Jan-Willem(52)

For thirty years I ran a transport company in Deventer. When a competitor acquired the business for a good price, I finally had the means to make my American dream come true. The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program requires a minimum investment of $800,000 in a Targeted Employment Area (TEA) or $1,050,000 outside of one. The investment must create at least ten full-time jobs. In return you get a conditional green card for two years, which then becomes permanent.

I chose a Regional Center project in Portland: a boutique hotel in the Pearl District. Through the Regional Center you don't need to run a business yourself -- you invest in an existing project that creates indirect jobs. My immigration attorney in New York (specialized in EB-5) charged $25,000 for the complete process. On top of that come the USCIS filing fees: $3,675 for the I-526E petition and $1,440 for the I-485 Adjustment of Status.

The EB-5 process is slow. My I-526E petition was filed in March 2023 and not approved until November 2024 -- twenty months of waiting. In the meantime I lived on a B-2 tourist visa (180 days at a time) and regularly flew back to the Netherlands. After approval I filed the I-485 and received my conditional green card within three months. My wife Annemarie and our two teenage sons automatically received their cards as derivative applicants.

Portland is a city that suits us. The mentality is progressive, nature is spectacular (Mount Hood, the Columbia River Gorge, the Oregon coast) and the food scene is world-class. Oregon has no sales tax, which makes daily life cheaper. But there is a state income tax of 8-10%, which is significant. Our mortgage for a craftsman house in the Hawthorne district is $3,200 per month -- comparable to renting a canal house in Amsterdam.

The biggest challenge of EB-5 is the risk. You invest $800,000 in a project that you're not certain will succeed. If the project fails, you may lose both your investment and your green card. My hotel project is doing well -- it opened in 2025 and is profitable. After two years I must file an I-829 petition to prove that jobs were created and the investment is still active. Only then does my green card become permanent.

For wealthy Dutch people who want to enter the US without an employer, EB-5 is the most direct route. But it's not without risk and wait times are long. My advice: only work with an SEC-registered Regional Center, hire an EB-5-specialized attorney and do extensive due diligence on the project. The $800,000 is an investment, not a donation -- you should get it back after five to seven years if all goes well. It gave our family a new life in a beautiful city.