Read the general investor planning overview
Hypothetical example: a Shefford buyer acquires a small U.S. excavation contracting business where roughly eighty per cent of the price is allocated to used excavators, trucks and trailers. The equipment is real and the money is spent, but E-2 asks about a real, active, operating enterprise that is more than marginal. A purchase of machinery with a customer list attached is not automatically that, and the difference should be examined before the deal closes. Hypothetical example: a buyer acquires a U.S. boat-repair business with a paid-for yard lease but no signed customer work orders. The decision is whether the purchase already represents an operating enterprise or whether the buyer is funding a start-up that needs a different evidence package. Put the lease, licences, contracts, equipment list and launch budget in one review before money is committed.
Ask what is being bought besides the iron
An operating enterprise has customers, contracts, employees, licences, insurance, a work backlog and a way of getting more work. Equipment is an input to that, not a substitute for it. When almost the entire price sits in used machinery, the questions to answer are whether the crews are staying, whether the contracts transfer, whether the licences and bonding can be assigned or must be reapplied for, and whether revenue continues after the seller leaves. If the honest answer is that the buyer is acquiring assets and will rebuild the business around them, that is a legitimate plan but a different one, and the E-2 case has to be built on what will exist rather than what was purchased. Identify which assets produce revenue on day one and which merely make future operations possible. The first review should produce a transfer list for permits, customer contracts, employees, insurance and online accounts. That list tells the buyer whether the deal delivers a continuing business or only tools from which to build one.
Match the allocation to the marginality analysis
The enterprise must not be marginal: it must have the present or future capacity to generate more than a minimal living for the investor and family, or to make a significant economic contribution. A contracting business with retained crews and a backlog can show that with contracts and payroll projections. A plan in which the owner operates one machine alone cannot, whatever the equipment cost. Purchase-price allocation also has tax and accounting consequences that should be handled by the buyer’s own advisers, and the immigration file should reflect the same numbers as the closing documents rather than a differently flattering version. Make the forecast traceable to the business model. Use existing invoices, contracted work, staffing needs, pricing and seasonality rather than a percentage growth assumption with no source. The resulting decision is whether the expected enterprise can reach beyond support for the household or needs a larger operating plan.
Confirm the ownership and risk requirements at the same time
Alongside the enterprise analysis, hold the other conditions steady. The investor must hold treaty-country nationality, and where the enterprise is the treaty entity its ownership must have that nationality. The funds must be irrevocably committed and at risk; official guidance accepts an escrow whose only remaining condition on release is issuance of the visa as a solid commitment, while money the buyer can still recover for other reasons has not been committed. The investor must develop and direct the enterprise, ordinarily through at least half the ownership or through demonstrable operational control. And E-2 provides no direct path to permanent residence, which belongs in the discussion before a family relocates around it. Before closing, map who owns and controls the company and which payments are actually exposed to commercial loss. A refundable deposit, a personal savings balance, and a paid supplier invoice are not the same thing. The legal and accounting documents should tell the same story as the immigration materials.
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.