Investors seeking a U.S. green card through the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program have one month left at the old price. From November 30, 2026, the federal filing fees for the program's main petitions more than double — the standalone investor petition rises from $3,675 to $7,615, and the regional-center investor petition from $3,675 to $7,850 — under a final rule the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published on September 30.
Source: Mondaq / Akalan Law analysis of the DHS final rule
The rule is a deadline, not a discussion draft. Applications, petitions and requests postmarked on or after November 30 must include the new fees, according to the final rule as analysed by immigration law firms. Filings postmarked before that date keep the current schedule. The Department of Homeland Security estimates the revised schedule will affect approximately 16,600 EB-5 filings a year.
Source: EB5VisaInvestments summary of the final rule
The new fees, in full
The increases reach beyond the first filing. The EB-5 Integrity Fund fee paid for each regional-center investor rises from $1,000 to $1,100. The annual Integrity Fund fee for regional centers rises from $10,000 to $11,000 for centers with 20 or fewer investors, and from $20,000 to $22,000 for larger centers. The new I-526 and initial I-526E amounts include a new $75 EB-5 Technology Fee, which USCIS says supports the systems used to process and adjudicate EB-5 filings. A new form, I-527, for certain investors tied to terminated regional centers or legacy cases, is priced at $10,330.
Source: Mondaq / Akalan Law analysis of the DHS final rule
What has NOT changed
The rule changes government filing fees only. The investment itself is untouched: the statutory minimum remains $1,050,000 for a standard project and $800,000 for a qualifying targeted employment area (TEA) or infrastructure project, and each investment must still create at least 10 full-time jobs for qualifying U.S. workers, with capital that is lawfully obtained and documented. The fees for Form I-485 (adjustment of status inside the United States) and Form DS-260 (immigrant visa processing abroad) are not changed by this rule. Coverage aimed at Indian investors — a large share of the EB-5 market — stresses that there is no separate fee schedule for Indian nationals; the same numbers apply to every applicant.
Background: a court order forced this rule
Congress created EB-5 in 1990 to draw investment and jobs into the United States, and overhauled it in the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022, which directed USCIS to set program fees from a proper, program-specific fee study. When DHS instead raised EB-5 fees through its general 2024 fee rule, investors sued. In Moody v. Noem, decided November 12, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado stayed the 2024 EB-5 fees because the required study had not been done, and USCIS went back to collecting the pre-2024 amounts — the $3,675 figures that expire on November 30.
Source: Mondaq / Akalan Law analysis of the DHS final rule
The September 30, 2026 final rule is DHS's answer to that judgment: the agency completed the revised fee study, considered comments on its October 2025 proposal, and set fees designed to recover the cost of running the program and to pursue the processing-time goals Congress set. The final numbers came in below the proposal — DHS had initially proposed $9,625 for an initial investor petition before settling on $7,850 for the regional-center form.
The saving is real — $4,275 on the initial government fees for a regional-center filing — but every detailed advisory on this rule carries the same warning: do not file a weak or incomplete case just to beat the fee date. Source-of-funds documentation, project diligence and visa availability decide these cases, not the fee receipt. Investors mid-preparation should confirm the current fee schedule on USCIS Form G-1055, make sure any filing is genuinely ready before it is postmarked, and budget the new fees — plus the separate January 1, 2027 inflation adjustment to the investment minimums — if the case will slip past November 30.
What happens next
The new schedule takes effect for anything postmarked on or after November 30, 2026, and is expected to stand until the next mandatory fee study, around late 2028. A second, separate change follows on January 1, 2027, when the EB-5 investment minimums themselves face their scheduled inflation adjustment — one industry analysis estimates the targeted-employment-area threshold could rise from $800,000 to roughly $940,000 or more, though that figure is an estimate, not a published rule. For families weighing the investor route, the next 31 days are therefore the last window in which both the fees and the investment amounts are still at today's levels.