US reaches limit for China investor visas

The US has temporarily run out of EB-5 investor visas for Chinese applicants for the first time ever, but experts say it should have little effect on applicants.

The US State Department announced that the maximum number of EB-5 applicants from China had been reached for fiscal year 2014 on Aug 23, and the next batch will not be available until the start of fiscal year 2015, which is Oct 1, a month from now.

"So essentially, we only have a month where the EB-5 visas for Chinese nationals are not going to be available," said Nataliya Rymer, an associate at Greenberg Traurig LLP who works on business immigration. "That's a pretty short period of time. After that, the availability comes back and everything starts functioning as it did before."