EB-5 fees double for investors, but regional centers take the steepest increase

The fee to approve a new EB-5 project will rise from $17,795 to $42,675 on Nov. 30, one of the largest increases in a new fee schedule U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced on Sept. 29. Investor petition fees roughly double under the same rule. The heaviest percentage increases, however, fall on the regional centers that pool immigrant capital into U.S. projects.

USCIS said the schedule is meant to make EB-5 fees "recuperen completamente el costo de operación el programa," meet statutory processing-time goals and pay for integrity measures such as audits and job-site visits. The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 required the agency to conduct a program-specific fee study and set fees at full cost recovery. The rule finalizes a proposal the Department of Homeland Security published in October 2025. It applies to filings postmarked on or after the effective date, according to a Factum Immigration summary of the final rule.

For investors, the Form I-526 standalone petition rises from $3,675 to $7,615, and the initial I-526E regional-center petition rises from $3,675 to $7,850, according to the published fee table. Both figures include a new $75 technology fee. Regional-center investors also pay a separate EB-5 Integrity Fund fee, which rises from $1,000 to $1,100, so an initial I-526E filing will carry $8,950 in USCIS charges. The I-829 petition to remove conditions on residency rises from $3,750 to $5,000.

The sponsor side absorbs the larger increases. An initial Form I-956 regional-center designation rises from $17,795 to $44,115, an increase of 148 percent, and the I-956F project application rises 140 percent, according to Manifest Law. Annual Integrity Fund charges for regional centers rise 10 percent, to $11,000 for centers with 20 or fewer investors and $22,000 for larger ones. A new I-956K registration for direct and third-party promoters will cost $2,165. Two fees fall: an I-956 amendment drops from $17,795 to $9,835, and the I-956G annual statement drops from $3,035 to $2,165.

DHS explained that it assigned the cost of terminating and reaffirming regional centers to initial I-956 and I-956F filings rather than to amendments. The agency estimates that termination work costs about $4.8 million a year, Manifest Law reported. Almost all EB-5 investors file through regional centers, and Manifest noted that investors may end up sharing those higher costs.

The project fee was also shaped by forecasting. USCIS originally proposed setting the I-956F fee below $30,000 but finalized it above $40,000 after cutting projected annual receipts from 450 to 240, according to Suzanne Lazicki, an EB-5 business-plan writer who tracks the program. A smaller expected volume spreads the same program cost across fewer filers.

On the investor side, Lazicki argues that the forecasting runs the other way. She wrote that USCIS kept most investor fees relatively low partly because it projects 8,500 I-526E receipts a year, for a program with enough visas for fewer than 4,000 investors annually. In her view, the lower fee levels rest on volume assumptions that may prove optimistic.

USCIS puts EB-5 program costs at about $105 million a year for fiscal 2026 and 2027. At current fee levels, the program would bring in about $56.6 million, a shortfall of roughly $48.4 million, according to Manifest Law's reading of the rule.

The increases look steep partly because of how "current" is defined. On Nov. 12, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado stayed certain EB-5 fees from USCIS's 2024 general fee rule in Moody v. Noem. The court found that the 2022 reform law barred DHS from changing EB-5 fees through that rule, Manifest reported, and USCIS reverted to the fees in effect before April 1, 2024. Measured against the 2024 schedule, which charged $11,160 for an I-526 or I-526E and $47,695 for an initial I-956 or I-956F, those core petition and regional-center fees are lower. Several are also below the October 2025 proposal. DHS had proposed $9,625 for both investor petitions and $7,860 for the I-829.

The rule cites processing goals, but according to Lazicki it does not commit to specific timelines. Instead, the rule states that "DHS will continue to evaluate program performance and consider further regulatory or operational changes as needed to support timely adjudication." Recent adjudication data shows the challenge. In the April-to-June quarter, USCIS approved 687 regional-center I-526E petitions and denied 217, and it denied 80 of 97 pre-reform legacy I-526 petitions it decided, according to EB5Investors.com.

The fee rule is one of several pressures on the program. The grandfathering deadline for regional-center filings passed on Sept. 30, 2026, and the program is authorized only through Sept. 30, 2027. The rule does not change the minimum investment, which remains $1,050,000, or $800,000 for rural, high-unemployment or infrastructure projects. A separate DHS proposal from July 2026 would add a $1.4 million tier and tie investment amounts to inflation, Manifest reported; that proposal is not final.

A new Form I-527, for investors who filed before the 2022 law and must amend their petitions after a regional center is terminated or a project is barred, will cost $10,330. DHS had proposed $8,000.