Business
Last Date for EB-5 Visa Application Extended by Two Months
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The EB-5 visa category requires the applicant to make a one-time minimum investment of $500,000 in a new business that creates 10 or more jobs for Americans.
The last date of applying for the EB-5 visa to the United States has been extended by over two months. People seeking the visa, which carries a current minimum investment requirement of $500,000, can now apply till Dec.7. The investment limit is expected to be increased in the next session.
U.S. President Donald Trump signed a “Spending Bill” on Sept. 28, which carries the provision of the deadline extension for the EB-5 visa, the Times of India reported. The visa scheme, which was already under extension, was slated to expire on Sept. 30. But the U.S. government has extended it after the mid-term elections in the country.
The EB-5 visa is an employment-based fifth preference category visa. It can help high net-worth individuals (HNIs) to obtain the green card for permanent residency in the United States for themselves and their immediate family through a one-time minimum investment of $500,000 into a new business that creates 10 or more jobs for Americans.
This visa category was started in 1990 to attract capital investment in the country, and also create jobs in the United States. The minimum investment limit for visa applicants has been half a million dollars since then.
However, last month American Congressman Aaron Schock, who is the chief sponsor of EB-5 Reauthorization Bill 2012, said that this minimum investment limit can be increased between $1 million and $1.3 million, as per an earlier report of PTI.
The government is looking at introducing the changes but they may come only after December 2018, Schock had said at the time.
Investor services firms fear that the increase in the minimum limit would reduce the number of Indians applying for this visa.
Under the EB-5 visa program, the U.S. government allocates up to 10,000 visas annually to foreign nationals, with a per country cap of seven percent. If the quota for a country remains unfulfilled, the unused visas can be allotted to other countries. India is the third highest filer under this program, superseded only by China and Vietnam.
