The September 30, 2026 EB-5 Grandfathering Deadline: What It Protects

Takeaways

Two dates that keep getting confused

The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 rebuilt the regional center side of the EB-5 program after a period of instability, adding reauthorization, integrity measures, reserved visa categories, and investor protections. Among those changes, Congress wrote in a protection for investors who file by a fixed date.

Under the grandfathering provision, a petition properly filed on or before September 30, 2026 continues to be adjudicated even if authorization for the Regional Center Program lapses after that point. The provision is written to carry the protection through the later stages of the process, including removal of conditions, rather than stopping at the initial petition.

The provision exists because of what happened before it. The Regional Center Program had operated on short reauthorizations for years, and when it lapsed in mid-2021, investors with pending petitions were left without a clear answer about whether their filings still meant anything. The grandfathering provision addresses that specific risk.

The Regional Center Program authorization runs to September 30, 2027. That is the date through which the statute authorizes immigrant visas under the Regional Center Program, and it is the point at which Congress must act again. What a lapse after that point would mean for new filings and pending cases would depend on the governing statute and agency implementation at the time.

Conflating them produces two opposite errors. Some investors relax because they have seen the later date and assume they have more time than they do. Others assume the program shuts down in September, which it does not. Understanding what each date means is the first step in deciding the steps that you need to take.

What Grandfathering protects

For a properly filed petition, grandfathering protects the continued processing of that petition through a program lapse. If Congress fails to reauthorize the Regional Center Program at some future point, an investor whose petition was filed in time is not left holding a filing that has become meaningless.

For an investor weighing a decision now, that is the practical value. It removes one specific category of risk: the risk that a political failure to act would strand a filing already in the queue.

It is worth being precise about what that protection is worth. It is insurance against a structural event, not an advantage in adjudication.

What Grandfathering does not protect

The protection is sometimes described in terms that reach well beyond what the statute provides.

• Grandfathering does not mean approval. A protected petition is adjudicated on its merits like any other, under the same requirements: lawful source of funds, capital genuinely at risk, a qualifying project, and job creation.
• It does not create or accelerate visa availability. If your category is backlogged, filing before the deadline does not shorten the queue. The petition is protected; the wait is not.
• It does not lock the investment amount. That is governed by a separate provision on a separate date, covered in the next section.
• It does not bind future Congresses. A later statute can change the framework, and a provision written in 2022 does not prevent that.

Is the EB-5 investment amount going up in 2027?

Yes, and this is not a proposal working its way through Congress. The increase is already written into statute.

The RIA amended INA 203(b)(5)(C) to require the minimum investment amounts to adjust every five years beginning on January 1, 2027. The mechanism works in a set sequence: the standard amount adjusts by the cumulative change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, rounded down to the nearest $50,000, and the Targeted Employment Area and infrastructure amount then equals 75 percent of the adjusted standard amount. The adjustment is automatic; it does not depend on agency discretion or new legislation, and DHS has indicated it will publish the updated figures in the Federal Register.

The current amounts are $800,000 for projects in a Targeted Employment Area or qualifying infrastructure projects, and $1,050,000 for other projects. Those have applied since the RIA took effect in March 2022.

Nobody has the final adjusted figures yet, including USCIS, because they depend on inflation data that is not complete until close to the adjustment date. Figures circulating online are third-party estimates, not published amounts, and the actual figures could differ from any projection.

The important structural point for planning is this: the adjustment applies to petitions filed on or after the effective date. A petition filed before it is assessed against the amounts in force when it was filed. That means the investment amount and the grandfathering protection are secured by two different deadlines, three months apart.

The risks of filing after September 30, 2026

Filing after the deadline does not close the EB-5 route. Investors can continue to file regional center petitions while the program remains authorized. What changes is the risk profile, and it changes in several distinct ways.

1. Exposure at the next reauthorization point. The Regional Center Program’s current statutory authorization runs to September 30, 2027. A petition filed after the grandfathering cutoff would not carry lapse protection when that point arrives, and would depend on Congress acting.
2. A higher investment amount if the filing slips past January 1, 2027. A petition filed on or after the adjustment date is assessed against the increased minimums.
3. A rejected filing may not be recoverable. A filing rejected rather than receipted does not hold its date. Near a cutoff, there may be no opportunity to correct and refile in time.
4. Project availability may narrow. Regional center sponsors that structured their offerings around the current $800,000 and $1,050,000 thresholds can stop accepting new investor subscriptions before the January 2027 adjustment, which can reduce the range of projects still open to a later investor.
5. Compressed preparation raises the risk of a gap in the record. Source of funds documentation can be the longest-lead part of the petition and is the least amenable to compression.
6. A thin record now carries greater consequences. USCIS policy guidance issued in 2026 restored adjudicator discretion to deny a request without first issuing a Request for Evidence or Notice of Intent to Deny where required initial evidence is missing or the record does not establish eligibility. This is discretion to deny, not a rule requiring denial, but it raises the stakes of an incomplete filing.

At the same time, filing after the deadline does not mean capital is trapped, that an application is frozen indefinitely, or that the proposed investment-amount changes will be applied to a petition already filed. Those outcomes are possible characterizations of a lapse scenario, not established consequences of missing the date. A rushed petition with gaps in the source of funds record can leave an investor in a weaker position than a well-prepared petition filed later.

Impending cost increases and stricter rules

Two separate developments affect what a later filing may cost and what it will be measured against. One is already a statute. The other is a proposal that is not yet law.

• Automatic inflation adjustment, January 1, 2027. This is already written into the statute and does not require further legislation. INA 203(b)(5)(C), as amended by the RIA, requires the minimum investment amounts to adjust every five years beginning January 1, 2027, based on the cumulative change in the CPI-U. The adjustment applies to petitions filed on or after the effective date.
• The adjusted figures are estimates, not published amounts. USCIS has not published the adjusted amounts, and the formula depends on inflation data that is not complete until close to the date. DHS has indicated the updated figures will be published in the Federal Register.
• A proposed new tier for high employment areas. On July 2, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security published a notice of proposed rulemaking (DHS Docket No. USCIS-2026-0100) implementing the RIA through formal regulation. Among its provisions is a proposed $1,400,000 minimum for projects in a designated high employment area, a category that does not currently apply under the RIA framework. The proposal would apply the new tier to petitions filed on or after 60 days after publication of a final rule, and it also provides that the high employment area amount would itself adjust beginning January 1, 2027, so the operative figure could differ from $1,400,000 depending on when any final rule takes effect.
• That proposal is not in effect. The public comment period is open through August 31, 2026. A proposed rule is not a final rule, the final text can differ from the proposal, and no effective date has been set.
• Tighter oversight is proposed alongside it. The proposal would also codify audit, site visit, recordkeeping, and compliance obligations for regional centers, and signals closer review of the lawful source and path of funds. Whether and in what form these are adopted is not yet known.

In short: one cost increase is certain in timing though not yet in amount, and a second is proposed but not law. The proposed investment-amount provisions would apply prospectively to petitions filed after any final rule takes effect. Other parts of the proposal, including certain fraud, misrepresentation, and national security provisions, are drafted to reach conduct regardless of when a petition was filed, so the proposal as a whole is not uniformly prospective.

Filed Before vs. After the Deadline: Side by Side

It is also worth noting what the table does not show. A properly filed later petition still establishes its own priority date, the proposed investment-amount changes would not apply to a petition already filed, and the source of funds requirements are the same either way. Contrary claims appear in some summaries circulating online and are not supported by the statute or the proposal.

Does the deadline apply to direct EB-5?

The grandfathering provision is directed at the regional center pathway, which is the part of EB-5 that depends on periodic congressional authorization.

The direct investment route sits differently. It has been permanently authorized since 1990 and does not rise or fall with regional center reauthorization, so the September 2026 date carries much less weight for an investor pursuing that path with Form I-526 (Immigrant Petition by Standalone Investor).

The January 2027 investment adjustment, by contrast, applies to both. An investor considering the direct route should not assume they are unaffected by the timing question simply because the grandfathering deadline concerns them less.

What ‘Properly Filed’ means, and why It matters more near a cutoff

The protection attaches to a petition that is properly filed, meaning one that USCIS accepts and receipts, not merely one that was mailed by the date.

A filing that USCIS rejects rather than receipts does not hold a filing date. Rejection can follow from an incorrect fee (including a combined fee payment where USCIS requires separate payments per form), a missing signature, an out-of-date form edition, or a filing sent to the wrong location. USCIS states on the Form I-526E page that it will reject an unsigned form, and that combined fee payments across forms are rejected with the fee returned.

In ordinary circumstances a rejected filing can be corrected and resubmitted without lasting consequence. Against a statutory cutoff, a corrected refiling may land after the date has passed, and the investor would then have no filing on or before September 30, 2026 to which the grandfathering protection can attach.

One structural prerequisite deserves emphasis this close to the date: a Form I-526E can only be filed after the regional center has filed Form I-956F (Application for Approval of an Investment in a Commercial Enterprise) for the project. An investor cannot cure a project-side gap on their own timeline.

What has to be in place before a petition can be filed

An EB-5 petition is not a single document. Several things generally need to exist together before it can be submitted.

• A selected project, with its offering and subscription documents, and a Form I-956F filed by the regional center for that project.
• The required capital invested, or the investor actively in the process of investing it, as the form instructions require.
• Documentation tracing the lawful source of the funds.
• The current form edition, the correct fees, and the correct filing location. As of August 2026, USCIS reports a Form I-526E filing fee of $11,160 plus a separate $1,000 EB-5 Integrity Fund fee with initial filings, paid separately; confirm the current amounts on the live USCIS Form I-526E page before filing, as fees can change.
• The supporting evidence the form instructions require.

Source of funds documentation can be the longest-lead item on that list. It can involve tax records, business sale documents, property records, gift documentation, and bank records across multiple jurisdictions, sometimes requiring certified translations.

How long that takes varies considerably depending on where the funds came from and how well documented the investor’s financial history already is. That is a general observation about the work involved rather than a timeline any individual can rely on.

FAQ

• Q: What does EB-5 grandfathering actually protect?

  A: It protects the continued processing of a properly filed petition if the Regional Center Program lapses after the filing date. It addresses program lapse risk, not the merits of the case.

• Q: Is September 30, 2026 the same as the program sunset date?

  A: No. They are two different dates doing two different things. The grandfathering deadline governs whether a filed petition survives a lapse. The program authorization horizon, September 30, 2027, is the date through which the statute authorizes regional center immigrant visas.

• Q: Does filing before the deadline guarantee my petition will be approved?

  A: No. A grandfathered petition is adjudicated on its merits under the same requirements as any other. Source of funds, at-risk capital, project qualification, and job creation all still apply.

• Q: Does grandfathering help with the visa backlog for my country?

  A: No. Grandfathering does not affect visa availability or per-country limits. If a category is backlogged for your country of chargeability, filing before the deadline does not shorten the wait.

• Q: Does the deadline apply to direct EB-5 petitions?

  A: The provision is directed at the regional center pathway, which depends on periodic congressional authorization. The direct route has been permanently authorized since 1990 and is not exposed to reauthorization in the same way. The 2027 investment adjustment, however, applies to both.

• Q: What happens to my petition if the Regional Center Program lapses?

  A: Under the statutory grandfathering framework, a properly filed petition would continue to be processed. That is the specific risk the provision was written to address, following the uncertainty investors experienced during the 2021 lapse.

• Q: Can I still file EB-5 after September 30, 2026?

  A: Yes, while the program remains authorized. What changes is that a petition filed after the cutoff would not carry grandfathering protection, and a petition filed on or after January 1, 2027 would be assessed against the adjusted investment amounts.

• Q: Does grandfathering carry through to the removal of conditions stage?

  A: Yes. Section 103(b) of the RIA directs continued adjudication of both the initial regional center petitions filed on or before September 30, 2026 and the related removal of conditions petitions (Form I-829). How it applies to your specific posture is a question for counsel.

• Q: Can my dependent spouse and children still be included if I file close to the deadline?

  A: Generally, yes, though derivatives are not listed as beneficiaries on the Form I-526E itself. A dependent spouse and unmarried children under 21 may qualify for derivative status at the immigrant visa or Adjustment of Status stage based on the principal’s classification, subject to the qualifying relationship continuing, the child remaining unmarried and under 21 (with possible Child Status Protection Act protection), visa availability, and admissibility. The grandfathering analysis follows the principal’s filing date.

• Q: Is the EB-5 investment amount going up in 2027?

  A: The adjustment takes effect on January 1, 2027 and applies to petitions filed on or after that date. Filing before it means the petition is assessed against the amounts in force at filing. This is a separate deadline from the September 30 grandfathering date.

• Q: How much will the EB-5 minimum investment increase to?

  A: USCIS has not published the adjusted figures, and the statutory formula depends on inflation data that is not complete until close to the date. The standard amount adjusts by cumulative CPI-U change rounded down to the nearest $50,000, and the TEA amount is 75 percent of the adjusted standard amount. DHS has indicated the updated figures will be published in the Federal Register. Figures circulating online are third-party estimates, not official amounts.

• Q: What is the proposed $1.4 million high employment area amount?

  A: It is part of a DHS proposed rule published July 2, 2026, with comments due August 31, 2026. It is not in effect, may change before any final rule, would apply only to petitions filed after a final rule takes effect, and is itself subject to the 2027 adjustment mechanism, so the operative figure could differ.