EB-5 Indirect Jobs in Regional Center Projects

They are not ordinary payroll employees of the NCE in the standalone sense.

Indirect jobs are employment effects attributed to the broader economic activity generated by a regional center project rather than payroll positions of the new commercial enterprise. They may arise through project spending, supplier activity, and other economic effects captured by an accepted model. The post-RIA statute permits regional center investors to use indirect job estimates within specified limits, but the estimates must be grounded in project activity and an economically and statistically valid methodology. The economic report should explain what inputs drive the calculation and should avoid counting activity that is unsupported, duplicated, or outside the project described in the approved or filed business plan.

Standalone investors generally cannot rely on modeled indirect employment to satisfy the basic job requirement.

Reliance on modeled indirect employment is a defining feature of the Regional Center Program and is not generally available to a standalone investor in the same manner. Standalone cases ordinarily rely on qualifying direct employment created within the permitted enterprise structure. Regional center cases can use the statutory indirect-job framework because Congress authorized economically modeled employment effects for those investments. The filing should therefore identify whether each claimed job is direct or indirect and why the chosen methodology applies. Mixing standalone direct-employment concepts with regional center modeled job creation can obscure whether the statutory requirement is actually satisfied.

Only up to 90 percent of the ordinary regional center job requirement may be satisfied with jobs estimated indirectly.

INA section 203(b)(5)(E)(iv) limits how much of the ordinary regional center job requirement may be satisfied through jobs estimated to be created indirectly. The statute permits only up to 90 percent of the required employment to be established through indirect estimates. The remaining job-creation showing must therefore be structured consistently with the statutory framework. The economic report should identify the total jobs attributed to the project, the number allocated to each investor, the direct or indirect characterization used, and any job cushion. The project should also avoid allocating the same modeled employment to more investors than the underlying activity can support.

The report should identify the project inputs, model, assumptions, source data, and outputs used to calculate jobs.

The economic methodology should be transparent enough to show how project activity produces the claimed employment estimate. The report should identify the economic model, geographic assumptions, source data, eligible construction or operating expenditures, revenue inputs where applicable, time periods, and any exclusions. Those inputs should reconcile with the business plan, construction budget, financing documents, and actual project scope. An economic model does not cure unsupported project assumptions; it only translates qualifying inputs into estimated effects. Material changes in expenditures, timing, project size, or operations can therefore require a fresh assessment of the resulting job calculation.

Only up to 75 percent of the job requirement may be satisfied with indirectly estimated jobs from such construction activity.

Construction activity lasting less than two years is subject to a special statutory limitation. For such activity, INA section 203(b)(5)(E)(iv) permits only up to 75 percent of the job requirement to be satisfied through jobs estimated to be created indirectly from that construction. The statute also contains a rule for estimating direct construction jobs when the construction period is shorter than two years. The project schedule, eligible construction period, and expenditure assumptions should therefore be documented carefully. A filing should not apply the ordinary 90 percent indirect limit without considering whether the shorter-construction rule governs the claimed jobs.

• Actual construction expenditures
• Eligible operating expenditures
• Actual revenue where applicable
• Model inputs
• Investor count
• Job allocation
• Job cushion

At Form I-829, the project must support the qualifying activity underlying the job-creation methodology rather than rely only on the original forecast. Relevant evidence may include actual construction expenditures, eligible operating expenditures or revenues where the approved methodology uses them, project completion records, economic-model inputs, investor counts, allocation schedules, and updated job calculations. Variances from the original business plan should be explained so USCIS can determine whether the required jobs were created or can be credited under the applicable rules. The record should also confirm that the same expenditures or jobs were not double counted among investors.