What a USCIS EB-5 Regional Center designation means

What it permits

• Sponsoring pooled EB-5 investments under the Immigrant Investor Program, which can lead to US permanent residency for an investor and their dependent children.
• Appearing on the list USCIS publishes and updates itself — a government publication, which is why records sourced from it are the one part of our directory marked register-verified.
• Relevance to schools is specific: EB-5 families are relocating with capital and school-age dependants, which is a different profile from general student recruitment.

What it does not tell you

The limits matter as much as the permissions. A licence answers one question precisely and says nothing about the others.

• That USCIS endorses the centre, its projects or its financial performance. Designation is a programme status, not a recommendation, and USCIS says so.
• That any particular investment is sound. EB-5 has a long history of investor losses in designated centres.
• Whether the centre works with families on school placement at all. Most do not; that is the school's question to ask.
• Current standing without checking the date — USCIS publishes terminated centres as well as active ones.

How to check one yourself

1. 1Open the EB-5 Regional Center pages on uscis.gov.
2. 2Download the current approved list and the separate terminated list. Both are published as files, and both matter.
3. 3Match on the centre's exact legal name and its identification number, not on a marketing name.
4. 4Check the terminated list before relying on an entry — a centre can appear in an old copy of the approved list long after termination.