Sep 2027
- Regional Center authorisation expires. Petitions filed between the two dates are valid but unprotected.
- 2 Jul 2026
- DHS proposed rule published — would add a $1.4m tier and tighten job-creation rules. Comments closed 31 Aug 2026.
What the statute actually says
Most coverage of this deadline is vague about what is being protected. The text is not vague. 8 U.S.C. §1153(b)(5)(S) requires that USCIS:
“…shall continue processing petitions … based on an investment in a new commercial enterprise associated with a regional center that were filed on or before September 30, 2026“
The cross-references cover both the I-526/I-526E petition and the I-829 removal of conditions. So the protection follows an investor all the way through, not just to the first approval.
Note the statutory word is “filed”. You will see “properly filed” in law-firm commentary — that is practitioner gloss, and a reasonable one, because a defective filing that USCIS rejects was never filed. But if you are quoting the statute, quote “filed.”
The one-year gap nobody explains
Here is the part that actually decides whether you should move.
The Regional Center programme is authorised only through 30 September 2027 — INA §203(b)(5)(E)(i) says visas “shall be made available through September 30, 2027.” Congress has reauthorised this programme before and may well do so again. But between 1 October 2026 and 30 September 2027 there is a twelve-month window in which you can still file a regional-centre petition, and it is legally valid but carries no lapse protection.
In other words: filing in, say, March 2027 is not illegal or futile. It just means that if Congress lets the authorisation expire in September 2027 — as it did for a period in 2021 — your petition sits in limbo, while a petition filed in September 2026 continues to be processed. That is the entire practical value of this deadline, and it is why the next five weeks matter.
What it costs — and why it is about to cost more, twice
There are two statutory amounts, not three. This trips up a lot of guides:
| Route | Minimum | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | $1,050,000 | 8 U.S.C. §1153(b)(5)(C)(i) |
| Targeted Employment Area or infrastructure project | $800,000 | 8 U.S.C. §1153(b)(5)(C)(ii) |
A Targeted Employment Area is statutorily defined as “a rural area or an area of high unemployment.” So rural, high-unemployment and infrastructure are all the same $800,000 figure — they are not three separate price tiers, whatever the brochure says.
Two increases are now in view:
1. The automatic adjustment on 1 January 2027. §1153(b)(5)(C)(iii) requires the standard amount to adjust for cumulative CPI-U change beginning 1 January 2027 and every five years after. The TEA figure is then set at 75% of the adjusted standard amount, both rounded down to the nearest $50,000. No official figure has been published. Industry estimates cluster around $1.2m standard and $900,000–$975,000 TEA, but those are projections, not announcements. Treat any advisor quoting a precise 2027 number as guessing.
2. The proposed $1.4m tier. DHS published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on 2 July 2026 (RIN 1615-AC94) which would create a new $1,400,000 threshold for “High Employment Areas” — places with unemployment at or below a designated threshold. TEA and infrastructure would stay at $800,000. The comment period closed on 31 August 2026. The same rule would define full-time employment as 35 hours a week or more, eliminate job-sharing, eliminate the troubled-business pathway, tighten indirect job-creation methodologies, and — helpfully — allow priority date retention where a regional centre is terminated or debarred.
The rule does not move the September 2026 deadline. It cannot: that date is statutory and only Congress can change it.
Where your country stands right now
From the August 2026 Visa Bulletin. This is where a lot of investors misjudge their position:
| Category | Rest of world | China | India |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unreserved (Final Action) | Current | 1 Dec 2016 | Unavailable |
| Rural set-aside (20%) | Current | Current | Current |
| High-unemployment set-aside (10%) | Current | Current | Current |
| Infrastructure set-aside (2%) | Current | Current | Current |
For Indian investors this is the whole story. The unreserved category is not merely backlogged — it is unavailable, meaning the FY2026 allocation is exhausted. It is expected to reopen on 1 October 2026 with the new fiscal year. Meanwhile all three set-asides remain current for India. An Indian investor who structures into a rural or high-unemployment project at $800,000 faces no queue today; one who goes unreserved at $1,050,000 faces an indefinite one. That is a rare situation where the cheaper option is also the faster one.
For Chinese investors, the unreserved final action date has not moved from 1 December 2016. The set-asides are current there too, and for the same reason are the only realistic route.
The rules on your money
Two requirements decide whether the petition works at all:
- Ten jobs. §1153(b)(5)(A)(ii) requires the investment to create full-time employment for not fewer than ten qualifying employees.
- Two years of sustainment. §1153(b)(5)(A)(i) requires capital to remain invested “not less than 2 years.” This replaced the old construct of keeping capital at risk throughout conditional residence.
Who should actually move before 30 September
Being direct, because five weeks is not long:
Move now if: you have already selected a project and completed diligence; your source-of-funds documentation is substantially assembled; you are Indian or Chinese and targeting a set-aside; or you were going to file within the next six months anyway. In all of those cases the grandfathering is free protection and there is no reason to give it up.
Do not rush if: you have not chosen a project. Filing a weak petition to catch a date is a bad trade — a rejected filing is not a filing, and you will have paid for the privilege. The 2027 window still exists, it simply carries lapse risk. Choosing the wrong regional centre is a larger, more permanent risk than the one this deadline protects against.
Reconsider EB-5 entirely if: your actual goal is mobility rather than US residence specifically. At $800,000 minimum, ten jobs, multi-year processing and a live sunset, EB-5 is a serious commitment to the United States. If you want optionality, the comparison set is different — see our guides on the cheapest second passports and how citizenship by investment works.
What about the Gold Card?
Worth addressing because clients keep asking. The US “Gold Card” launched in December 2025 at $1,000,000 plus a $15,000 non-refundable processing fee, administered by the Department of Commerce rather than USCIS, with no job-creation requirement. A $2m corporate tier exists and a $5m “Platinum” tier remains waiting-list only pending Congressional authorisation.
Uptake has been weak — CNBC reported in May 2026 that it had failed to catch on among wealthy applicants, and no credible application count has ever been published. The programme is also subject to a FOIA lawsuit filed on 13 April 2026 over refusal to release documents. It is not currently a serious alternative to EB-5, and we would not advise structuring around it.
Questions people actually ask
Does the 30 September 2026 deadline mean EB-5 ends?
No. It is a grandfathering cutoff, not a programme end date. Petitions filed on or before 30 September 2026 gain statutory protection against a future lapse of the Regional Center programme. The programme itself remains authorised through 30 September 2027, and direct (non-regional-centre) EB-5 is not affected by either date.
What happens if I file on 1 October 2026?
Your petition is valid and will be processed normally. What you lose is the statutory protection at INA §203(b)(5)(S). If Congress allows the Regional Center authorisation to expire on 30 September 2027 without reauthorising it, petitions filed after the grandfathering cutoff have no guarantee that processing continues.
Is the EB-5 minimum investment going up in 2027?
Yes, automatically. 8 U.S.C. §1153(b)(5)(C)(iii) requires an inflation adjustment beginning 1 January 2027 and every five years thereafter, based on cumulative CPI-U change. No official figure has been published. Separately, a DHS proposed rule published on 2 July 2026 would add a $1,400,000 tier for High Employment Areas, leaving the $800,000 targeted employment area amount unchanged.
Can Indian investors still get an EB-5 visa in 2026?
Through the set-aside categories, yes. On the August 2026 Visa Bulletin the unreserved category for India is marked Unavailable, meaning the fiscal-year allocation is exhausted; it is expected to reopen on 1 October 2026. However the rural, high-unemployment and infrastructure set-asides all remain current for India, so an investor structuring into a qualifying $800,000 project faces no visa queue at present.
What is the EB-5 minimum investment in 2026?
There are two statutory amounts: $1,050,000 standard, and $800,000 for an investment in a Targeted Employment Area or an infrastructure project. A Targeted Employment Area is defined as a rural area or an area of high unemployment, so rural, high-unemployment and infrastructure investments all share the same $800,000 minimum rather than forming three separate price tiers. Both figures are set by 8 U.S.C. §1153(b)(5)(C) and are due for automatic inflation adjustment from 1 January 2027.
How long does an I-526E petition take to process?
We are not going to quote a number, because no current, reliable figure exists. Published third-party estimates for 2026 range from about 11 months to over 60 months depending on category and data vintage, and USCIS’s own processing-times tool does not publish a stable figure we can cite. What is consistently true is that rural set-aside petitions are adjudicated materially faster than unreserved ones, because of the statutory priority-processing requirement. Ask your attorney for their own recent case data rather than relying on any published average.
Sources
- 8 U.S.C. §1153(b)(5) — investment amounts, grandfathering at (S), sunset at (E)(i), job creation and sustainment
- US Department of State — Visa Bulletin, August 2026
- DHS Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 2 July 2026, RIN 1615-AC94
- H.R. 6992, 119th Congress
This is general information about immigration law, not legal advice, and we are not attorneys. EB-5 petitions should be prepared with a licensed US immigration lawyer. Figures verified 23 August 2026.