Start with the EB-5 eligibility and application overview
Fix the capital amount to the current threshold
Under the Reform and Integrity Act of 2022, the standard amount is $1,050,000, reduced to $800,000 for a targeted employment area or infrastructure project; verify the current figures before committing. A rural processing site may qualify as a targeted employment area, but that designation is determined on the petition evidence, not assumed. Invest the full amount into the new commercial enterprise, not into a personal loan to the son.
Trace the farm sale as the source of funds
The lawful-source requirement is satisfied by documents: the original farm purchase or inheritance records, the recent sale agreement and closing statement, the deposit into the couple's account, tax returns reporting the gain, and the transfers from that account to the enterprise. Every hop must be shown. Money that passed through a family holding company needs that company's records too.
Count jobs the direct way
A direct investment counts only full-time positions on the enterprise's own payroll held by qualifying US workers; the son's position does not count, and neither do the investors' own roles. The business plan must credibly show ten such positions within the required period. Existing jobs at the start-up count only in the specific circumstances the rules allow for troubled businesses or expansion.
Define the investors' engagement and keep the family apart
The investors must be engaged in management or policy formulation. Positions as directors or members with voting rights on major decisions satisfy this; a purely passive loan does not. The operating agreement should record those rights, and the investors should plan for two years of conditional residence and the I-829 petition that follows. The son's employment is a fact about the business, not a reason for approval: present the enterprise on its own merits, with market evidence and a hiring schedule, and present the investors' involvement through their governance rights rather than through family motives.
From petition to conditional residence to removal of conditions
How they may be counted depends on the structure: a directly operated enterprise generally relies on actual employees, while a regional-center investment may use permitted indirect methods based on economic modelling. Avoid importing an indirect-job methodology into a direct-investment case, or treating jobs described in a marketing deck as already created. Keep one dated list of events with their sources, because the two calendars merge by accident easily: subscription signed, funds transferred, petition filed, petition approved, admission or adjustment, conditional residence beginning, and the filing window before its second anniversary. An enterprise’s option to buy back the interest solely at its own discretion has a statutory exception, subject to sustainment and the other governing conditions; it is not an investor repayment entitlement. The conditions-removal petition, Form I-829, is ordinarily filed during the 90-day period immediately before the second anniversary of admission to the United States or adjustment of status as a conditional permanent resident. Direct jobs generally require at least 35 hours weekly and exclude contractors, nonimmigrants, the investor, spouse and sons or daughters.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.