IN THIS GUIDE · Separate the purchase budget into actual qualifying commitments
Start with the E-2 eligibility and application overview
Identify the actual payments and obligations
Hypothetical example: a budget combines the business price, planned inventory and advice. Distinguish amounts paid, binding commitments and estimates. A total budget does not establish that every item is capital at risk.
Preserve capital and source requirements
Funds must be lawful, substantial and sufficiently committed to the real enterprise. There is no universal fixed E-2 minimum. Explain source and path and genuine transaction conditions; properly structured visa-contingent escrow may be relevant.
Assess nationality and direction
The principal needs treaty nationality and development and direction, with generally at least 50% relevant treaty-national enterprise ownership. The purchase budget does not itself establish actual ownership or authority.
Explain capacity and financing
The enterprise must be real and nonmarginal, with capacity beyond minimal living for the investor and family or significant economic contribution. Enterprise-secured debt is not qualifying capital; other financing requires its actual source and security analysis. Unrestricted reserves do not automatically count as invested funds. Personally unsecured borrowing or borrowing secured solely by non-enterprise personal assets may count under its actual terms. Debt secured by enterprise assets is excluded even when personal assets also secure it.
Explain enterprise nationality and nonmarginality precisely
Enterprise nationality generally requires at least 50% ownership by nationals of the relevant treaty country. The investor must develop and direct the business through at least 50% ownership or other qualifying operational control. If nonmarginality rests on future capacity, that capacity generally must be realizable within five years after normal business activity begins. The investor must intend to depart when E status ends; Canadian citizens generally need an E visa.
Confirm the investment is substantial and irrevocably committed
A substantial investment must be committed and irrevocably at risk in a real, active enterprise, and there is no published dollar threshold to reach. E-2 review looks at the enterprise the investor will own and direct, its customers, assets and expenses, not the seller's whole history. Non-marginality may rest on present income or a credible capacity to contribute beyond minimal living for the family, so revenue and payroll figures matter. Funds must move beyond a revocable intention, be exposed to commercial risk, and support an enterprise that is not marginal. If the seller keeps forty per cent and the general manager's chair, write the shareholders' agreement and the buyer's job description so that hiring, pricing, bidding and capital spending sit with the buyer, and file both documents. At least 50 percent of the enterprise must be owned by nationals of the treaty country, so record each owner's citizenship and exact percentage before the ownership agreement is signed. Marginality is answered with a credible five-year projection showing staff beyond the two owners, supported by realistic wholesale and café revenue assumptions rather than an optimistic template.
Assess the operating enterprise after debt service
A scaffolding services company whose profit covers only the investor's household, with no other employees and no documented growth plan, looks on paper like exactly the kind of marginal enterprise the requirement exists to screen out. For a service franchise that means vehicles on the road, technicians hired or committed, licences obtained and customers being served. Ask both whether the enterprise will be real and operating by the interview date: a signed yard lease, purchased equipment, a state contractor’s registration and a first customer contract answer marginality better than projections.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.