Articles Posted in E-2 Visa

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Imagine you’re working in the United States on a visa such as an H-1B, L-1, or TN and suddenly lose your job. Under current rules, you may have up to 60 days to find a new employer, change to another immigration status, or leave the United States.

Now, DHS is proposing to eliminate that 60-day grace period for certain employment-based visa holders. If the proposal is finalized, affected workers could have far less time to take action after their employment ends.

What the Rule Says Today

Under the current rule, H-1B workers generally have up to 60 days after losing or leaving a job to find a new employer, change to another immigration status, or make arrangements to leave the United States. This is known as the 60-day “grace period.” Under the proposed rule, that protection would disappear, meaning workers could begin falling out of status as soon as the day after their employment ends.

Who is Affected

The proposal would affect workers in these nonimmigrant visa categories:

  • E-1 treaty traders
  • E-2 treaty investors and qualifying employees
  • E-3 Australian specialty occupation workers
  • H-1B specialty occupation workers
  • H-1B1 workers from Chile and Singapore
  • L-1 intracompany transferees
  • O-1 individuals with extraordinary ability or achievement
  • TN professionals from Canada and Mexico

It would apply when employment or the qualifying activity underlying that status ends, whether the worker is terminated, laid off, or voluntarily leaves the job.

They generally would be considered to have failed to maintain status beginning the day after their employment ends unless they have some other lawful basis to remain in the United States.

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Are you interested in starting a business in the United States? Here’s the catch: the U.S. does not have a dedicated “founder visa” for entrepreneurs. There is no single visa that simply lets you move to America, launch a company, and start building. But that does not mean entrepreneurs are out of options.

Depending on your country of nationality and long-term goals, there are four key visa pathways that can allow founders and business owners to live and work in the United States while bringing their families with them. These are the E-2, L-1A, O-1A, and EB-5 visas.

First, it’s important to ask these four questions to help determine which visa options may be available to you:

  1. Are you a citizen of an E-2 treaty country? If so, the E-2 treaty investor visa may be an option.
  2. Do you own or operate an established business outside the United States? The L-1 visa may allow you to expand that business into the U.S. to work as a company executive.
  3. Do you have a record of extraordinary ability or significant achievements in your field? These achievements may qualify you for the O-1A visa.
  4. Can you invest $800,000 or $1,050,000 in a U.S. business and meet the job-creation requirements? In this case, the EB-5 immigrant investor program could be the easiest way to immigrate to the U.S.

1. The E-2 Treaty Investor Visa

If you are a citizen of a treaty country (such as Canada, Mexico, Israel, the UK, etc), then you may be eligible for the E-2 treaty investor visa program. (Check whether your country qualifies for the E-2 visa by viewing the U.S. Department of State’s list of treaty countries here).

What is the E-2 Visa?

The E-2 treaty investor visa allows citizens of qualifying treaty countries to come to the United States to develop and operate a U.S. business in which they have made a substantial investment.

There is no fixed minimum investment amount required. Instead, the investment must be substantial compared to the type and cost of the business. This may be satisfied with a $50,000 to $100,000 investment depending on the nature of your business.

The investor must be prepared to demonstrate the lawful source of the funds used for investment in the business. For example, if the source of the investment amount is income earned from salary, the investor must show proof of the income accumulation from salary (bank account statements, pay slips etc.) as well as relevant income tax returns during the period the income was earned. If the investment was earned through the sale of property, the investor must document the source of funds for the initial purchase of the property, and money earned from the eventual sale.

You Must Play an Active Role in Your Business

The E-2 visa is designed for investors who will actively develop and direct their U.S. business. In other words, you cannot simply make a passive investment and have no involvement in the company. You must be coming to the United States to oversee the business, make important decisions, and play an active role in its operations and growth.

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When it comes to applying for a U.S. work visa, one of the most important — and often overlooked — decisions you’ll make is where to schedule your visa interview.

While most applicants automatically default to the U.S. embassy or consulate in their home country, that may not always be the fastest or most convenient option.

With backlogs, varying appointment availability, and differences in approval rates, choosing the right embassy can make a big difference in how quickly and smoothly your application is processed.

In this post, we’ll walk you through the key factors to consider — from current wait times to local requirements — so you can strategically select the best location for your visa interview and increase your chances of success.

Overview

In this guide, we will specifically cover visa interview appointments for the E-2, L-1, and H-1B visa categories, which are among the most common U.S. work and investor visas. Choosing the right U.S. embassy or consulate for your interview is particularly important for these visas because not every Consulate is experienced in handling these types of cases.

The Busy Embassy Myth

One common belief among visa applicants is the “busy embassy myth” — a belief that a busy U.S. embassy will cause visa processing delays. In reality, a busy embassy can make your visa process much smoother because it means that the post processes a high volume of E visas, and L visas, increasing your likelihood of success because of the Consulate’s experience with those cases leading to a fair adjudication.

Many high-volume embassies, like those in Canada or Mexico City, have streamlined systems, experienced officers, and more frequent appointment openings. Meanwhile, smaller posts may have limited staffing, fewer appointment slots, or stricter documentation review. Instead of assuming a less slow location is better, applicants should look at actual wait times, local procedures, and chances of approval when selecting where to apply.

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Did you know that once you have obtained your E-2 visa as a treaty investor, you can bring essential employees to work for your company in the United States?

The E-2 visa presents an exciting opportunity for entrepreneurs to invest in and start their businesses in the United States. But what many investors may not know, is that they can petition to bring essential employees with certain specialized skills to work for their companies in the United States.

In this video, we discuss:

  • Who qualifies for an E-2 visa as an essential employee?
  • What is an essential employee?
  • How long can essential employees stay in the U.S.?
  • What are the Key Advantages for E-2 Essential Employees?

And more!

To learn more about this important topic, please keep on watching.

Overview

Who Can Qualify as an E-2 Essential Employee?

 An essential employee is one whose duties are vital to the successful operation of the E-2 company. Generally, essential employees may be those who are seeking to work for the E-2 company in an executive, supervisory, or other essential capacity.  Since the E-2 visa is designed to stimulate foreign investment in the U.S. economy, as well as encouraging job creation, this is an excellent visa type for employees who qualify.

To be eligible, the employee of an E-2 treaty investor must:

  1. Have the same nationality as the E-2 employer (example: the E-2 investor is an individual who is a national of Mexico– a country that maintains a treaty of commerce with the U.S. In such a case, the employee must also be a national of Mexico to qualify)
  2. Be coming to the United States to work for the E-2 company in an executive, or supervisory capacity, or if they will be employed in a lesser capacity, they must have special qualifications.

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In this video, attorney Jacob Sapochnick discusses the top work visa alternatives to the H-1B visa for those who were not selected in the H-1B lottery for the FY 2025 cap season.

To learn more, please keep on watching this video.

Overview

As our readers may know, the electronic registration process for the H-1B work visa occurs every year during the month of March. During this period, U.S. employers petitioning for foreign workers must submit an electronic registration on behalf of each employee for a chance to be selected in the H-1B visa lottery.

Once the electronic registration period has closed, the H-1B lottery is conducted to select enough beneficiaries to participle in the program. Unfortunately, competition for the H-1B visa is fierce because only 65,000 H-1B visas are available each fiscal year, and another 20,000 are available for foreign workers possessing a U.S. master’s degree or higher.

Due to these numerical limits, the demand for H-1B visas far outweighs available visas, causing many to miss out on the visa.

As a result, U.S. employers and their workers should be familiar with alternative work visa options to provide relief in cases where they were not selected.

The H-1B Work Visa Alternatives

The O-1A Visa

The O-1A Visa is a nonimmigrant visa for individuals who have demonstrated extraordinary ability in fields such as the sciences, education, business, and athletics. It allows individuals with exceptional talents to work in the United States, if they can prove sustained national or international acclaim in their domain. It also enables their family members to accompany them to the United States on O-3 visas.

O-1 applicants must be petitioned for the visa directly by their employers or agents (employers are U.S. companies that direct the work the beneficiary will undertake in the U.S., while agents are individuals or entities acting on behalf of multiple employers). The employer or agent must provide an employment contract or agreement detailing the job offer, the applicant’s roles and responsibilities while in the United States, etc.

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Have you ever wondered why new immigration cases are being approved faster than older pending cases? If so, then you may be interested to learn why this is happening, as well as how the review process is conducted by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and what you can do if you are facing this situation.

If you would like to know more about this topic, we invite you to watch our video.

Overview

Q: My case has been pending with USCIS for several months. I have recently learned that USCIS has been giving recently filed cases priority over older cases, why is that?

USCIS Review Process

To understand this issue, let’s first discuss how USCIS accepts and reviews cases once they are received by the agency.

After you submit your application including your forms and filing fees, the first thing USCIS will do is input the receipt of your application into their system and send a notice to you by mail confirming the date your materials were received and accepted as a complete filing. This receipt is known as the Notice of Action.

USCIS will create a new file and assign a case number to your application which will appear on your Notice of Action, which you can use to check the status of your application on the USCIS website and by telephone.

Your case will then be sorted and routed to the appropriate service center or field office that will oversee the evaluation of your application. The office that will be given jurisdiction over your case is determined by a number of factors including but not limited to, your case type, agency workloads, and the date of receipt.

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If you are holding any crypto assets, such as bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other blockchain cryptocurrency, can you use those assets to move to the United States?

In this video, attorney Jacob Sapochnick discusses the use of crypto assets as the source of funds for E-2 visa investment purposes and everything you need to know about this topic.

Overview

Is there a way to move to the United States using crypto assets?

Yes. The visa type that can be used for this purpose is the E-2 Treaty Investor nonimmigrant visa, which allows qualifying applicants to start and manage their businesses in the United States, by making an irrevocable investment in their business and hiring U.S. workers.

The E-2 visa allows foreign nationals to live and work for their U.S. business for an initial duration of two years. Thereafter, investors may apply for E-2 extensions in increments of up to two years each. One of the great advantages of the E-2 visa is that there is no limit to the number of extensions you can apply for, so long as you maintain a sincere intention to depart the United States when your visa status expires.

Additionally, this visa allows your spouse and unmarried children under age 21 to accompany you to the United States by seeking the E-2 classification as your dependents.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz6vWTjLjuQ

If you are going through the immigrant visa process and are waiting for your interview to be scheduled at a U.S. Consulate or Embassy overseas, then you won’t want to miss this important video. Attorney Jacob Sapochnick shares the latest updates regarding the operational capacity of U.S. Consular posts and Embassies worldwide as of March 2024.

Overview

As the spring and summer months are approaching, U.S. Embassies and Consulates worldwide are accelerating the processing of immigrant visas to reduce the visa backlogs.

As we have seen, the Department of State has advanced the Final Action Dates for most employment-based categories in the April Visa Bulletin. Additionally, significant advancements were also made in the March Visa Bulletin for the family-sponsored categories.

These advancements will keep the Department of State busy in the coming months, as more and more immigrant visa cases that are documentarily complete are scheduled for interviews at U.S. Embassies and Consulates worldwide for those with current priority dates.

As our readers will know, during the height of the Coronavirus outbreak, there was an enormous demand for visa interviews, but not enough interview slots for applicants to be scheduled. But now things are improving.

As a reminder, please remember to tune into our monthly videos where we analyze the Visa Bulletin, explaining the availability of visas for family-sponsored and employment-based preference categories, numerical limitations, and how to know when your priority date is current during any given month.

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In this video, attorney Jacob Sapochnick discusses a very important topic in immigration law: How can E2 treaty investors avoid application denials?

Many E2 investors looking to start their businesses in the United States frequently ask, what is the minimum amount of investment that is satisfactory to the immigration authorities for the E2 treaty investor program, and how can I maximize my chances of success?

If this topic interests you, please keep on watching our video.

Overview

Minimum Investment Amounts

One of the most common reasons for an E2 visa denial is where the applicant fails to demonstrate that they have made a “substantial” investment in their business venture.

A substantial investment is defined as one that is:

  • Substantial in relationship to the total cost of either purchasing an established enterprise or establishing a new one
  • Sufficient to ensure the treaty investor’s financial commitment to the successful operation of the enterprise
  • Of a magnitude to support the likelihood that the treaty investor will successfully develop and direct the enterprise. The lower the cost of the enterprise, the higher, proportionately, the investment must be to be considered substantial.

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Would you like to know how you can renew your U.S. visa in 2023? If so, then this video is right for you.

Overview

Your U.S. visa has expired and now it’s renewal time. In this video, attorney Jacob Sapochnick discusses the general process of applying to renew your U.S. visa in 2023 at a U.S. Consulate or Embassy overseas.

Please note that there are hundreds of different U.S. visa categories that have their own eligibility criteria and renewal requirements. The information provided here does not, and is not intended, to constitute legal advice. To obtain legal advice on your particular facts, case, or circumstances, please consult with a licensed immigration attorney.

For visa specific information and documentary requirements, applicants may contact their closest U.S. Embassy or Consulate.

Visa Renewal Steps

Here are the main steps that any applicant must take when renewing their visa at a U.S. Consulate or Embassy abroad.

Step One: Make sure that you qualify for your U.S. Visa Renewal

First and foremost, regardless of your visa type you must be prepared to provide documentary evidence to the Consular official to prove that you remain eligible for the renewal of your visa.

For example, if you are renewing a student visa you must provide your updated Form I-20 Certificate of Eligibility for Nonimmigrant Student Status to show that you remain eligible to study in the United States. If you are applying to renew your tourist visa, you must continue to demonstrate your eligibility such as proof of temporary stay, strong ties to your home country, proof of sufficient finances to cover your temporary stay, etc.

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