E2 Treaty Visa For Investors And Employees
The E2 Treaty Visa for Investors and employees permit the investor to work and live in the US to manage and develop the business.
Bigger businesses management and executive level employees can be sent to the US instead of the business owners. Employees who are also citizens of same E2 visa Country like the investor can qualify for an E2 visa.
Unlike the H1B visa category, there is no space for E2 visas. The investment that can qualify for E2 Treaty Investor status differs without a set minimum. For consultancy businesses, for instance, software businesses could be tens of thousands of dollars or less while it can be even difficult for smaller investments to register the business as an E2 business.
E2 Treaty Visa Investment Requirements
When you apply for E2 registration of a business you need to be in the plan of investing money. You don’t really have to invest all the money in applying for the business, you should have real plans to fund and establish the business. Generally, the qualifying E2 visa business should eventually create employment for citizens and residents of the US.
People of several countries can apply under the E2 visa scheme except for nationals of India and China cannot apply under the E2 visa scheme unless they gain entry as a spouse of an E2 visa holder.
The investment intended to qualify for an E2 visa must be an actively operating business that employs people to work in the business. Therefore businesses like passive investments involving property or stocks and bonds not requiring any employees do not qualify. At least part of the investment should have been made prior to applying for E2 Treaty Investor Registration and E2 visa status.
If you are buying an existing business it can be possible to apply for E2 registration based on an active purchase agreement with the investment if the visa is granted. The business should be registered as an E2 Treaty investor business before applying for an E2 visa.
An E2 visa is far cheaper than the EB5 Immigrant Investor Green Card. Investors who don’t like to invest at least $500,000 under the EB5 immigrant investor Green Card Program can choose the E2 treaty investor visa category (or possibly the L1 visa). Usually, you will need to create employment in the US under the E2 treaty investor scheme, but unlike the EB5 immigrant investor visa scheme you don’t need to create employment for at least ten persons and with no visa space.
