China EB-5 Unreserved: Stuck at 01DEC16, With a Way Out

China’s unreserved EB-5 line is one of the deepest employment-based backlogs on the books. In the August 2026 Visa Bulletin it sits at 01DEC16 — a cutoff from late 2016, the product of years of heavy demand under the standard 7% per-country cap. The eb5 india unreserved retrogression is even worse: India closed to U. China at least still moves. The real escape, though, is the EB-5 set-aside program, which sits outside that backlog entirely.

Verified China unreserved EB-5 Final Action Dates

The unreserved China EB-5 cutoff has swung within a 2014–2016 band across the verified bulletins, reaching 01DEC16 by July–August 2026. Those back-and-forth moves are the category flinching at demand and at how many numbers are released each month. It is not progressing in any meaningful sense.

The set-aside escape

Under the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022, a slice of EB-5 visas is set aside each year and is exempt from the per-country backlog that traps the unreserved pool. The reserved shares are fixed by statute:

Because these set-aside visas are not subject to the per-country cap, an eligible China-origin investor can bypass the 01DEC16 unreserved cutoff completely by qualifying under a reserved category — rural, high-unemployment, or infrastructure. That is the single most important fact in this article.

Investment amounts (2022 Act)

For new EB-5 filings, the statutory minimums are $1,050,000 standard and $800,000 for a Targeted Employment Area (TEA, covering rural and high-unemployment projects). These figures apply to both reserved and unreserved EB-5 investments alike.