EB-5 NPRM: What DHS Proposed, and What Has Not Changed

DHS published an EB-5 NPRM (91 FR 40676). Comments run through Aug. 31, 2026. Proposed is not final and does not change today's filing rules.

DHS has a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking out on EB-5; comments run through August 31, 2026, and a proposed rule is not final law and does not by itself change today's filing rules.

What an NPRM is

An NPRM is a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. It is the federal government's draft of a regulation, published so the public can read it and comment before the agency decides whether to issue a final rule. It is not a statute. It is not a filing deadline. It is not the rule that USCIS applies to petitions today. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, agencies generally publish a proposed rule, take written comments, review those comments, and only later may publish a final rule. Until a final rule is issued and takes effect, the proposal remains a proposal. On July 2, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), published an NPRM on the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program. The citation is 91 FR 40676. The docket is DHS Docket No. USCIS-2026-0100. The document number is 2026-13392. The RIN is 1615-AC94. The official title is EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022; Ensuring the Integrity of the EB-5 Program; Automatic Revocation of Petitions for Immigrant Classification.

What DHS actually published

The NPRM would rewrite EB-5 regulations in 8 CFR Parts 204, 205, 216, and 235. DHS says the purpose is to implement the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 (RIA), which the President signed on March 15, 2022. Much of the text would put into regulation requirements that already exist in the statute, or that USCIS has been applying through the Policy Manual and Forms I-956, I-956F, I-526, and I-526E. Other pieces are new regulatory choices on which DHS is asking for comment. In the executive summary, DHS lists major proposed revisions, including: - Clarifying eligibility, including capital amounts, duration of investment, job creation, and evidence - Determining targeted employment areas (TEAs) - Defining infrastructure projects - Describing regional center designation, project applications, redeployment, and bona fides - Establishing enforcement tools, including monetary penalties, suspensions, debarments, and terminations - Implementing audits and promoter registration - Eliminating repaid bridge financing as a basis to demonstrate job creation - Removing troubled businesses as an avenue to establish eligibility Those bullets describe a proposal. They do not describe today's filing rules.

What is proposed for TEAs

A targeted employment area is a rural area or an area DHS designates as high unemployment. Under the RIA, investment in a TEA (or in a qualifying infrastructure project) is eligible for the reduced $800,000 minimum. The standard minimum is $1,050,000. The NPRM would codify those statutory amounts. The INA already reserves 20 percent of EB-5 visas each year for rural-area investment and 10 percent for high-unemployment-area investment. The NPRM restates those set-asides. Unused reserved visas are held in the same category for one additional fiscal year, then released to unreserved EB-5 numbers in the third year. Rural. DHS proposes to define a rural area as any area that is both outside a standard metropolitan statistical area designated by OMB and outside the boundary of any city or town with a population of 20,000 or more, based on the most recent decennial census. A regional center or standalone investor would submit a map and population counts. Regional center investors would generally rely on the associated project application rather than separately proving the rural map. High unemployment. The RIA already moved TEA designation from state agencies to DHS. The NPRM would put that into regulation. USCIS would designate a high-unemployment area when it adjudicates a regional center's project application or a standalone investor's petition. The area may be the census tract or contiguous tracts where the new commercial enterprise is principally doing business, or those tracts plus any or all directly adjacent tracts, if the weighted average unemployment rate is at least 150 percent of the national average. DHS is specifically seeking comments on the high-unemployment designation process, including data sources for the weighted average and how a regional center should renew a prior designation. High employment (a different concept). The NPRM also proposes a third investment tier: $1,400,000 for a "high employment area" — a census tract in an MSA that is not a TEA and that is experiencing unemployment significantly below the national average. USCIS's current public table of investment amounts still lists the high-employment-area amount as N/A for petitions filed on or after March 15, 2022. The $1.4 million figure is a proposal, not current law. Readers considering a rural TEA path should read these TEA sections with independent counsel. Rural qualification, high-unemployment mapping, and any high-employment overlay are fact-specific.

What is proposed for the infrastructure set-aside

The INA already reserves 2 percent of EB-5 visas each year for qualifying infrastructure projects and allows the $800,000 reduced amount for those projects. The NPRM would carry the statutory definition into the regulations. DHS quotes the statute: an infrastructure project is a capital investment project in a designated regional center's filed or approved project application, administered by a governmental entity (the NPRM would expressly include a tribal agency or authority) that is the job-creating entity contracting with a regional center or new commercial enterprise, as financing for maintaining, improving, or constructing a public works project. Two limits in the proposal matter: - Only DHS may determine whether a project qualifies as infrastructure. USCIS would make that determination when it adjudicates the regional center's project application. - A standalone investor is not eligible for an infrastructure reserved visa. The statutory definition requires a governmental job-creating entity contracting under the Regional Center Program. DHS is specifically seeking comments on the types of projects that may meet the infrastructure definition. The NPRM lists sectors it generally expects — aviation, broadband, drinking water, electricity transmission, energy production, pipelines, ports, stormwater and sewer, surface transportation, and water resources — but it also says any sector whose utility to the public can be established may qualify. Two phrases in the definition, "administered by" and "public works project," are where comments are likely to concentrate. The NPRM would also restrict disclosure of critical project specifics to a regional center investor unless the government agency administering the project explicitly authorizes that disclosure. Visa supply for this category remains small. The NPRM restates the statutory 2 percent reservation (it cites approximately 198 visas in a typical year). How many projects actually qualify is a separate question from how many visas Congress reserved.

What is proposed for regional-center oversight

The RIA already rebuilt regional-center oversight: designation on Form I-956, project applications on Form I-956F, annual statements on Form I-956G, Integrity Fund fees, bona fides filings, promoter registration, and audits at least once every five years. USCIS has been administering those statutory tools through forms and the Policy Manual. The NPRM would put that framework into 8 CFR. DHS's summary of proposed regional-center provisions includes designation, project applications, redeployment of investor capital, bona fides of persons involved with the program, registration of direct and third-party promoters, audits, and enforcement — monetary penalties, suspensions, debarments, and terminations. DHS is specifically seeking comments on: - Audits and a regional center's record-keeping requirements - Redeployment of investor capital, including how a regional center should document compliance - The process for registering direct and third-party promoters DHS also proposes that the rule would apply prospectively to petitions and applications filed on or after the final rule's effective date, with listed exceptions. One of those exceptions is that all regional centers, including those designated before the RIA, must establish eligibility to participate in the reformed program and remain subject to continuing-participation requirements. Oversight of a regional center is not the same as due diligence on a specific project. How to evaluate offering documents, job-creation methodology, and capital path is a separate exercise. See How to evaluate an EB-5 project.

What is not changing today

A proposed rule does not, by itself, change today's filing rules. Until DHS publishes a final rule and that rule takes effect, investors, regional centers, and projects are still operating under the RIA, existing regulations, the USCIS Policy Manual, and current forms. The NPRM's DATES section sets a comment deadline. It does not set a new petition-filing deadline. Concrete items that remain current law, not NPRM inventions: - Investment amounts now in force. For petitions filed on or after March 15, 2022, USCIS still publishes $1,050,000 as the standard minimum and $800,000 for a TEA or infrastructure project. The high-employment-area cell on that table remains N/A. - Set-asides. Rural 20 percent, high unemployment 10 percent, infrastructure 2 percent are in the INA now. - Statutory inflation adjustment. The RIA already provides for automatic CPI-U adjustments beginning January 1, 2027, and every five years thereafter. The NPRM would codify that calendar. It does not create it. - Regional Center Program sunset. Authorization through September 30, 2027, is in the RIA, not in this NPRM. See The 2027 EB-5 reauthorization deadline. DHS proposes that, if a final rule is issued, it would generally apply to petitions and applications filed on or after that final rule's effective date. Proposed regulatory text uses a placeholder of 60 days after publication of a final rule for certain new amounts. That is a drafting placeholder inside a proposal. It is not a date on the calendar, and it is not a reason to treat August 31 as a filing cutoff. Do not treat a proposed rule as a filing deadline. Visa availability is a different calendar; check the Visa Bulletin for that.

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