Read the general investor planning overview
An acquisition budget may combine the business price, working capital, equipment and personal reserves. Explain which amounts represent qualifying funds committed and at risk rather than treating the spreadsheet total as the legal answer.
Annotate the budget using the real records
Work down the spreadsheet one row at a time and, beside every figure, name the agreement that creates it, the party who is to receive the money, the proof that money actually moved, and whether an obligation still binds the buyer today. Quotations, pro-forma sheets and vendor projections belong in a separate column marked plainly as estimates. Hypothetical example: a row reads “packaging line — 180,000”, but the file holds only a supplier quotation, with no signed order, no deposit and no delivery date. That row records an intention, not a commitment, and cannot be carried into the qualifying total. Nor should a savings balance be pointed at as though it settled the question: a balance shows that money exists, not that it left the account and reached the enterprise.
Read the financing and release conditions
Set out where the money originated, each account and transfer it passed through, and what collateral stands behind any loan. Borrowing secured against the assets of the enterprise itself cannot form part of the qualifying investment, however the closing binder describes it. Borrowing for which the applicant is personally liable without security, or which is secured only against personal property held outside the business, may be counted, but only on the terms the loan documents genuinely set. Where funds sit with a third party pending the visa decision, the release conditions decide the point: an arrangement drafted so the money becomes irrevocably committed once the visa issues can qualify, while a deposit the buyer may reclaim on demand has never been placed at risk. The name on the account settles nothing, and a written promise to invest later is not an investment.
Test the enterprise itself, not the arithmetic
A reconciled budget still leaves the harder questions open. The applicant has to hold the nationality of the treaty country, and the business takes its own nationality from its owners, so nationals of that same treaty country must hold no less than half of it. The applicant must also develop and direct the undertaking, which ordinarily means holding at least half the equity or else demonstrating another form of operational control carrying real decision-making authority. The undertaking has to be genuine and operating rather than marginal, able to produce more than a minimal living for the applicant and dependants or else to contribute significantly to the economy; where that capacity is still ahead, it should ordinarily arrive within five years of ordinary trading. Nothing fixes a dollar floor or a headcount, so a total copied from someone else’s purchase proves nothing: the sum must be substantial in proportion to this acquisition, lawfully sourced, irrevocably committed and genuinely exposed to loss. Debt charged against the assets of the business is excluded even where personal property is pledged alongside them, while unsecured personal borrowing, or borrowing backed only by property outside the business, is weighed on its own documented terms. The applicant must intend to leave when the status ends, and a Canadian applicant will normally need an E visa issued by a consular post.
What else is on your mind?
Is there one minimum investment that guarantees E-2 eligibility?Is holding money or owning an asset enough for E-2?Editorial source review: 2026-09-07. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.