How will a high job turnover rate impact my direct EB-5 application?

High turnover should not affect your I-829 as long as it is clear that the positions created by the NCE were full-time, permanent positions and not seasonal or intermittent. You also must demonstrate that the persons filling the positions are qualifying U.S. workers. There is no requirement that the U.S. worker stay in the position for any minimum period of time.

If your company 10 ten or more full-time employees when the I-829 petition is filed, then USCIS will approve your I-829 petition. If your company has nine or fewer full-time employees when the I-829 petition is filed, then USCIS will deny your I-829 petition.

Staff turnover will not in itself impact this requirement. However, if you have an extremely high turnover, it may be advisable to have a 20% to 30% job cushion.

If there are 10 full-time employees at all times, it should not be an issue.

Not necessarily. As long as you can show that the requisite minimum 10 jobs were created, USCIS does not require that the same employees continue to fill those jobs.

The turnover rate is not critical as long as within reasonable periods of time you are able to replace your lost U.S. workers so that at the time you file your petition on Form I-829 to remove conditions, you could show that you created and maintained the required minimum 10 jobs for U.S. workers as required.

The job creation is for the jobs that you create, not how many people have worked for you. Thus, if you created 10 full-time, permanent jobs, including those sales and marketing positions, the fact that some of those people did not work out should not matter, particularly because your business is still in the early development stage. However, too much volatility continuing throughout the whole two years may lead to questioning whether those jobs were truly full time, permanent or just temporary. Also, you must keep all the W-2s or paystubs, and I-9s in compliance with every person you hired, which will make your bookkeeping for I-829 more difficult if the turnover continues.

It should not affect the I-829 process as long as you meet the EB-5 requirement by producing at least 10 jobs. However, at the same time, you cannot successfully argue the reason why you fail to meet the job requirement is because of your high job turnover rate.

What is key is creating the 10 full-time jobs.

Seems like a lot to fire five people at the same time. How is the company managing with such fluctuations in staff? As long as hiring/firing decisions make sense from a business perspective, the I-829 should be fine. This situation does raise several red flags, however. Make sure your immigration attorney is aware of this ASAP.