Last reviewed September 2026
Overview: Direct EB-5 investment requires the investor to personally run the new commercial enterprise and counts only direct jobs it creates. Regional Center investment pools capital into a designated entity's project and allows indirect and induced jobs to count toward the ten-job requirement, which is why the large majority of EB-5 investors choose the Regional Center path despite giving up day-to-day control.
The shared EB-5 investment and job-creation framework
Both paths require the same minimum investment, $800,000 in a targeted employment area or $1,050,000 elsewhere, under current thresholds, and both require the investment to create at least ten full-time jobs for qualifying U.S. workers within the required timeframe.
Direct investment: running the business, counting only direct jobs
A direct EB-5 investor personally establishes and operates the new commercial enterprise, and only jobs directly created by that specific enterprise, on its own payroll, count toward the ten-job requirement. This generally means the investor has to build a real, operating business from the ground up and sustain it through the later I-829 stage, five to seven years later, with clear evidence of the required jobs.
Regional Center: pooled investment, indirect and induced jobs count
A Regional Center investor's capital is pooled with other investors into a project managed by a USCIS-designated Regional Center. Because indirect jobs, created by suppliers and related economic activity, and induced jobs, created by the spending of newly employed workers, both count toward the requirement, a single project's economic modeling can support many investors at once without each one needing to prove ten direct hires personally.
Control and involvement differences
Direct investment gives the investor real, hands-on control over the business but also full exposure to its operational risk and the burden of proving job creation directly. Regional Center investment trades that control for a passive role, relying on the Regional Center's project management and economic analysis to satisfy the job-creation requirement.
Why most investors choose Regional Center
The combination of counting indirect and induced jobs, lower administrative burden for the investor personally, and access to set-aside visa categories for rural, high-unemployment, and infrastructure projects has made Regional Center investment the overwhelming choice, roughly nine out of ten EB-5 investors, according to industry sources, over the direct investment path.
Regional Center program reauthorization risk
Unlike direct EB-5 investment, which is permanently authorized by statute, the Regional Center Program itself requires periodic congressional reauthorization and has lapsed before, between June 2021 and March 2022. As of the most recent reauthorization, the program runs through September 30, 2027, but this is a program-level risk unique to the Regional Center path that direct investment does not share.
Choosing based on risk tolerance and desired involvement
An investor who wants active control of a business and is prepared to build and document direct job creation personally should consider direct investment. An investor who wants a more passive role and is comfortable relying on a Regional Center's project management, in exchange for an easier path to satisfying the job-creation requirement, generally chooses the Regional Center route instead.
Official sources
Related reading
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