It’s an $800K Green Card fast lane, but is it closing?
For Indian nationals hoping to build a life in the U.S., the wait for an employment-based Green Card can stretch a decade or more. That’s left hundreds of thousands of engineers, doctors, and researchers stuck in line.
Many of them are giving back to their communities, and in doing so opening up a faster path to a Green Card through a category called the EB-5. The price tag is steep—it can cost at least $800,000. But as this article from Manifest Law explains, it may be better than waiting for those who can afford it.
The EB-5 visa program has been around since 1990. Here’s the concept: Invest a set amount of money in a U.S. business that creates American jobs, and earn a Green Card.
The standard minimum is $1,050,000, but in rural areas or high-unemployment communities, that drops to $800,000. Most investors participate through regional centers. These are pooled investment funds that channel money into qualifying projects like real estate or infrastructure, rather than requiring each investor to start a business from scratch.
Key takeaways
- Indian professionals already living in the U.S. are using the EB-5 investor visa to get a Green Card without waiting in the employment-based backlog.
- More than half of Indian EB-5 recipients in fiscal year 2024 got their Green Card without leaving the U.S.
- The State Department’s May 2026 Visa Bulletin warns that the line for EB-5 visas may slow down or close before September.
What changed with the EB-5 program in 2022
In March 2022, Congress passed a $1.5 trillion spending bill. Buried inside it was a rewrite of the EB-5 program. It had been dormant for nine months, was used almost exclusively by wealthy Chinese investors, and needed stronger guardrails against fraud risk.
The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act made three changes:
- It set aside reserved visas for investments in rural areas (20%), high-unemployment urban areas (10%), and infrastructure projects (2%).
- It allowed investors already living in the U.S. to apply for a Green Card and an immigrant investor petition at the same time, rather than waiting for one to be approved first.
- It reauthorized the program through Sept. 30, 2027.
So aside from offering a faster path to a Green Card, the reserved tracks direct capital into places that often struggle to attract it. To qualify for these tracks, an investor’s money has to fund a project in a community that meets a specific criteria: areas outside major cities, or neighborhoods where unemployment runs well above the national average. That means real estate development, manufacturing, or infrastructure projects in places that might not see that investment otherwise.
Why Indian nationals face a 10-year Green Card wait
The U.S. gives out a limited number of employment-based Green Cards each year. It also caps how many can go to any single country.
Demand for Green Cards from Indian nationals far exceeds what the cap allows. At the end of fiscal year 2025, 481,857 approved Indian employment-based petitions were sitting in a queue. These are cases where the government has already said yes, but people are still waiting for a visa number. Many applicants face waits of 10 years or more.
In response, some Indian nationals are taking out their checkbooks.
“For many clients, especially those already in the U.S., it’s about control and certainty,” said Patrick Duckett, an immigration lawyer co-counsel to Manifest Law who has worked on EB-5 cases for a decade. “They’re moving away from employer-sponsored dependency toward a self-directed immigration path.”
Indian EB-5 filings have grown 160% in two years
Regional center investor filings (the application that starts the EB-5 process) grew from 2,431 in fiscal year 2023 to 4,567 in 2024 to 6,307 in 2025. That’s 160% growth in two years, for a Green Card that requires a sum of at least $800,000.
The more revealing data is who’s filing:
For China and Vietnam, the two biggest recipients of EB-5, the visa is mostly doing what it’s designed to do: moving foreign capital into the United States. For India, something different is happening.
More than half of Indian EB-5 recipients in fiscal year 2024 were already living in the U.S. when they got their Green Card. Instead of investing their way in, they invested their way out of other visa paths.
“A significant portion of Indian EB-5 investors are already in the U.S. and many are using EB-5 as a way to break out of the long employment-based visa backlogs,” Duckett said. “The ability to concurrently file adjustment of status under the Reform Act has been a major driver. It gives them work authorization and travel flexibility relatively quickly, which is a huge advantage.”
Will the EB-5 Reserved visa categories run out before September 2026?
The EB-5 has two lanes: a general pool open to everyone, and reserved tracks for investments in rural and high-unemployment areas. The general lane already has a wait for China and India. The reserved lanes are current, meaning that applicants in these categories can file their petition and apply for their Green Card as soon as they’re ready.
The table below shows where things stand in the latest Visa Bulletin, which is issued every month with updated timelines.
EB-5 Final Action Dates: May 2026
The State Department included a warning in this bulletin: Demand from India “may make it necessary to retrogress the final action date or make the category unavailable” before the fiscal year ends. In other words, so many people are using the unreserved EB-5 lane that the government may have to slow it down or shut it off before September, something that happened last year too.
In addition, the EB-5 program will expire on Sept. 30, 2027, if Congress declines to fund it ahead of that date. It has lapsed before, back in 2021.
“I’m advising clients not to wait,” Duckett said. “If you file before the program sunsets, you’re generally protected even if there’s a lapse later. But that protection only applies once you’re in the system.”
This story was produced by Manifest Law and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
