Earlier this month, USCIS published Form I-526 quarterly statistics for Q4 fiscal year (FY) 2019 (July 1st – September 30). As the EB-5 Regional Center Program was due for Congressional reauthorization by September 30, 2019, and the EB-5 Program was facing significant regulatory changes, the quarterly Form I-526 statistics of Q4 FY2019 shed light on important trends of the EB-5 industry.
IIUSA members can access the full data report of Form I-526 Q4 data analysis and FY2019 full-year review through your member portal account here: Read the Comprehensive Report here (Members Only)
KEY DATA BRIEFING:
I-526 Filings: The number of I-526 filings in Q4 was 1,194, up by 94% from Q3 but still down by 11% year-over-year. In FY2019, USCIS received a total of 4,194 I-526 petitions, a decline of 18% from FY2018.
EB-5 Investment Inflows: We estimated that the amount of new EB-5 capital investment inflows to the U.S. economy was $1.8 billion in FY2019.
I-526 Adjudication: Only 546 I-526 petitions were adjudicated by USCIS in Q4 FY2019, a drop of 86% year-over-year. The total number of I-526 adjudication in FY2019 was 4,673, which was less than 1/3 of USCIS’s I-526 adjudications volume in FY2018.
I-526 Approval Rate: The average approval rate of an I-526 petition bounced back to 65% in Q4 from the 10-year-low 58% in Q3. However, the average I-526 approval rate in the recent quarters was still by far lower than the 36-month average.
I-526 Backlog: The backlog of I-526 petitions in Q4, FY2019, was up by 5% from Q3 due to the low volume of I-526 adjudications. As of September 2019, there were 13,763 I-526 petitions pending in USCIS.
IIUSA members click here to read the comprehensive data report.
