Sixteen-Year Visa Wait Keeping Chinese Investors Away From U.S.

A Chinese national applying today for a U.S. immigrant investor visa may not get one until 2035 at the earliest.

With more than 34,000 applicants in line for the roughly 10,000 EB-5 visas available each year—not counting the nearly 39,000 whose applications haven’t yet been approved—the average wait isn’t much better for the handful of other countries facing backlogs. Indian nationals are looking at 8.4 years, and for Vietnamese, it’s 7.6 years, Charles Oppenheim, chief of the State Department’s Immigrant Visa Control & Reporting Division, said at a recent conference hosted by an EB-5 advocacy group.

The lengthy waits, a ...