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The next question is: What type of investment are you interested in making? There are two basic ways that an investment can be made: You can invest in a new business venture on your own, or you can invest in a project at a regional center. The decision will be based on a number of factors including your level of interest in controlling the investment or managing the business, you have a stronger interest in maximizing your profits, and your interest in investing is a strong motivating factor. Regional Center investment is more suited for those who are more interested in obtaining a green card, for whom the investment is secondary to that goal, or to those uninterested in controlling the investment. It also allows you to avoid some of the legal complexities of an individual investment. Typically, regional centers investments qualify for the $500,000 investment amount because the regional centers are generally set up to serve underserved areas.

The requirements on your investment remain essentially the same with either choice. It must be a commercial enterprise, beneficial to the United States economy that creates at least ten full time jobs in the United States for at least two years. The main difference is that for a direct investment you must prove that you created the ten jobs, whereas investment through a regional center permits you to show the creation of ten indirect jobs, meaning you can use economic and business models to show that your investment created ten jobs indirectly or induced ten jobs to be created without showing ten actual jobs.

An additional requirement which you will want to consider is that the capital used for the investmentmust have been obtained by legitimate means. This requires proof of how you obtain and maintain your income, as well as documents identifying the source of money used, and registration records for any business you owned which provided income.

Finally, keep in mind this is a long process. It takes time to find an investment and put together your petition. Once the initial investment is approved, you will receive a conditional green card, which is good for two years. Within 90 days of the end of two years the petition for permanent green card can be filed. Keep in mind, if the investment fails, or is unable to create the necessary jobs then your permanent green card will be denied. So care needs to be taken to choose the best method for investing to insure that you receive a green card after the conditional card expires.