Where the EB-5 Program Stands After the Grandfathering Deadline

For most of the past year, one date shaped EB-5 planning above all others: September 30, 2026, the filing cutoff for grandfathering protection. That date has now passed, and a common reaction to its passing is that the door to EB-5 has closed. The grandfathering window closed. The program did not. The Regional Center Program remains authorized and open to new investors.

Grandfathering and program authorization run on different timelines and address different risks.

Grandfathering was a filing cutoff. Under the Reform and Integrity Act of 2022, a regional center petition filed on or before September 30, 2026 carries a statutory safeguard: it continues to be adjudicated even if the program is later interrupted. Authorization is the separate question of whether the program is running at all, and it currently runs through September 30, 2027, a full year past that date. An investor who files today enters an active program, under the same eligibility requirements that applied a month ago.

October 1 changed the protection a new petition carries. Filing itself remains available. A petition submitted now does not receive grandfathering, which was built for one scenario in particular: an expiration of the program after September 2027, should Congress not act to extend it or make it permanent. A petition on the protected side of the cutoff moves forward regardless of what happens in the fall of 2027. One filed afterward does not have that cover.

This is a real tradeoff, and prospective investors reviewing the program now are entitled to see it stated without varnish. How much the missing protection should matter comes down to the outlook for reauthorization.

That outlook is stronger than it has been at almost any point in the program's recent history. Aaron Grau, Executive Director of Invest in the USA (IIUSA), the national trade association for the Regional Center Program, has built the case for 2027 around the program's record since the RIA.

"The program was reauthorized in 2022 to create more integrity and weed out the bad apples. We can check that box. Directing more funding to rural areas? We can check that box too. Promises made, promises kept."

The two goals Congress set in the RIA were stronger program integrity and a redirection of capital toward rural communities, and Grau argues both have been delivered. He also points to a first-of-its-kind IIUSA political action committee that gives the industry a congressional advocacy tool it never had before, along with the recent decision to make Opportunity Zones permanent as a precedent for doing the same with EB-5.

The program's own history points the same way. The Regional Center Program went dark for roughly eight months in 2021 before the RIA restored it and added grandfathering, so that any future gap could not strand investors already in the system. A shutdown has precedent as a temporary event that Congress has since moved to prevent from repeating.

This does not settle the reauthorization question outright, but it explains why practitioners assess the risk of a lasting shutdown as low, and why the protection grandfathering offered, real as it was, is not the deciding factor it can first appear to be.

There are concrete reasons to file now. The program is operating, with petitions accepted and adjudicated under the rules in effect today. Filing establishes a priority date, and priority dates only get later as demand builds, so an investor who files sooner holds an earlier place in line. The reserved set-aside categories for rural, high-unemployment, and infrastructure projects have remained current throughout fiscal year 2026, even as the unreserved category came under pressure. For an investor gauging where the program offers the most direct route to a visa, that availability is a further reason not to wait.

Due diligence remains what it always was. CanAm's role across its projects has been to structure, raise, and administer EB-5 capital, and any regional center an investor considers should be equally direct about what it is responsible for and what its petition record shows.

Filing after the grandfathering cutoff is a considered decision for an investor who sees the tradeoff for what it is. It carries one cost, the absence of lapse protection, set against an active program and a reauthorization case that continues to strengthen. Anyone who accounts for both is well positioned to judge whether the program fits their goals.

CanAm's team is available to discuss current projects and the questions that matter most at this stage of due diligence.