Neither figure answers that. EB-5 capital is exposed to loss and may not be returned on any set date, so the true cost ranges from administrative expenses to the entire amount. Add filing fees, legal and translation work, medicals and consular processing per family member, then compare total exposure across routes on identical assumptions.
Price the downside, not the brochure
Run three scenarios for each route: the case succeeds and capital is eventually returned; the case succeeds but capital is impaired; the case is refused. Write the financial and status result of each. This exposes the real difference between money at risk and money spent far better than a single headline figure does.
Confirm current official fees at the time of each filing rather than relying on older published amounts. Add a fourth scenario to those three: the case succeeds, the capital is eventually returned, and the household's own circumstances have changed in the meantime — a business abroad has been sold or not sold, a spouse's career has moved, a parent has needed care. The financial comparison of routes is usually run against a stable family, and families are not stable across the periods involved.
Ask what each route would cost to abandon partway, and what could be recovered. Hypothetical example: a household models the three financial outcomes and then asks a fourth question — what happens if we change our minds in year three — and finds that the two routes answer it very differently, which turns out to matter more than the difference in headline figures.