Managers or executives work for foreign company that is
related to a US company by 50% or more common ownership.
The manager must have worked for the foreign company for
one of the past three years and must be coming to the US
company to work in a managerial or executive capacity.
E-1 Treaty Traders
Managers or executives from a treaty country control
substantial trade between the US and the treaty country.
Substantial as a general rule means $500,000 or more a
year of trade between the countries.
E-2 Treaty Investors
Owner or Developer of the new enterprise from a
treaty country (see list of treaty countries)
has 50% or more ownership in a substantial US
employment creating investment. As a general
rule substantial means $200,000 or more. Although
smaller investments are often approved the risk of
denial increases as one heads south of $200,000.
EB(5) Immigrant Investors
Individual invests $500,000 in a high unemployment area (150% of national unemployment rate) or $1,000,000 elsewhere and hires 10 persons within 2 years.
None of the investor categories have language, education or business experience requirements.
The Investor Decision Tree
1. You own or control a business in your home country and want to establish a branch office, affiliated company or subsidiary in the USA.
Use the L1A visa.
DHS grants 1 year to start up the US business with a total extension periods of seven years. The biggest advantage of the L1A visa is that it can be converted to a green card after doing business in the U.S. for one
or more year.
2. You own or control a business in your home country that already owns a U.S. branch office, affiliated company or subsidiary company.
You can apply for L1A visa as a managerial transfer from abroad without coming to the USA, you can come to the US as an L1A (above), or you can come to the US as E1 or E2 if you are from a treaty country. In all cases you may apply for a green card as long as you qualify as an international manager (serving one of past three years as manager or executive of the foreign company).
3. You want to establish a US business that is not connected with an overseas company.
If you are a citizen of a treaty country you can use E1 if the US business is based on trade or in all other cases use E2. If you do not also qualify as a managerial transfer you will probably never qualify for a green card unless you invest $500,000 or $1,000,000 per the EB5 category. If you want to know why, you need to contact us. Its too complicated to describe in summary form.
