The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) lists 572 approved EB-5 Immigrant Investor Regional Centers on its official registry, updated as of 26 October 2026, reflecting a consolidated landscape that has contracted from a peak of roughly 900 centres a decade ago.
Regional centres allow foreign investors to pool capital into US-based projects. Under the EB-5 programme, qualifying investments must create at least 10 full-time jobs for American workers. A key advantage of the regional centre route is that indirect and induced jobs not just direct hires count toward that threshold, making compliance easier to achieve.
The minimum investment stands at $800,000 for projects in a Targeted Employment Area (TEA), which covers rural locations and high-unemployment zones, or $1,050,000 for projects outside a TEA. Those thresholds are set to be adjusted for inflation in January 2027, with industry analysts projecting the TEA floor could rise to around $900,000.
For Indian applicants, the programme has taken on heightened relevance as an alternative to the years-long queues in employment-based visa categories such as EB-2 and EB-3. However, the US Department of State confirmed that, as of 5 June 2026, all available EB-5 unreserved visas for India were exhausted for fiscal year 2026, with no further unreserved visas issuable until the new fiscal year began on 1 October 2026. The suspension covered categories C5, T5, I5, R5, RU and NU.
The set-aside categories Rural, High Unemployment Area and Infrastructure were unaffected and remained current for Indian applicants throughout the period, pointing investors toward TEA-designated rural projects as the more navigable path. Processing times for I-526E petitions in set-aside categories are broadly cited at 12 to 18 months, compared with 18 to 36 months for unreserved filings.
The decline from roughly 900 centres to around 572 stems from USCIS termination actions, voluntary withdrawals, and the attrition of centres that did not re-apply under the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022, which introduced mandatory background checks for principals, third-party fund administrators, and expanded fraud penalties.
Source : USCIS
