Who is required to create the 10 EB-5 jobs?

An experienced EB-5 immigration attorney will be able to prepare a compliant EB-5 project for your investment. Basically, your required personal investment has to be committed to a new commercial enterprise which can also be the job creating entity. It is easier to show compliance with the job requirement by not counting tenant jobs. Alternatively, the project may be connected to a regional center in which the required jobs may be calculated indirectly.

You are required to create 10 jobs directly.

Jobs of tenants would not be counted as direct jobs, even if the project was affiliated with a regional center (look up "EB-5 tenant occupancy," a fascinating topic from 2012 that is beyond what this Q&A can handle).

In a direct investment EB-5 petition, the investor - the owner of the commercial property - is required to create the jobs. The jobs created by the tenants do not count for EB-5 direct investment purposes. Indirect employee creation can be counted in a regional center context.

If you buy commercial property worth more than $1.2 million, you do not necessarily get credit for an existing tenant that is providing more than 10 permanent jobs. The investment itself has to create 10 new direct jobs for U.S. workers unless you are investing through an EB-5 regional center which, under certain circumstances, can also count indirect jobs.

No. YOUR company, that is the investment vehicle for a direct investment, must create the 10 direct jobs, NOT the tenant of a property you own.

The jobs created must be a result of the investment and directly created by the new enterprise.

As the principal EB-5 investor, you are required to show that you have created 10 new jobs or that 10 new jobs are attributable to you. If you are investing in your own enterprise that you will oversee, manage and control, then the employees need to be directly employed through your enterprise. The rules are different depending on whether you invest in a direct EB-5 project or a project affiliated with an EB-5 regional center. Regional center projects are allowed to create jobs indirectly through reasonable job creation methodologies. Hence, you could invest in a company, for example, that then makes a loan to a developer which constructs a new office tower, and receives credit for the indirect jobs. Even if you are considering to invest in a commercial property that may be affiliated with a regional center, government rules limit tenant occupancy jobs.

Buying property does not usually create jobs. This "tenant occupancy" job creation is very difficult, but you can if you have a regional center and can show your investment created the jobs.

The investor in a commercial real estate who in this instance engages in direct investment is supposed to create the 10 jobs and not the tenant on the property.

The investment money must generate 10 full-time positions. Since the building already exists and contains an occupant that has more than 10 employees, your investment would be acquiring an existing business and your investment money would need to create an additional 10 jobs.

Under the "tenant occupancy" you may use someone as a tenant that occupies the space and creates 10 NEW positions - not simply moving 10 present jobs from an old location to your new one.

You can indirectly create jobs for targeting employment areas. Even in TEAs, you cannot just buy a business that has 10 employees, since that is not creating 10 jobs at all.

For direct investments (i.e., versus investment in a regional center project) for EB-5 purposes, you can only count direct jobs created.