Travel expenses and the instructed gift are separate financial commitments.
Keep the budget explicit
The published processing and gift requirements are not satisfied by buying flights or accommodation. Nonrefundable travel spending cannot guarantee admission or an immigration decision. The nonrefundable processing charge is US$15,000 per person; after vetting when instructed, the principal gift is US$1 million individually or US$2 million corporately. Family additions and continuing corporate conditions are separate.
The published framework contains two distinct financial elements and they should never be collapsed into a single figure, because a gift and a fee differ in nature and possibly in treatment. Track professional and document expenses separately, because a family promise cannot create a government refund or settle a private repayment dispute. Keep commercial advice, optional document work, government charges, and the required payment in separate categories so a later question can be answered from records. Local costs differ in practice — currency conversion, Canadian professional fees, travel — but those are your expenses, not different program pricing. Obtain independent financial and tax advice, since a gift under this framework is not structured to produce an investment return, and neither this framework nor EB-5 carries an approval guarantee. Before converting currency or liquidating an asset, consider the financial consequence if an official payment is delayed, unavailable, or nonrefundable.