No. Targeted employment area status depends on a specific designation tied to unemployment data or approved infrastructure project status, not simply on being located outside a major city.
Location alone does not establish the reduced amount
The reduced EB-5 capital amount applies to investments in a targeted employment area or a qualifying infrastructure project, and neither status follows automatically from a project being rural or geographically remote. Targeted employment area designation is tied to specific unemployment statistics for the area in question, calculated and documented through an approved process, and an infrastructure project designation depends on the project meeting its own separate criteria.
An investor told informally that a project qualifies because it sits outside a major metropolitan area should treat that as a claim requiring documentation, not as a settled fact. The correct next step is asking the sponsor for the actual designation letter or supporting unemployment data underlying the claim, and confirming independently that the designation covers the specific project location and investment structure being offered, rather than relying on a general impression that rural automatically means targeted.