EB-5 visa cost: investor filing fees roughly double

There is a twist worth knowing before you read the scary headlines: DHS actually asked for more. Its October 2025 proposal wanted $9,625 per investor petition, and the final rule came in lower, at $7,615. So the fee is up from what you pay today, and down from what the government first floated. This post lays out all of it, and links the rule at the end so you can check the numbers.

On September 29, 2026, DHS and USCIS filed the final Employment-Based Immigrant Visa, Fifth Preference (EB-5) Fee Rule for public inspection. It publishes in the Federal Register on September 30, 2026, and it finalizes the proposed rule from October 23, 2025. The change was first reported by Bloomberg Law.

Which EB-5 fees are changing?

The standalone investor petition fee roughly doubles, and the initial regional-center petition fee more than doubles. Here is what changes, straight from the rule.

The annual regional-center fees are paid by the centers, not by you as an individual investor. Keep them separate from the per-investor Integrity Fund fee. A few regional-center forms actually go down in the final rule; the petition fee that most investors pay is the one that rises.

Wait, didn't DHS just walk these fees back?

Yes, and it helps to see the full history, because the fee has moved twice. Last October, DHS proposed $9,625 for the investor petition. After public comments it settled on $7,615, so the final fee is lower than what was first proposed. Two things are true at once: the fee is down from the $9,625 proposal, and up from the $3,675 you would pay today.

And $3,675 is only today's fee because of a court decision. In November 2025, a federal judge in Colorado paused a 2024 increase, finding USCIS had raised fees without the cost study the law requires, so the fee snapped back to $3,675. This final rule does that study and raises the fee again, to $7,615. That is why some websites still show a higher current figure; the reinstated $3,675 is the real starting point.

When do the new fees start?

The rule takes effect November 30, 2026, about 60 days after the September 30 publication. The date that matters is the postmark: any petition postmarked on or after November 30 has to include the new fees. A petition postmarked before it still pays the old $3,675.

If you plan to file before the change, work backward from your mailing date. Your attorney needs time to review the evidence, and your translator needs complete, readable documents. Saving on a filing fee does not help if you rush an incomplete packet into the mail.

Why is USCIS raising the fees?

USCIS says the EB-5 program costs more to run than its EB-5 fees bring in. It puts the program's costs at about $105 million against roughly $56.6 million in fee revenue, and the higher fees are meant to close that gap.

About 16,600 EB-5 filings a year are affected. Across the covered forms, fees rise about 70.7% on average, an increase of roughly $2,946 per filing on a weighted-average basis. That average is not your personal bill; your cost depends on the exact form and the separate fees that apply to your petition.

Who gets a green card through EB-5?

Not just the investor. When the petition is approved, the investor, plus a spouse and any unmarried children under 21, can all become US permanent residents as derivative applicants. The money buys a family its green cards, not a share certificate, and that is the part worth keeping in view while you read about fees.

Those first green cards are conditional and last two years. Before they expire, the investor files Form I-829 to remove the conditions, and the family moves to permanent green cards. After that, the normal residency clock toward US citizenship applies.

Does the filing fee include your investment?

No. You pay the filing fees on top of the required investment. EB-5 is the employment-based fifth-preference immigrant investor green card, created by Congress in 1990. You invest in a US commercial enterprise that creates at least 10 full-time US jobs.

The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 set the investment minimum at $1,050,000, or $800,000 for a qualifying targeted employment area or infrastructure project. A targeted employment area can be rural or have high unemployment. When you build your budget, keep four separate lines. The first is the investment itself. The second is government fees: the USCIS petition fee is $3,675 for a petition postmarked before November 30, 2026, and from that date $7,615 on Form I-526 or $7,850 on the initial I-526E; an I-526E also carries the per-investor Integrity Fund fee, which rises from $1,000 to $1,100 on the same date. The third is regional-center administrative and legal fees, which vary widely. The fourth is document preparation, including certified translation of every foreign document.

What needs a certified English translation?

Every foreign-language document you file needs a complete, certified English translation. For a Brazilian investor, the source-of-funds evidence alone can run to dozens of pages. A typical packet includes:

• Bank and brokerage statements
• Tax returns and sale contracts
• Property deeds, including your escritura
• Business records, including your contrato social
• Gift or loan letters
• Court documents and inheritance papers

These records have to tell one consistent story. A single property sale might tie together a deed, a sale contract, and a bank deposit, so the names and numbers have to match from one page to the next. See our guide to USCIS translation requirements before you prepare your files.

A translation error can trigger a request for evidence, or even a denial. Once the higher fees are in force, that delay sits on top of a much larger government outlay. Getting the packet right the first time matters more than it used to.

Budget your translation before you file

At Brazil USA Translations, certified Portuguese to English translation is $19 a page, with a signed Certificate of Accuracy and our USCIS acceptance guarantee on every order. The guarantee covers acceptance of the translation, not approval of your petition.

Standard delivery is within 24 hours. Our 4-hour rush is $9 a page for up to 10 pages; a full source-of-funds packet usually runs longer than that, so we price and schedule those by hand. Send yours as early as you can, and put the whole set through at once so the page count and timing are clear before you pay.

Sources

The rule itself, and the USCIS announcements behind it:

• Federal Register: EB-5 Fee Rule (final), the rule itself with the full fee table.
• Federal Register: EB-5 proposed rule (October 23, 2025), the proposal this final rule responds to.
• USCIS: official fee-adjustment announcement, its own alert on the new fees and the November 30 effective date.
• USCIS: EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, the official program page.

No agency queue and no machine draft: Ivy, a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker, translates your document and signs the Certificate of Accuracy USCIS requires on it herself.