EB-5 Due Diligence Checklist: 27 Questions Before You Wire

A client brought me a deal that looked too good to be true.

Prime market. Desirable asset class. Reasonable equity position on paper. I’d never heard of the sponsor, and that is always my first checkpoint. I’m open to new groups, but I’m extra careful when I can’t verify a track record through people I trust.

Then the inconsistencies started. The brochure made promises the offering documents couldn’t back. The claimed equity sources were a stretch. The project timeline, absorption rate, and investment term didn’t add up; fixing them would have required multiple side letters. Something felt off with the team. Off with the incentives. Just off.

The client wanted me to represent them in the deal. I said no, even when a client wants to move forward, the liability of doing it with that many red flags isn’t worth it.

When your gut and the documents whisper the same thing, listen.

I’ve seen 500+ EB-5 deals across 15+ years. The deals that work and the deals that fail rarely separate themselves on slick brochures, hype, or how confident the sponsor sounds on a Zoom call. They separate themselves on the answers to a specific set of questions. This article gives you the 27 questions I work through before I let any of my clients wire capital, organized into the six categories that matter most: sponsor, regional center, project, capital stack, job creation, and exit.

Key takeaways

• EB-5 diligence has two simultaneous goals: protect your immigration outcome (I-526E approval, I-829 approval, visa availability) and protect your capital (repayment, redeployment, exit). A project that delivers one without the other is still a failure.
• The 27 questions split into six categories. Skipping any category is how families lose either capital or status, sometimes both.
• The sponsor track record check is the cheapest, fastest, highest-signal diligence step. Most red flags surface in the first hour if you know where to look.
• The regional center compliance check is non-negotiable. A regional center on a termination path can derail every investor in the deal, including those grandfathered under the September 30, 2026 RIA deadline.
• The capital stack is where the most subtle risks hide. Words like “pari passu,” “C-PACE,” “bridge,” and “waterfall” carry weight that brochures rarely explain.
• A reasonable job cushion is 30 to 50 percent above the 10-jobs-per-investor minimum. A project priced at exactly 10 jobs per investor has no margin for delays.
• Asset class matters. The diligence checklist for a data center is not the diligence checklist for a hotel or a workforce housing development. The questions in Part 7 below scale per asset class.

How to use this checklist

Print it. Email it to your sponsor. Or send the link to whoever is presenting you the deal and ask them to walk you through it on a call. If a sponsor refuses to answer or brushes off questions, that is itself the answer. The discipline is not to find a sponsor who passes every question with a perfect answer. It is to find a sponsor who engages honestly with every question, including the uncomfortable ones.

A trustworthy sponsor will say “we don’t have that yet, here is what we are working on” or “that’s a known limitation, here’s how we address it.” A sponsor who deflects, lectures, or charms their way past a question is telling you something important.

Category 1, Sponsor & track record (5 questions)

The sponsor is the single highest-impact variable in an EB-5 deal. A great sponsor with an average project usually outperforms an average sponsor with a great project on paper, because execution is everything.

1. What other EB-5 projects has the sponsor completed? Ask for a complete list, including projects that closed and projects that did not. Both tell you something.

2. Of completed projects, how many delivered I-526E approvals, I-829 approvals, and capital repayment on the original timeline? “Track record” is not the count of projects launched; it is the count of projects that delivered on all three outcomes.

3. Are the principals subject to any past or pending litigation related to securities, real estate, or immigration? Search federal and state court records, FINRA BrokerCheck (for any registered individuals), and state real estate licensing boards. A clean history is the baseline.

4. Who are the actual decision-makers, and have they been the same team across the cited track record? Some sponsors borrow the credentials of a former partner who is no longer involved. The team that delivered the past results may not be the team running this project.

5. What is the sponsor’s economic interest in the deal, and how is it structured? Skin in the game matters. A sponsor with significant personal capital subordinated to the EB-5 investors is positioned very differently than a sponsor who is only earning fees from the raise.

Category 2, Regional center compliance (4 questions)

A regional center is a USCIS-designated entity authorized to pool EB-5 capital. The designation can be revoked. Several have been over the years. If your regional center is terminated during your sustainment period, your I-526E and I-829 outcomes can be materially affected.

6. Is the regional center listed as approved on the current USCIS regional center list? Verify directly at uscis.gov. The list updates frequently.

7. Has the regional center been the subject of any USCIS compliance actions, notices of intent to terminate, or remediation requirements? USCIS publishes some compliance activity; the rest may surface only through industry contacts or litigation searches.

8. How long has the regional center been operating, and how many I-829 approvals has it delivered? I-526E volume is not the same as I-829 performance. A young regional center with no I-829 history is still operating in unknown territory.

9. Is the regional center an IIUSA member in good standing? IIUSA (Invest in the USA) is the industry trade association. Membership is not by itself a quality signal, but persistent non-membership or termination from IIUSA is a signal worth investigating.

Category 3, Project documentation (4 questions)

The offering memorandum (PPM), business plan, subscription agreement, and escrow agreement are the legal architecture of the investment. They are where the actual deal lives, not the marketing deck.

10. Has the project received an exemplar approval (Form I-956F) from USCIS? Exemplar approval validates the project structure and significantly reduces individual I-526E adjudication risk. Investing pre-exemplar is materially different from investing post-exemplar.

11. Does the PPM disclose all material risks, including specific risks to the project, sponsor, regional center, and exit? A PPM with generic boilerplate risk language and no project-specific risks is incomplete. Real PPMs disclose real risks.

12. Does the business plan meet the Matter of Ho standard? The Matter of Ho standard requires plans to be “comprehensive, detailed, and credible.” Job-creation methodology, market analysis, capital plan, and management structure all need to hold up under USCIS scrutiny.

13. Are the offering documents internally consistent? The PPM, business plan, subscription documents, and marketing materials should all describe the same deal. When the brochure promises more than the PPM can support, the brochure is wrong.

Category 4, Capital stack (6 questions)

The capital stack is the layered structure of who has rights to repayment, in what priority, under what conditions. This is where the most subtle EB-5 risks live, and it is the area most investors least understand.

14. What is the EB-5 capital’s position in the stack? Senior, mezzanine, junior, equity. The position determines what happens to your capital if the project underperforms.

15. Is the EB-5 layer secured or unsecured? If secured, what is the collateral, what is the lien priority, and is there a recorded deed of trust? “Pari passu” language without recorded security is just words.

16. Is there any C-PACE financing in the stack, and where does it sit? C-PACE (Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy) often holds statutory priority lien status. Even a small C-PACE slice can change the recovery picture for junior capital in a downside scenario.

17. What is the take-out plan, and at what interest rate is the refinance modeled? Most EB-5 loans get repaid via refinance. Deals modeled at 2021 rates often do not pencil at 2026 rates. Ask the sponsor to show you the refinance model with current-environment assumptions.

18. Is the structure debt or equity, and what is the distribution waterfall? Debt EB-5 caps your “return” at a stated interest rate but typically has priority over equity for repayment. Equity EB-5 can outperform in a strong project and can wait years for nothing in a weak one. Read the waterfall, who gets paid first, second, third, including which classes have catch-up rights.

19. If there is a bridge loan, what is the take-out source and what happens to EB-5 if the bridge extends? A “bridge to permanent” without a clearly identified permanent take-out is a structural risk you need to understand before you commit capital.

Category 5, Job creation (4 questions)

EB-5 requires 10 qualifying jobs per investor. The math behind those jobs is where projects either earn their I-829 approvals or fail them.

20. What is the job-creation methodology, and which economist prepared the analysis? Direct, indirect, and induced jobs all count, but the methodology has to be defensible. The economist should have a track record of approvals on similar projects.

21. What is the job cushion? Total projected qualifying jobs divided by investor count. A cushion of 30 to 50 percent above the 10-jobs-per-investor minimum is the range most experienced advisors look for. Lower cushions mean less margin for construction delays or economic disruption.

22. What is the projected construction and operational timeline, and what triggers count toward job creation? Construction jobs are counted differently from operational jobs. The timing of when each is “created” for USCIS purposes affects your I-829.

23. What is the sponsor’s contingency plan if construction is delayed or jobs ramp slower than projected? A serious sponsor has thought about downside scenarios. A sponsor who has not is asking you to bear those scenarios alone.

Category 6, Exit strategy (4 questions)

The exit is when your $800,000 comes home. Or doesn’t. The exit plan deserves the same scrutiny as the entry.

24. What is the projected investment term, and what mechanism returns the EB-5 capital? Loan maturity, project sale, refinance, redemption. Each carries different risks.

25. How does the post-RIA 2-year sustainment rule interact with the project’s term? Under the RIA, capital must remain at risk for 2 years from the date of investment. If a project’s term is shorter than 2 years from your wire date, the regional center will need to redeploy your capital. Ask how they handle redeployment.

26. What happens in a workout or default scenario? Read the inter-creditor agreement. Read the loan documents. The deal terms in a stable project may bear little resemblance to your position in a distressed one.

27. What is the regional center’s history with capital returns? If the regional center has completed prior deals, ask how many returned capital on the original timeline, how many extended, and how many restructured. Real exit history beats projected exit timelines every time.

Asset-class-specific diligence

The 27 questions are the baseline. Different asset classes layer specific questions on top.

Data centers

Power availability is often the entire deal. A site without secured power capacity is a deal without a deal. Construction costs for data centers have spiked, and tenant concentration on a single hyperscaler creates a default-risk concentration that traditional CRE diligence may miss. Ask: what is the power-purchase agreement (PPA) status, what is the tenant credit profile, and what happens to the project if the tenant defaults?

Self-storage

Self-storage has one of the most consistent track records in commercial real estate, and that consistency masks some category-specific risks. Saturation in certain metros is real. Job-creation math is tighter than apartment complexes (smaller footprints). Ask: what is the market study’s competing-supply analysis, and what is the absorption assumption?

Healthcare facilities

Healthcare is heavily regulated at federal and state levels. Reimbursement-rule changes can move project economics overnight. Tenant concentration on anchor practices can quietly become a single-point-of-failure. Ask: what is the regulatory exposure, who are the anchor tenants, and what is the lease-roll schedule?

Manufacturing and reshoring

CHIPS Act and IRA tax credits have created strong tailwinds for industrial projects. The construction is specialized, permitting takes longer, and operator credit becomes critical. Ask: who is the operator, what is the permitting status, and what happens if federal incentives shift?

Hotels (new construction vs repositioning)

These are two different deals. New construction offers larger job cushions and longer timelines. Repositioning offers faster path to cash flow but tighter job counts. Ask which category you are looking at, and why that category fits the EB-5 capital being raised.

Workforce housing

Strong demand fundamentals, often-incentivized municipal support, and steady job creation. Rent control political risk and subsidy-dependency are the category-specific watchouts. Ask: are project economics dependent on tax credits or subsidies that could shift?

A note for immigration attorneys

If you are an immigration attorney advising EB-5 clients, you are increasingly being asked the question “is this project financially sound, will my client get the $800,000 back?” You shouldn’t be answering it. Not because you can’t, but because answering it creates liability you don’t need. That is a financial question, and it belongs with a FINRA-registered professional who carries that responsibility by regulation.

The best partnerships I have seen pair an immigration attorney handling immigration strategy with a broker-dealer representative handling financial diligence. The worst is when the attorney tries to do both, or when the attorney defers to the developer’s sales team. Your clients deserve both experts in the room. Our investor representation service is built to plug into your immigration practice without competing for it.

Red flags that mean “walk away”

After 500+ deals, certain patterns mean stop, regardless of how compelling the rest of the deal looks.

• Inconsistencies between the brochure and the PPM. If the marketing promises something the offering can’t back, the marketing is wrong.
• A sponsor who deflects, lectures, or charms past questions instead of engaging with them.
• Pressure to wire before diligence is complete. Deadlines are real, but a sponsor who insists on rushing past your questions is telling you they don’t want the questions asked.
• A regional center that has been subject to compliance actions and the sponsor doesn’t proactively disclose it.
• A capital stack with significant C-PACE or other priority-lien layers that the sponsor brushes off as routine.
• A job cushion at or below 1.0x. Anything that doesn’t leave room for delays.
• “Bridge financing” without a named permanent take-out. Hope is not a strategy.

When two or more of these show up in the same deal, walk. Even when a client wants to move forward.

Where to go from here

If you are evaluating an EB-5 project right now, the next step is to run it against these 27 questions and write down what you learn. The questions you cannot answer from the offering materials are the questions to bring to the sponsor. The questions the sponsor cannot answer convincingly are the questions to bring to a FINRA-registered advisor.

New World Ventures provides independent EB-5 investor representation, including project diligence, source-of-funds coordination with immigration counsel, and ongoing support through I-526E approval, the conditional residency period, and I-829 removal of conditions. Matthew Khalili is a registered representative of GT Securities, Inc. (CRD# 6925403), a FINRA/SIPC member firm. Verify on FINRA BrokerCheck.

The 27 questions are a starting point, not a finish line. Use them to find the deals worth a longer conversation, and to walk away from the ones that aren’t.

This article is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal, immigration, or tax advice, nor an offer or solicitation. Each EB-5 investment carries substantial risk, including the possibility of loss of capital, illiquidity, project underperformance, and immigration-adjudication uncertainty. Always consult qualified immigration counsel, securities counsel, and tax advisors before investing.