What changed
The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 (RIA) was signed into law on March 15, 2022, as Division BB of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 (Pub. L. 117-103). It reauthorized the EB-5 Regional Center Program through September 30, 2027, raised the standard investment amount to $1,050,000 and the Targeted Employment Area (TEA) amount to $800,000, mandated integrity audits, and — most importantly for visa-bulletin planning — carved EB-5 into four sub-categories under INA § 203(b)(5)(B):
- Unreserved EB-5 — 68% of the annual EB-5 number.
- Rural set-aside — 20%, for projects in areas outside an MSA or in cities/towns with fewer than 20,000 people.
- High-Unemployment Area set-aside — 10%, for projects in census tracts (or contiguous tracts) with unemployment at least 150% of the national average.
- Infrastructure set-aside — 2%, for public-works projects administered by a governmental entity.
Each set-aside has its own row on the DOS Visa Bulletin, and its own priority-date arithmetic.
Why it matters
Pre-RIA, EB-5 was one queue. China-mainland investors faced a multi-year wait; India and Vietnam developed shorter but still meaningful waits. Post-RIA, the set-asides reset the clock for any investor in a Rural / HUA / Infrastructure project. As of the first set-aside Visa Bulletin entries in early FY 2023, the reserved categories ran “Current” for every chargeability area — including China-mainland and India — because demand had not yet caught up to the new supply. That fact made the set-asides the single most consequential planning lever in modern EB-5: an India-born investor who selected a Rural project in 2023 was filing I-485 concurrently with I-526E, while the same investor in an Unreserved project might wait years.
Through 2024 and into 2026, that picture has begun to shift: Rural and HUA cut-offs have begun to appear for China-mainland and India as Reserved demand catches up. The Unreserved EB-5 line for China-mainland and India remains substantially backlogged. The arithmetic of “where to put the $800,000” is now the central EB-5 question.
Way forward
Confirm RIA-era project status. The set-asides apply only to Form I-526E petitions filed after the RIA effective date and based on investments in qualifying Rural, HUA, or Infrastructure projects. Pre-RIA I-526 petitions (on the legacy Form I-526) sit in the Unreserved queue regardless of project location. The petition basis controls the queue.
Apply the set-aside qualifications carefully.
- Rural: outside any Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) as defined by the Office of Management and Budget, AND outside any city or town with 20,000+ population per the most recent decennial Census. Both conditions must be met. The Regional Center sponsoring the project bears the documentation burden; investors should obtain the project’s qualification memo before investing.
- High-Unemployment Area (HUA): in a census tract (or set of contiguous tracts) with unemployment at least 150% of the national average. Designation is per USCIS guidance at the time of I-526E filing. USCIS reviews the supporting data, but a project’s HUA designation can be revisited if the regional unemployment rate falls.
- Infrastructure: a project administered by a governmental entity contracting with a regional center, focused on public works (transportation, utilities, public buildings). The 2% allocation is small in practice, but the line typically stays current.
Understand the priority-date filing date. Under 8 CFR § 204.6 and the RIA’s amendments to INA § 203(b)(5), the EB-5 priority date is the date the I-526E was properly filed. Concurrent filing of I-485 is permitted under INA § 245(n) when a visa number is immediately available — which, for set-aside categories that show “Current” on the Visa Bulletin, is now the common path.
Read all four EB-5 rows on the Bulletin. Each monthly Visa Bulletin lists separate rows for “5th Unreserved” (combining C5, T5, I5, R5 historical categories), “5th Set Aside: Rural (20%)”, “5th Set Aside: High Unemployment (10%)”, and “5th Set Aside: Infrastructure (2%)”. An investor’s case follows the row matching the project type at I-526E filing. Country columns (China-mainland, India, all others) apply within each row.
Apply INA § 202(b) cross-chargeability. A China-mainland-born investor with a Taiwan-born spouse can charge to Taiwan (“All Other”) in the relevant EB-5 row. The math is the same as in the EB-2 cross-chargeability article.
Watch for retrogression in the set-asides. Rural and HUA visa numbers were uncapped against country quotas in the first two fiscal years of the RIA because the carry-over provision under INA § 203(b)(5)(B)(ii) rolls unused set-aside numbers forward. That carry-over is running down, and Rural and HUA cut-offs for China-mainland and India appeared in late 2024 / early 2025. The Visa Office’s monthly notes are the early-warning system.
Document at I-485 the basis for set-aside eligibility. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 6, Part G requires concurrent documentation of (a) the project’s set-aside category designation, (b) the timing of investment, (c) the source-of-funds package, and (d) the project’s job-creation methodology. A weak set-aside designation at I-526E can survive that adjudication but unravel at I-485 if USCIS revisits the underlying data.
Disclaimer
Fola is a software company, not a law firm, and nothing in this article is legal advice. EB-5 set-aside qualification is fact-specific and dependent on the sponsoring Regional Center’s project documentation. Verify against the EB-5 RIA, INA § 203(b)(5), USCIS Policy Manual Volume 6, Part G, and the current monthly Visa Bulletin, and consult a qualified U.S. immigration attorney before investing.