The U.S. State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that they have issued all legally available visas in the unreserved EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program categories for Fiscal Year 2024. Embassies and consulates have been directed to not issue immigrant visas in these categories until the new fiscal year (FY 2025) starts on Oct. 1, 2024.
As discussed in our recent blog post on EB-5 filing strategies, a total of approximately 140,000 immigrant visas are available every fiscal year for employment-based immigrant visas, including the EB-1, EB-2, EB-3, EB-4, and EB-5 categories. Of the 140,000 immigrant visas available annually, the government allocates approximately 10,000 to the EB-5 investor visa program. The visas are also subject to per-country visa quotas. The Immigration and Nationality Act sets the annual limit for EB-5 visas at 7.1% of the worldwide employment limit, of which 68% is available for unreserved visa categories (C5, T5, I5, R5, RU, NU). Additionally, the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 makes unused EB-5 reserved visas from FY 2022 available in the EB-5 unreserved categories for FY 2024.
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