The first preference of U.S. Employment Based Immigration, EB-1 is for the people who have extraordinary ability and nationally and internationally recognition of their achievement in the fields of science, art, education, business and athlete. People with extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, and high ranked managers and executives of multinational firms can apply for EB-1. They can acquire U.S. permanent residency if they obtain approval of their immigration visas via submitting their immigration petitions and documentation that prove their ability, achievement, and ranks.

National Interest Waiver (NIW) pertaining to Employment Base Immigration: Second Preference (EB-2) is a scheme established in 1998 when the U.S. immigration laws were revised so as to improve the competitiveness of the United States of America via accepting highly skilled, experienced, intelligent, and knowledged talent. In general, the EB-2 hopeful must have an employer and a labor certification prior to applying for their EB-2 petitions. However, NIW allows applicants to acquire the employment based immigration visas without employers as proving that ability of NIW applicants gives certain advantages to U.S. interests. The spouse and children of NIW applicants will be able to also obtain U.S. immigration visas along with NIW applicants.

Characteristics of EB-1 & NIW
- Not required to have employers, which is different to general employment based immigration categories.
- Short processing time compared with other immigration categories.
- Allowing the spouse and children of applicants to acquire immigration visas.
- Enabling the applicants to stably acquire immigration visas.
- Not required to invest a huge sum of funds compared with the investment visa (EB-5).
- Allowing applicants to stay in the home country for a long period of time after acquiring their U.S. permanent residency.

EB-5 is a type of U.S. Employment Based Immigration. However it does not require employment that must have a U.S. sponsor and EB-5 applicants can acquire their U.S. permanent residency as investing their own financial resources. EB-5 is to encourage migrants to invest or operate business that benefits to the U.S. economy, and its investment amount is either USD 1.8 mil. or USD 900,000. An EB-5 applicant invests one of the amounts given to a new U.S. enterprise. The applicant and his or her family members (spouse and unmarried children younger than 21) are able to acquire their conditional U.S. residency visas that last for two years if the enterprise newly hire at least ten full-time employees per an EB-5 case, who are on at least U.S. permanent resident status. The applicant and his or her family members will have their permanent residency and their residency condition will be removed two years after the initial two year conditional residency if the applicant (investor) maintains his or her investment and at least ten jobs have been created. An EB-5 investor (applicant) invests his or her funds to his or her own enterprise or an eligible project along with other investors. An EB-5 investor should be aware that his or her investment principal will not be guaranteed so he or she should take the risk. The yearly quota of EB-5 is approximately 10,000, and 3,000 of the quota are allocated to pilot programs of regional centers designated by USCIS.

Advantages
- The immigration processing time is approximately one to two years so the time is relatively short.
- EB-5 conditional or permanent residents are allowed to live and move anywhere in the U.S.
- For children of an EB-5 conditional resident, their tuition fees may be significantly saved for example free tuition fees of public schools and it is easier to get employed. After acquiring permanent residency, the children are allowed to attend medical and dental schools.
- There are no requirements for an investor regarding his or her education, employment, age, and English ability.
- EB-5 conditional or permanent residents are able to establish and do business freely anywhere in the U.S.