A Million Dollars and Ten Jobs, or a Treaty and a Business
The United States has two investor routes and they are not alternatives: one gives permanent residence and one does not. The employment creation preference takes up to 7.1 per cent of the worldwide employment-based level and requires capital invested in a new commercial enterprise, expected to stay invested for at least two years, creating full-time employment for at least ten American workers who are not the investor's own family. The treaty investor category gives a temporary status instead, and is open only to nationals of treaty states.
At a glance
- Share of the employment level
- Up to 7.1 per cent
- Jobs required
- Ten full-time, and not the investor's spouse or children
- How long the capital stays
- At least two years
- The amount
- Set by subparagraph (C), which this record does not quote
The Code states the amount in a separate subparagraph that is adjusted over time; the figure is not reproduced here.
- The temporary alternative
- The treaty investor category, open only to treaty nationals
Requirements
- Capital invested, or actively in the process of being invested, in a new commercial enterprise
- The investment expected to remain for at least two years
- Full-time employment created for at least ten qualifying workers, excluding the investor's family
Country-level policy
One provision shapes almost every permanent route into the United States for this corpus, and it is two paragraphs long. Paragraph (a)(1) forbids discrimination in issuing an immigrant visa because of race, sex, nationality, place of birth or place of residence. Paragraph (a)(2) then provides that no single foreign state may receive more than 7 per cent of the family-sponsored and employment-based immigrant visas available in a fiscal year. The second is written as an express exception to the first. The ceiling is per state of birth rather than per citizenship, and because demand from a few states is far above 7 per cent of the total, the practical effect is that people born in those states wait years or decades longer than people born elsewhere with identical qualifications and identical sponsors.
Exceptions by origin
No exceptions recorded
Nothing we have read treats any nationality differently for this topic. The rule above applies to everyone.
What the law says
«(5) Employment creation (A) In general Visas shall be made available, in a number not to exceed 7.1 percent of such worldwide level, to qualified immigrants seeking to enter the United States for the purpose of engaging in a new commercial enterprise (including a limited partnership)— (i) in which such alien has invested (after November 29, 1990) or, is actively in the process of investing, capital in an amount not less than the amount specified in subparagraph (C) and which is expected to remain invested for not less than 2 years; and (ii) which will benefit the United States economy by creating full-time employment for not fewer than 10 United States citizens, United States nationals, or aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence or other immigrants lawfully authorized to be employed in the United States (other than the immigrant and the immigrant's spouse, sons, or daughte»The employment creation preference. The quotation ends where the stored line ends, inside the exclusion of the investor's own family from the job count.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government Publishing Office's authenticated repository. The United States Code is published here edition by edition, one HTML file per section, at an address that names the edition year - and a link service resolves a title and section number to the current edition's file.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: An edition is a snapshot: the 2024 edition states the law as of a date in 2024 and says nothing about amendments made since. The Code is itself a compilation of acts, and for titles not enacted into positive law the Statutes at Large govern where the two differ. Nothing here carries the regulations, which are in the Code of Federal Regulations, or the annual notices that fill in the numbers these sections leave open.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«(E) an alien entitled to enter the United States under and in pursuance of the provisions of a treaty of commerce and navigation between the United States and the foreign state of which the alien is a national (or, in the case of an alien who acquired the relevant nationality through a financial investment and who has not previously been granted status under this subparagraph, the foreign state of which the alien is a national and in which the alien has been domiciled for a continuous period of not less than 3 years at any point before applying for a nonimmigrant visa under this subparagraph), and the spouse and children of any such alien if accompanying or following to join such alien; (i) solely to carry on substantial trade, including trade in services or trade in technology, principally between the United States and the foreign state of which the alien is a national;»The treaty trader and investor category, and the clause inserted to stop it being bought: where the nationality was acquired through a financial investment, the applicant must also have been domiciled in that state for three continuous years. Five states of this corpus sell citizenship.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government Publishing Office's authenticated repository. The United States Code is published here edition by edition, one HTML file per section, at an address that names the edition year - and a link service resolves a title and section number to the current edition's file.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: An edition is a snapshot: the 2024 edition states the law as of a date in 2024 and says nothing about amendments made since. The Code is itself a compilation of acts, and for titles not enacted into positive law the Statutes at Large govern where the two differ. Nothing here carries the regulations, which are in the Code of Federal Regulations, or the annual notices that fill in the numbers these sections leave open.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The capital threshold is in subparagraph (C) and moves; stating a figure from memory is exactly what this project does not do, so the record names where it lives instead.
Both routes sit under the per-country ceiling for the permanent one and under the treaty requirement for the temporary one. Neither is open on money alone.
- consolidates8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(5), employment creation
GovInfo, U.S. Government Publishing Office · consolidated to 2024
About this source
The Government Publishing Office's authenticated repository. The United States Code is published here edition by edition, one HTML file per section, at an address that names the edition year - and a link service resolves a title and section number to the current edition's file.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: An edition is a snapshot: the 2024 edition states the law as of a date in 2024 and says nothing about amendments made since. The Code is itself a compilation of acts, and for titles not enacted into positive law the Statutes at Large govern where the two differ. Nothing here carries the regulations, which are in the Code of Federal Regulations, or the annual notices that fill in the numbers these sections leave open.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source