Start with the E-2 eligibility and application overview
Read the lease and improvement agreement together
Identify who pays, who owns each improvement and what operating rights the tenant receives. A contractor invoice can prove work without explaining the enterprise’s rights if the lease ends or approval is delayed. Do not assume every landlord-owned improvement is excluded or every construction payment counts; assess the actual commitment, risk and relationship to the business.
Explain the enterprise that will use the premises
Describe the services or goods, required resources and investor’s operating responsibilities. An attractive fit-out is not by itself a real nonmarginal enterprise. Keep forecasts linked to genuine business assumptions and separate money merely available for later work from capital actually committed. The lease should agree with the activities described in the plan.
Retain the investor conditions
E-2 requires qualifying treaty nationality at applicant and enterprise levels, generally at least 50% treaty-country enterprise ownership. Development and direction can be established through at least 50% ownership or actual operational control. Capital must be lawful, substantial and committed at risk in a real nonmarginal enterprise; there is no universal dollar minimum. Nonmarginality means capacity beyond a minimal living for the investor and family or significant economic contribution; projected capacity should generally be realized within five years of normal business activity. Intent to depart when E status ends remains necessary. Funds secured by enterprise assets are excluded even if personal assets also secure the debt. Personal-only secured or unsecured borrowing may qualify under the other investment conditions.
Develop and direct means control, not merely majority
Pre-launch cases can succeed on credible commitments: signed lease, executed supply agreement, equipment ordered, licences applied for, and a hiring plan showing how the investor will develop and direct the enterprise. Passive interests are structured so the holder cannot direct, which is exactly what makes them unsuitable as the qualifying enterprise. The enterprise must be a real, active and operating commercial undertaking, not a paper organization or a passive holding, and it must not be marginal. If the seller releases the security interest over company assets in exchange for a larger down payment, the qualifying portion rises; if a side letter later restores that collateral, it falls again. Shareholder agreements can leave a majority owner unable to appoint a manager, approve a budget or hire; the E-2 investor must develop and direct the enterprise, so those clauses matter as much as the price. List every current and proposed owner, their citizenship, and their exact percentage, then confirm that treaty nationals of the same treaty country would still hold at least fifty percent of the United States enterprise after the new subscription closes. The requirement is that the investor develop and direct the enterprise, which is shown through identifiable decisions, each traceable to a corporate record: who signs supply contracts, who sets pricing, who hires and dismisses, who holds the bank mandate. Voting rights, board composition, veto provisions, and reserved matters decide whether the applicant is positioned to develop and direct the enterprise, and a minority holder with negotiated control may be better placed than a majority holder bound by investor protections.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-08. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.