Since 1990, foreign investors from Canada, China, and the Middle East have invested more than $6 billion in American business, been awarded 29000 United States Visa, and created thousands of US jobs via the EB-5 immigrant investor program. This EB-5 visa program allows foreign investors to get a green card and a way to get citizenship of the US when they invest in US job-creating projects.
To qualify for EB-5 visa project funding, businesses need to demonstrate that their business or project can create 10 new full-time jobs for United States workers per each invested $1 million or $500,000 if the business is in TEA. In the past few years, the program has gained popularity amongst US business owners because it allows them to get supplemental financing, and EB-5 capital can get more quickly and easily as compared to traditional bank or small business loans.
In the year 2014, for the first time in Immigrant Investor Program history, it has been found that more than 10,000 EB-5 visas were issued, which is a 25% increase from 2013. During the last few years of the program’s history, there has been $5 billion in direct investment and 85000 directly-created full-time jobs. This program becomes highly popular that it has been extended by Congress five times and is attracting interest from new countries like Brazil, Vietnam, and Russia. Here are some tips for business owners to secure their EB-5 funding.
Marketability is key.
With several EB-5 projects available, competition is high, and the best way to beat your competitor is to create a marketing campaign that creates trust, showcases security measures, checks out investor concerns, and appeals to regional interests as well. You can research and learn about your investors, and you will be able to create original and appealing marketing material to attract and win them over.
Transparency
Trust is highly important in the EB-5 game, and transparency is everything. Do not hesitate to ask about the potential risks your project includes. Are your building as well as zoning permits in place? Is your project for development secured, or will it depend on the EB-5 investors? Make sure you have done your homework properly so that you can get the chance to secure EB-5 investors.
Prepare for some
questions
Aside from the companies that will be vetting your project, you will get the toughest questions from those who matter – the investors. They want to know where their money is going, how their money is secured, whether there are any risks, and what can happen in the worst-case. Be prepared for all these questions and create the most secure project for yourself and EB-5 investors as well.
Consider an RC
A regional center is an organization that is designated by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services that sponsors capital investment projects to invest by EB-5 investors. Businesses have succeeded in EB-5 via their own projects and those hosted by RC. Licensing an RC or having your project hosted by an RC comes with a number of benefits. They assist investors as well as project developers because it becomes easier to meet the job creation qualifications of the EB-5 program.
Job buffer
Job creation is the main tenant of the EB-5 program in which ten jobs from the project must be allocated to each application. If you are seeking 10 investors, do not settle for ensuring 100 jobs. Rather, create 115 jobs. It is easy to create at least a 15 percent buffer, so if fewer jobs are created for any reason, your investors will not suffer by losing out on the jobs needed for their green card applications to be approved.
