Start with the EB-5 eligibility and application overview
Reconcile currency and contribution
Trace lawful source, ownership, conversion and transfer path. Identify the actual amount and conditions rather than using an old exchange estimate as a receipt. Qualifying capital must meet the applicable at-risk requirements.
Retain the eligibility and residence conditions
Capital generally is US$1.05 million or US$800,000 for qualifying targeted employment area or infrastructure cases, with adjustments from January 1, 2027. At least ten qualifying full-time jobs per investor and management or policy-formulation participation remain required. Petition approval is not residence; I-829 generally follows in the 90 days before the second anniversary of conditional residence, without automatic removal or repayment. An eligible investor, spouse, and unmarried children under 21 receive two-year conditional permanent residence, with Form I-829 filed in the 90 days before the second anniversary.
Hypothetical example: a home builder converts savings in tranches
Hypothetical example: a Langford residential builder plans a regional-centre EB-5 investment at the US$800,000 targeted-employment-area level and holds the money in Canadian dollars. He converts it in three tranches over four months to average the rate. By the third transfer the dollar has moved against him and the subscription is short by a five-figure sum, so he tops it up from a business line of credit the same afternoon. What goes wrong is not the shortfall but the patch: the line of credit is a new source with its own lawful-source and path questions. If the US new commercial enterprise itself is the borrower and receives the loan, those proceeds are enterprise debt rather than capital invested by him. Loan proceeds that he lawfully obtains and contributes are evaluated as cash; current USCIS policy does not require investor-owned collateral or impose the former personal-and-primary-liability test, but the loan’s source, terms, drawdown and path must be documented from the start. The reviewer will ask why the amount changed and where the difference came from, and a tidy answer is easier to give before the wire than after it.
Which records fix the amount actually invested
The subscription agreement states the capital required; the foreign-exchange confirmations and the outgoing wire advices state what was actually delivered and on which dates; the escrow or enterprise account statements show receipt. Those three sets must reconcile to the cent, with the exchange rate on each transfer date, not the rate quoted when the plan was drawn. Keep the savings-account history that shows the Canadian dollars accumulating from salary, contract payments and the sale of a spec house, with the tax filings that report them. A shortfall made good from a second source needs the loan agreement, the security terms and the statement showing the drawdown. The capital must be at risk in the enterprise, at least ten full-time jobs for qualifying US workers must be attributable to the investor, and the investor must engage through management or policy formulation, which a limited-partner role in a regional-centre fund can satisfy.
Sequence the conversion around the filing
Confirm the project’s targeted-employment-area designation and the required amount in writing, convert and transfer the full sum, obtain the receipt, and only then file the petition; a filing on a partial investment must show the balance is actively in the process of being invested. If an immigrant visa number is immediately available and the investor is in the United States and otherwise eligible to adjust status, Form I-485 may be filed with Form I-526E. Residence, once granted, is conditional for two years, and the petition to remove conditions is filed in the ninety days before the second anniversary; approval of that petition does not return the money. Before any of that, the builder should fix the amount in a single written instruction to his bank, convert once if the budget allows, and accept a slightly higher Canadian-dollar cost rather than a cheaper transfer that arrives short. The exchange saving is small beside the cost of explaining a second source, and a petition that shows one clean movement of money is answered in a paragraph where a patched one needs an appendix.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.