Read the general pathway comparison overview
A person may describe both joining a U.S. operation and buying an interest in it. Those proposals require different evidence. Write down what will actually happen before comparing the two routes.
Map the employment proposal on its own
Take the employment proposal first and describe it without reference to the purchase. Identify the two organisations, the ownership and control that link them as parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate, and the evidence that both remain in business — the group has to keep trading in the United States and in at least one other country. Then set out the applicant’s own service with that group abroad: employer, dates, location, reporting line and what the work consisted of. Finally describe the position offered in the United States and the duties it carries. Acquiring shares in a company creates neither the corporate relationship nor the prior employment; it changes who owns the business from the date of closing and nothing before it. Where the applicant is an owner or a major stockholder, the file also has to address the temporary nature of the United States service and the assignment abroad that is to follow it.
Map the investment proposal on its own
Now describe the purchase on its own terms. E-2 asks for the applicant’s treaty nationality, ownership of the enterprise by nationals of that treaty country, capital that qualifies, and development and direction of the business by the applicant. Use the executed purchase agreement, the payment schedule and the loan documents as they stand, not the heads of terms that preceded them. Holding an interest passively does not establish that the applicant directs anything, and being handed the title of managing director does not supply capital that is committed and at risk in a real, non-marginal business. The two failures are different and neither is cured by the other.
Name the evidence gap rather than choosing by one advantage
Hypothetical example: the buyer has the funds and a signed agreement, but has never been employed by the group whose United States branch is being discussed. Record that as a missing element of the L route and leave it visible; a role invented after the fact will not survive the documents that would have to support it. The reverse error is equally common — a genuine transferee does not become a treaty investor because the employer agreed to pay moving costs. Compare the two proposals on their evidence and on what the applicant would actually spend the working week doing, and treat each family member’s status as its own question. The employment side turns on a year: one unbroken year of full-time work for the qualifying group outside the United States, completed within the three years preceding the petition. That year may have been spent in a managerial or executive capacity, or in one involving specialized knowledge; whichever it was, the position proposed in the United States is judged against its own category test rather than inheriting the earlier label. Short trips into the United States do not by themselves break the run, but days spent there earn no credit toward the year. On the investment side, nationals of the treaty country must own at least half the enterprise before it can claim that nationality, and the applicant must develop and direct it through half or more of the equity or another genuine form of operational control. The enterprise cannot be marginal: it must be capable of more than a minimal living for the applicant and dependants, or of a significant contribution to the economy, and where that capacity is still to come it should ordinarily be reached within five years of normal operation.
What else is on your mind?
Does being a business owner or director qualify me for L-1A?What employment history should an L-1 transfer review cover?What makes a new-office L-1A case different?How should an owner compare L-1 and E-2?Editorial source review: 2026-09-07. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.