No approved EB-5 set-aside petition was awaiting a visa in June 2026

Three United States immigration datasets, published as spreadsheets and read on 22 September 2026, count something the EB-5 reserved categories are rarely counted on. In the rural, high-unemployment and infrastructure categories, the number of approved petitions waiting for a visa number in June 2026 was zero. In the unreserved category it was 9,553. Over the nine months to June, 161 of 174 petitions for investors born in Vietnam named a reserved category.

The two tables, and what each one counts

The first is USCIS’s table of employment-based petitions awaiting visa availability, as of June 2026. It splits the fifth preference into unreserved and set-aside. Unreserved: 9,553, of which 9,549 sit under China and four under India, with zero for Mexico, the Philippines and the rest of the world combined. Set-aside: zero, in every row. The table measures the position in June, but USCIS released it on 8 September 2026: the agency reports by fiscal quarter and publishes some months after each quarter closes. The preceding set, for the quarter to 31 March, was released on 3 August 2026.

The table’s scope matters, and the file states it. It counts principal beneficiaries and excludes dependents, although a spouse and children consume visa numbers too. It counts petitions rather than people, because one person may hold more than one. And it groups by country of birth, not citizenship.

The second is USCIS’s record of I-526 and I-526E receipts by month, investment type and country of birth, covering October 2025 to June 2026.

The categories investors born in Vietnam filed into

USCIS recorded 174 EB-5 petitions for investors born in Vietnam across those nine months: 172 through regional centres and two standalone. Of those, 94 named a high-unemployment area, 53 a rural area and 14 both. Five were unreserved, eight recorded no type, and none named infrastructure.

That is 161 of 174 in a reserved category, or 92.5%. Counting only the 166 filings whose type is recorded, it is 97.0%.

The concentration is not particular to Vietnam. Of 4,986 regional-centre petitions received worldwide in the same nine months, 4,730 named a reserved category, 21 were unreserved and 235 had no recorded type. These are filing counts. They establish neither the amounts invested nor any comparison of waiting times between categories.

No infrastructure petitions were recorded

USCIS recorded no infrastructure-category receipts on either form, from any country of birth, in those nine months.

Infrastructure is the smallest of the three reserves. Section 1153(b)(5)(B) of title 8, read on govinfo in both the 2023 and 2024 editions of the US Code, reserves 20% of each year’s EB-5 visas for rural investment, 10% for high-unemployment areas and 2% for infrastructure projects, within a fifth preference capped at 7.1% of the employment-based worldwide level. Zero receipts is not the same as an unused allocation, and these files do not record how many reserved visas went unissued.

What the end of the fiscal year does

Unused reserved visas are not cancelled on 30 September. Under the cited editions of the statute, unused visas reserved for each of the three categories remain available within the same category for the immediately succeeding fiscal year. Only those still unissued at the end of that succeeding year are made available to the general fifth-preference pool.

A number reserved for the year to 30 September 2026 and unused at its end therefore remains available in that same category through the year to 30 September 2027. If it is still unissued at the end of that year, the statute makes it available to the general fifth-preference pool.

Visa-number carryover is a separate matter from the processing protection for regional-centre petitions filed on or before 30 September 2026, which this publication has set out separately.

What the recorded zero covers

The zero is a recorded figure rather than an empty cell: the set-aside column holds an integer zero in all six country rows, and blank rows in the same file return nothing at all.

What it covers is narrow. It is approved petitions awaiting a visa number in June 2026. It does not establish how many people are waiting to immigrate, what visa numbers are available now, or what the position will be in October. The checks behind it confirm that the figure was read correctly; they do not independently verify USCIS’s own records. This article establishes no priority date for any category.

Petitions pending adjudication

A reader should also be careful which queue is meant. USCIS’s quarterly form data for 1 April to 30 June 2026 records 11,192 I-526E petitions pending a decision at the end of the quarter. That figure covers I-526E petitions overall: the file has a single worksheet, and it nowhere divides any count by reserved category.

In that quarter USCIS approved 687 I-526E petitions and denied 217. Across the nine months it approved 2,258 and denied 592; denials were 20.8% of those 2,850 approvals and denials. The file’s stated median time from receipt to completion, for cases completed in the quarter, was 13.6 months.

For legacy I-526 petitions, meaning form editions predating 1 June 2022, the file records 960 pending at the end of June, a median of 99.2 months for cases completed in the quarter, and 178 denials against 61 approvals over the nine months. Standalone I-526 filings show 28 denials against 21 approvals.

What this article does not establish

How many reserved visas went unissued in the year to 30 September 2026. That figure sits with the State Department, not in these three files.

Any priority date, for any category.

How many people stand behind the petition counts, or what any investor paid.

Why filings for investors born in Vietnam concentrate in the reserved categories, and why the infrastructure reserve drew no receipts. The tables record that both are so; nothing read here explains either.