How long does I-526 approval take for a direct investment?

The processing times are posted as 36-48 months currently.

An EB-5 petition processing time depends on the nationality of the petitioner. Although, there is a slight difference in whether a petition is a direct investment or through a regional center. At the moment, petitioners from mainland China, Vietnam and India have some forms of longer processing times than petitioners from other countries. It is advisable you discuss with an EB-5 attorney to determine whether your national origin may have any significant effect on your petition.

USCIS is stating that cases are taking from 32.5 months to 49.5 months to adjudicate form I-526. We are not seeing direct cases being processed quicker than regionals center cases. Cases must be filed before Nov. 26, 2015 to be regarded as "past due".

There is no faster track for direct investment that I am aware of. The current processing time for I-526 is approximately two years from filing.

Anything like that would be purely anecdotal. We have to go on is what USCIS posts for processing times.

Possibly, but we do not have real-time data on this at the moment. The last direct I-526 filed within this office took around 18 months. For more information about what factors may lead to longer processing times of an I-526 filing, please reach out to a board-certified EB-5 specialist.

Generally, USCIS processes most immigrant petitions on a "first-in, first-out" or "FIFO" basis. We know that the Immigrant Investor Program Office bundles petitions based on the regional center project and has teams of adjudicators focused on adjudicating similar petitions so that they can be efficient. This sometimes means that petitions are not processed on a FIFO basis. Each petition is adjudicated on its own merits, so sometimes a relatively simple direct I-526 petition might be adjudicated more quickly than a new regional center project I-526 petition, which will have an economic impact study and typically a more complex structure than a direct EB-5 case. Since each direct I-526 petition is so case-specific, and since USCIS does not publish I-526 processing time breakdowns distinguishing direct I-526 petitions from regional center I-526 petitions, it is not possible to make broad statements like "direct I-526 petitions get adjudicated faster than regional center I-526 petitions."

There is no data to back up this claim. In our experience, the processing times for direct and regional center I-526s are samely unpredictable.

Generally, this has not been our consistent experience. However, with that said, we recently had a direct investment approved in seven months. I do not believe that you can accurately predict USCIS action on a consistent basis.

Generally, on our experience, they are not more quickly decided. In addition, they often bear more risk. They are generally not recommended.