The E-2 is the non-immigrant investor visa. In order for the E-2 to be possible, there must be a treaty between the United States and the home country of the foreign national that's applying for the visa. For example, between the United States and Canada, we have the North American Free Trade Agreement. The US has trade agreements with most countries in the world, and many of these have a provision for this type of investor visa. But one of the first things that is important to do is to check and make sure. You can spend an awful lot of time and find out that, we meet all the qualifications except, oh, there's no treaty in place with our particular country.

So, the first requirement is to have the appropriate treaty in place between the foreign country and the United States. Then, the business enterprise needs to also have the nationality of that same country. And what that means is merely that at least 50% of the ownership of that business must be held by nationals of that same country. It's possible to have a partnership of 50-50 with a US citizen, or a national of a different country, but you must have at least 50% ownership in the home country. The next requirement is, it must be a substantial investment that you are making. And unfortunately, there is no definition of exactly what is substantial. Typically, what the State Department or the Immigration Service, if you process through USCIS, what they're looking for, is that you have invested enough money that you are going to stay engaged and involved in developing that business. They don't want people just putting in a little bit of money to see if something works and walking away from it if it looks like it's going to get hard. They want you investing money in capital and then building wealth here in the United States.



Mesa Location:
1930 N. Arboleda, Suite 201
Mesa, Arizona 85213
Office: 480-655-7440
Fax: 480-655-7099
Website: http://gundersondenton.com

Phoenix Location:
40 N. Central Avenue, Suite 1400
Phoenix, AZ 85004
Office: 480-325-9937
Website: http://gundersondenton.com/phoenix