E2 INVESTOR VISA EXPLAINED
The E2 Visa is an excellent choice for investors and business owners. With an E2 visa, you may reside in the United States, establish a business there, and work for it.
E2 INVESTOR VISA EXPLAINED
The E2 Visa is an excellent choice for investors and business owners. With an E2 visa, you may reside in the United States, establish a business there, and work for it.
What Will We Cover In This Article:
What exactly is the E2 Visa?
What are the advantages of the E2 visa?
What are the requirements for the E2 visa?
What is the procedure for acquiring an E2 visa?
What is the difference between obtaining an E2 visa and changing your status to E2?
How Much Time Does It Take to Obtain an E2 Visa?
How Long Can I Stay in the United States with an E2 Visa?
If I obtain an E2 visa, are my family members eligible for immigration benefits?
As an employee of an E2 company, are I eligible for an E2 visa?
The E2 visa is a nonimmigrant visa for investors, entrepreneurs, and individuals seeking to operate a business in the United States. With an E2 visa, you can create or invest in a business in the United States and work for that firm.
To qualify for an E2 visa, you must invest a large amount of cash in a U.S. firm and direct its growth. To qualify for an E2 visa, you can either create a new business or invest in an existing one.
The E2 visa is only accessible to citizens of nations with which the United States has an E2 treaty (we will go over the countries that qualify for an E2 visa down below).
There is no maximum renewal restriction for the E2 visa. So long as the E2 business continues to function and meets the E2 visa conditions, the E2 visa holder can continue to live and work in the United States and renew their visa.
Summary:
The non-immigrant E2 visa is for investors.
You are eligible for an E2 visa if you make a significant investment in a U.S. firm.
The E2 visa may be extended repeatedly so long as the business continues to function and the E2 conditions are met.
What Are The Advantages Of The E2 Visa?
With an E2 visa, you can establish and work for a business in the United States.
Your spouse and unmarried children under the age of 21 may also qualify for an E2 visa if you obtain one.
Your spouse may submit an application for employment permission in order to work in the United States.
Your children are able to attend school in America.
No minimum investment amount is required to qualify for an E2 visa.
E2 has approved investments as little as $50,000 or even below.
There is no limit to the number of times an E2 visa may be extended.
Some E2 visa holders remain in the United States for at least 15 years.
In contrast to other non-immigrant visas, an E2 visa does not require you to maintain a foreign domicile.
What Are The Requirements For The E2 Visa?
There are eight primary prerequisites for obtaining an E2 visa:
You must be a citizen of a country with which the United States has an E2 treaty.
You must intend to exit the United States when your E2 status expires.
You must invest significantly in a U.S. corporation.
Your E2 firm must be operational and for-profit.
The company in which you invest cannot be regarded a minor business.
You must enter the United States in order to manage and expand your E2 firm.
The origin of your investing capital must be legal.
Your investment must be risky and irreversibly committed to the E2 business.
You Must Be A Citizen Of A Country With Whom The United States Has An E2 Treaty.
To qualify for an E2 visa, you must be a citizen of a country with a treaty with the United States.
To illustrate this idea, let’s divide this criterion into two subcategories:
Nationality
In accord with the United States
Nationality
You must be a citizen of a country that has a valid treaty with the United States.
Generally, you have the nationality of your country of citizenship.
The nationality rules of your home country and the wording of your home country’s treaty with the United States will determine whether you qualify as a “national” if your nationality is ambiguous.
There Are Two Methods For Obtaining An E2 Visa:
Individuals can make investments in U.S. businesses.
Or, your foreign company can invest in a U.S. enterprise.
Investment as a Private Person
If you invest as an individual in a U.S. corporation, you will be deemed the E2 primary investor.
Your citizenship country will decide if you meet the nationality criteria.
Dual nationals (those with citizenship in two countries) may still be eligible for an E2 visa. You must apply for an E2 visa based on your nationality from a treaty nation.
Foreign Companies’ Investments
If your foreign company invests in your U.S. company, the foreign company will be deemed the E2 major investor.
The nationality of a firm is decided by the nationalities of its individual proprietors.
To qualify for E2, at least fifty percent of the business must be owned by citizens of the treaty country.
Provided fewer than 50 percent of the business is held by citizens of the treaty country, the firm may still qualify for E2 if it is reorganized such that at least 50 percent of the business is owned by nationals of the treaty country.
Treaty Qualification With The United States
The second half of this criteria is that an E2 treaty must exist between the United States and the investor’s home country.
Here is a list of every country with which the United States has an E2 treaty:
Albania
Argentina
Armenia
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Belgium
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Cameroon
Cameroon
Chile
Colombia
Congo (Brazzaville) Congo (Kinshasa)
Costa Rica
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Ecuador
Egypt
Estonia
Ethiopia
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Grenada
Honduras
Honduras
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kosovo
Kyrgyzstan
Kosovo
Liberia
Lithuania
Lithuania
Mexico
Moldova
Mongolia
Montenegro
Morocco
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Oman
Pakistan
Panama
Paraguay
Philippines
Poland
Romania
Serbia
Senegal
Singapore
Slovak Republic Slovenia
Republic of Korea
Spain
Sri Lanka
Suriname
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Taiwan
Togo Trinidad & Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Ukraine
United Kingdom
Yugoslavia
The following nations do not have an E2 Treaty with the United States:
Brazil
China
India
Russia
You must intend to exit the United States when your E2 status expires.
To qualify for an E2 visa, you must intend to leave the United States after your E2 status expires.
For the majority of non-immigrant visa categories, you must demonstrate non-immigrant purpose.
Typically, to demonstrate non-immigrant intent, you must demonstrate substantial links to your home country, such as a foreign residence, a profession, etc.
This is optional for an E2 visa.
You can meet the “intent to exit” criteria for the E2 visa by providing a signed declaration indicating that you intend to leave the United States when your E2 status expires.
To qualify for an E2 visa, you must invest significantly in a U.S. firm.
There is no minimum investment amount specified in the regulations.
According to the Foreign Affairs Manual, there is no minimum monetary level for an investment to be deemed “significant” for E-2 visa purposes. [9 FAM 402.9-6(D)]
In place of this, a proportionality test is employed to assess whether or not an investment is considerable.
Test Of Proportionality
The proportionality test compares two numbers: the amount you actually invest in your firm and the business’s entire worth.
Typically, the worth of an established firm is its acquisition price.
The value of a startup is the whole cost of bringing the firm to a functional state.
To assess whether or whether your investment is considerable, the immigration officer assigned to your case will compute the ratio of your real investment to the entire worth of the firm.
In order for your investment to be regarded as considerable in enterprises with a low value, it must represent a very high proportion of the business’s entire worth.
To be called significant, your investment may be a smaller proportion of the entire value of a firm with a very high value.
There are no specific percentages utilized to establish what constitutes a large amount.
If the overall worth of your business is less than $100,000, your actual investment must equal the total value of the business in order to be considered significant.
On the flip end of the spectrum, if the overall worth of your firm is extremely large (for example, $10,000,000), an investment of $5,000,000 would likely be seen as considerable while representing just 50 percent of the whole value of the business.
Norm Of Thumb
As a general rule, I want to see at least $100,000 risked and invested in the business at my company.
However, investments of $50,000 or less qualify for E2 status.
The greater the size of your investment, the greater the likelihood that it will be deemed substantial, and the stronger your argument will be.
iii. Your E2 business must be an active, profit-generating enterprise.
The investment business seeking an E2 visa must be operational and for-profit. The enterprise must engage in entrepreneurial activities.
Companies that sell a product or service for profit are examples of enterprises that satisfy this condition.
Passive investments are ineligible. This indicates that an investment in residential real estate or the stock market will not be successful.
The company in which you invest cannot be regarded a minor business.
In order to qualify for an E2 visa, the E2 firm must not be a marginal operation.
A marginal firm is a business that does not have the current or future ability to create sufficient revenue to supply the E2 investor and their family with more than a basic standard of living. [Section 214.2(e) of the CFR]
Even if the firm is unable to earn sufficient revenue, it is not a marginal enterprise if it has the present or future ability to make a “major economic contribution.” [Section 214.2(e) of the CFR]
There are two techniques to demonstrate that E2 is not a marginal business:
Demonstrate that has the present and/or future ability to supply you and your family with a subsistence level of income.
Demonstrate that the firm has the ability to make a “substantial economic impact” now or in the future. You can demonstrate this by demonstrating that the firm employs or will employ several people.
vi. You must enter the United States in order to manage and expand your E2 firm.
As an E2 investor, you must seek entrance into the United States for the express purpose of managing and expanding the E2 business.
You can meet this criteria by demonstrating that you possess at least 50 percent of the E2 business as an E2 investor.
Even if you do not own at least 50 percent of the E2 firm, you can still meet the criterion by demonstrating operational control.
You can demonstrate operational control by holding a managerial position in the organization. Other comparable methods may also be viable.
It is impossible to qualify for an E2 visa as a passive investor.
If a foreign company is the E2 investor, it must demonstrate that it directs and develops the E2 business.
Employees of E2 are not required to demonstrate that they are seeking entrance into the United States in order to manage and expand the E2 company.
Even if two parties possess equal shares of the company entity (50/50), they can nevertheless satisfy the “direct and develop” criteria. Both parties must have full management duties and rights.
The origin of your investing capital must be legal.
The cash you utilize to invest in your E2 firm must have been properly obtained.
Earnings from legitimate work, money from the sale of a property, gifts, an inheritance, etc. are examples of lawful sources of finances.
You can also utilize loan proceeds as investing capital. Either the loan must be unsecured or secured with your personal assets.
Not eligible are loans secured by the assets of the E2 enterprise.
You must provide appropriate proof of how the monies were acquired.
Your investment must be risky and irreversibly committed to the E2 business.
To obtain an E2 visa, you must make a risky investment and commit your investment capital irrevocably to the E2 firm.
This essentially implies that your investment funds cannot simply remain in your operating account; they must be spent on the firm.
Funds At Risk
To meet the risk criterion, your E2 investment funds must be susceptible to either a partial or complete loss.
This implies there is no assurance that you will receive any portion of their monies back.
You might ask yourself the following inquiry to decide whether your investment is genuinely at risk. How much money would be lost if the E2 company failed?
Investment is Committed Irrevocably
At the time of filing, your investment funds must either already be invested in the E2 business or be in the process of being invested in the E2 business.
Additionally, you must be close to beginning actual business operations.
This is to guarantee that you, as an E2 investor, are invested in the company’s success.
Your intent to invest is inadequate without a present commitment. In addition, placing investment funds in a bank account without a firm commitment is insufficient to qualify for an E2 visa.
Nevertheless, a sufficient quantity of cash held in a firm running account might count as investment capital.
You may be able to fulfill the need for irrevocability by placing the investment monies in an escrow account. The disbursement of cash may depend exclusively on the granting of your E2 visa or E2 change of status.
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Change of Status applications are only open to nonimmigrants who are lawfully resident in the United States.
You will not qualify for a Change of Status while you are overseas.
Some individuals opt to perform a Change of Status because of the quickness of processing.
The USCIS provides Premium Processing. This implies that a Change of Status can be processed within 15 days. Consular Processing might take considerably longer.
Remember that if you alter your status to E2, you will lose your status once you depart the United States.
To re-enter the United States, you must get an E2 visa from a US Consulate overseas.
US Consulates do not rely on their decision on an E2 Change of Status previously issued by USCIS. Therefore, you will need to reapply for an E-2 visa at the consulate. You must resubmit the documentation demonstrating that you satisfy the E2 standards.
Some consular positions are more stringent than others and will require a larger investment amount to qualify as “substantial.”
If your consular post is tight, you could consider changing your status. So that you may expand your E2 business. Then, with more assets invested in the firm, you may apply for an E2 visa from overseas.
Keep in mind that if your E2 business does not function as you anticipate, this method might also operate against you. In this case, the consular office would have two years of real commercial activity to evaluate your company.
There are three primary steps that affect the duration of the E2 visa process:
Documentation Collection Legal Preparation
Consular Processing or Status Change
Document Collection
After hiring an immigration attorney, your case will be reviewed. Then, they will offer you with a list of all the required papers for your E2 visa application.
Clients spend around one month collecting documentation. This might be significantly quicker or slower based on your preferences.
Once your immigration attorney receives your documentation, it will take them around two weeks to prepare and finish everything. Then, they will submit your whole E2 petition.
Consular Processing and Status Change
Your application will then be forwarded to the consulate of the United States in your native country (consular processing). Alternately, if you are in the United States, you can convert your status to E2 by submitting an application to USCIS.
Consular procedure takes around two to three months.
USCIS processes a change of status within two to three months. You might opt to expedite the procedure by paying a premium processing cost of $2,500. This will decrease the overall processing time to 15 days. This procedure can be slowed by a request for further evidence (RFE).
Remember that if you choose Premium Processing, USCIS is only required to respond within 15 days. USCIS may send a request for additional evidence if they believe that your application is missing information or if they are confused about a particular point.
USCIS is no longer required to respond within 15 days after you respond to a request for evidence. USCIS may extend its response time.
The validity period of your E2 visa depends on the country that issued it. Visa validity periods often range between 1 and 5 years.
If your E2 visa is valid for five years, you cannot stay in the United States for five years at a time.
Your status, not your visa, defines the length of your stay in the United States.
Each time you enter the United States on an E2 visa, you will receive two years of status.
With a valid E2 visa, you can depart and re-enter the United States to get two years of extra status.
There is no restriction on the number of times an E2 visa may be renewed.
As long as your company satisfies all E2 visa requirements, you may continue to renew your E2 visa.
Yes, as the major E2 candidate, you are permitted to bring your spouse and unmarried children under 21.
Your spouse and unmarried children will receive E2 status as well.
Your spouse may apply for a work permit to work in the United States in any legal capacity.
Your children may attend school in the United States, but they are not permitted to work.
Yes, a noncitizen may obtain an E2 visa by working for an E2 commercial firm.
There are typically three categories of employees eligible for an E2 visa:
Executive Employees Supervising Employees Employees with Essential Special Skills for the E2 Enterprise 10. How to Change Your E2 Visa to a Green Card
Yes, there are a few items to discuss:
The E2 visa is a kind of non-immigrant visa. Therefore, the E2 visa is transitory and does not lead immediately to a green card.
Therefore, to obtain a green card, you must apply for an immigrant visa or alter your status to that of an immigrant.
Remember that the E2 visa requires that you intend to leave the United States after your E2 status expires.
However, you cannot be refused E2 status if your petition for an immigrant visa is accepted.
This means you can apply for an immigrant visa or adjust your status in the United States while on an E-2 visa.
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