Filing for a US green card through investment is about to cost a good deal more. A final rule from the Department of Homeland Security, published in the Federal Register on 30 September 2026, sets new fees for the EB-5 immigrant investor programme. Any filing postmarked on or after 30 November 2026 has to carry the new amount.
The biggest jump is for the investor's own petition. Form I-526 goes to 7,615 dollars and the initial Form I-526E, used by investors in a regional centre project, goes to 7,850 dollars. Both cost 3,675 dollars today. Form I-829, the petition to remove conditions on residence after the investment period, goes from 3,750 dollars to 5,000 dollars.
The new fee table
Regional centres and project companies face larger sums. Form I-956, the application for regional centre designation, rises from 17,795 dollars to 44,115 dollars, and Form I-956F, for approval of a specific investment, rises from 17,795 dollars to 42,675 dollars. Form I-956G, the annual statement, falls from 3,035 dollars to 2,165 dollars. An amended I-526E costs 7,775 dollars and an amended I-956 costs 9,835 dollars.
The rule also creates a new form, Form I-527, with a fee of 10,330 dollars. The amounts for I-526 and the initial I-526E include a 75 dollar EB-5 technology fee. Separately, an inflation adjustment of 10 per cent lifts the Integrity Fund fee paid with each I-526E from 1,000 to 1,100 dollars, and the Regional Center Integrity Fund fee from 10,000 to 11,000 dollars, or from 20,000 to 22,000 dollars for certain centres.
DHS says the programme handles about 16,600 filings a year and that, on a weighted average, the fees rise by about 70.7 per cent, or roughly 2,946 dollars a filing. DHS says the new fees are meant to cover the cost of running the programme, including integrity work such as site visits, background checks and compliance audits.
Put in household terms, an investor who files an initial I-526E and later an I-829 will pay 12,850 dollars for those two petitions under the new table, against 7,425 dollars today, before any other government charges. The postmark decides which table applies, and USCIS normally rejects a filing sent with the wrong fee.
Why today's fees are lower than many expected
Some readers will remember higher EB-5 fees from a 2024 fee rule. In November 2025 a federal court in Colorado partly stayed those increases, and USCIS went back to the older amounts, which is why the I-526 costs 3,675 dollars today. The new rule finalises a proposal first published on 23 October 2025 and replaces those amounts from 30 November.
The investment thresholds themselves are set by law and are not part of this rule. The minimum is 1,050,000 dollars, or 800,000 dollars in a targeted employment area or an infrastructure project, and each investment must create 10 full-time jobs. About 10,000 EB-5 visas are available each year.
The India picture
Indian demand for the route is high enough that India ran into its own limit last year. The State Department said in June that every India visa in the EB-5 unreserved category for the 2026 fiscal year had been used by 5 June. Limits reset when the new fiscal year began on 1 October, so the India allocation is fresh again, but the dates below show how far back the line still stretches.
The Visa Bulletin for October 2026 gives India a final action date of 1 December 2023 in the EB-5 unreserved category, and a date for filing of 1 May 2024. The set-aside categories, which cover rural, high-unemployment and infrastructure projects, are current for every country. For comparison, India's EB-2 date is 1 November 2013, which helps explain why families with the means look at EB-5 at all.
The fee rise lands on top of other changes to US work and family routes, including the proposed 103,265 dollar H-1B fee, and the 1 per cent US tax on cash-funded remittances, which applies when money is sent home in cash.
This is information, not advice. Anyone with an EB-5 filing in preparation can check the USCIS fee page and the Federal Register text for the form they need, since the postmark date, not the date the cheque was written, decides which fee applies.
