IN THIS GUIDE · A grower whose capital arrives through a family succession and who does not intend to stop farming
Start with the EB-5 eligibility and application overview
The amount, and the date on which the amount is due to move
The qualifying capital is one million and fifty thousand United States dollars, reduced to eight hundred thousand where the new commercial enterprise is principally doing business in a qualifying targeted employment area or is an infrastructure project. Those two figures are subject to a statutory inflation adjustment beginning on the first of January, twenty twenty-seven, and at five-year intervals afterwards, so a budget built today against the lower figure may not match the figure that applies when the petition is actually filed. The designation itself also has to be verified rather than accepted from a promoter’s brochure, because whether a location qualifies as a targeted employment area is a determination with its own rules and its own evidence.
At least ten jobs, and they have to be attributable to this investor
The investment must create at least ten full-time positions for qualifying United States workers, and the arithmetic is per investor rather than per project. A development that advertises a total headcount across a hundred subscriptions is describing the project, not Fabien’s file, and the allocation methodology is what he needs to see. Full-time carries its own meaning in this context, and positions filled by the investor and by his own immediate family do not count toward the requirement. Where the project relies on economic modelling rather than direct payroll, the model, its inputs and the assumptions behind them are part of what will eventually be examined, so they are worth reading before money moves rather than afterwards.
Lawful source is one question; the path the money took is another
A succession arrangement produces exactly the kind of file that needs care. The source enquiry asks how Fabien lawfully came to have the money: the farm-transfer agreement, the valuation behind it, the cooperative’s redemption of his interest, the tax treatment of each step and the returns that report it. The path enquiry asks where the money physically went afterwards: which account received it, whether it passed through a parent’s account or a notary’s trust account on the way, what currency conversion was used and which institution transferred it onward. Both must be continuous. Undocumented movements between family accounts, however ordinary within a farming family, are the single most common reason an otherwise strong file stalls.
This route grants residence, and residence has obligations
A successful petition and the steps that follow lead to conditional permanent residence for two years, with Form I-829 filed in the 90 days before the second anniversary to remove the conditions on the basis that the capital remained invested and the required jobs were created or will be. Permanent residence is not permission to visit; it carries an expectation of actually residing in the United States, and extended absences to run a Quebec cranberry operation raise a genuine abandonment question. Permanent residence is also not citizenship, which is a separate and later status with its own requirements. Fabien must additionally be engaged in the management of the enterprise or in its policy formulation, so a wholly passive position is not what the route contemplates either.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.