Where We Invest

Pursuant to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) EB-5 Investor Visa Program, the definition of a Targeted Employment Area (TEA) is: 1. A rural area or 2. An non-rural area that has experienced high unemployment (150.0% of the national average unemployment rate during a comparable 12-month period).

Rural areas are defined as those areas not located within a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) or within a city or town with a population of 20,000 or more. Areas in Florida that qualify as rural areas under this provision are highlighted in green in the map below:

Qualifying Rural Areas
Bradford
Calhoun
Citrus
Columbia
DeSoto
Dixie
Franklin
Glades
Gulf
Hamilton
Hardee
Hendry
Highlands
Holmes
Jackson
Lafayette
Levy
Liberty
Madison
Monroe (excluding Key West City)
Okeechobee
Putnam
Sumter
Suwannee
Taylor
Union
Walton
Washington

High unemployment areas are defined as non-rural areas (either entire MSAs; component counties of multicounty MSAs; or cities with populations of 20,000 or more) with unemployment rates at least 150.0% higher than the national average for the most recent calendar year available. For calendar year 2009, the national unemployment rate averaged 9.3%. Therefore, a non-rural area qualifies as a high unemployment area if its 2009 annual average rate was at least 14.0%. Areas in Florida that qualify as high unemployment areas under this provision include:

• Palm Coast MSA (Flagler County)—14.8%
• Hialeah City (in Miami-Dade County)—14.6%
• Fort Pierce City (in St. Lucie County)—15.4%

In addition, the Labor Market Statistics Center can calculate unemployment estimates for smaller geographies such as Census tracts to determine if they qualify as TEAs by request. Five non-rural counties (Baker, Gilchrist, Jefferson, Nassau, and Wakull) highlighted in yellow in the map above, do not contain any TEAs based on unemployment. More information about the EB-5 Investor Visa Program can be found on the USCIS website (www.uscis.gov).