Question:

The foreign national may invest in an existing business so long as the capital invested increases either the business' net worth or workforce by at least 40 percent. The foreign national may also invest in a "troubled business". A "troubled business" is one that has suffered a net loss of 20 percent or more off its net worth in the last 12 to 24 months. Pleas note that the job creation requirement must still be met. In this particular case, the investor is required to create or preserve ten direct full-time jobs.

Non-Regional Center investors are only different in their inability to count "indirect jobs" predicted through economic analyses. As long as the jobs can be counted as direct, they can preserve jobs in a "troubled business" or "expand an existing business" or "restructure an existing business". Just like a RC investor the stand-alone OR non-RC "group" can combine these various aspects in their project. Non-RC investors can only count direct "on-the-books" employees for full-time qualified U.S. workers at a rate of 10 per EB-5 investor.

Preserved jobs and newly created jobs can be combined as long as they are "direct full-time". The TOTAL number of jobs would need to meet both tests:
1.) an overall total equal to 140% of initial number of jobs, AND
2.) at least 10 creditable jobs per investor (whether qualifying as preserved or new or a combination).

To add further clarification to the answer above, if the investment is being made in a business which is being expanded, the investment must increase the number of jobs in the existing company by 40% over what was there initially or must increase the net worth of the enterprise by 40% over its pre-investment value. This is in addition to the need to create (or preserve where qualifying) at least 10 jobs.