Read the general investor planning overview
A business plan may list signed work, repeat-customer expectations and early conversations together. Explain those differences so the operating proposal can be assessed on its genuine evidence.
Describe the actual stage of material revenue
Sort the revenue lines by the evidence that supports each one. A countersigned contract with a stated scope, term and price sits in one category; a repeat customer with a purchase history but no forward commitment sits in another; an introductory meeting sits in a third. Hypothetical example: a signed agreement covers a twelve-month maintenance schedule, while the forecast also books three years of consumable orders that the same customer has never agreed to buy. Present the maintenance schedule as contracted and the consumables as an assumption, with the reasoning that supports the assumption set out beside it. Collapsing the three categories into a single revenue figure does not strengthen the plan; it removes the reader’s ability to see which part of the business already exists.
Explain capacity without inventing a quota
Capacity is demonstrated by explaining the operation, not by lengthening the customer list. Set out the cost of running the business through a normal year, the margin each line of work is expected to earn, the volume the premises and staff can physically handle, and the basis on which demand is expected to grow. Nothing in the classification prescribes a minimum number of customers or a minimum payroll, so inflating either proves little. What the file has to show is that the business is a real, operating one rather than a marginal one, capable of producing more than a minimal living for the applicant and dependants, or else of making a significant contribution to the economy — and where that capacity has not yet been reached, that it should ordinarily be reached within five years of normal trading.
Answer the ownership, control and capital questions separately
Revenue evidence answers only one of several questions, and each of the others is tested on its own. The applicant must be a national of the treaty country, and the business must be owned at least half by nationals of that country for it to carry the same nationality. The applicant must develop and direct it, which ordinarily means half or more of the equity, or an equivalent and demonstrable form of operational control over how the business is run. Money expected from customers is not money invested: qualifying capital has to be substantial for this undertaking, traced from a lawful origin along a documented path, irrevocably committed and genuinely capable of being lost, and no published figure sets a universal floor. Financing is read on its terms — a loan secured on the assets of the business is excluded even where personal property secures it as well, while personal borrowing without security, or secured only against assets held outside the business, may be counted as the documents allow. Funds held pending a visa decision qualify only where the arrangement really does commit them once the visa issues. The applicant must intend to depart when E status ends, and Canadians ordinarily obtain an E visa from 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.