Read the general investor planning overview
Highlands investors should explain business capacity and retained funds without treating the owner’s chosen salary as the only nonmarginality measure.
Use relevant operating evidence
Identify actual results, costs, staffing and supported prospective contribution. Retained earnings need an accurate account of their purpose rather than an unsupported claim that growth will occur.
Apply the complete investor framework
At least 50% relevant treaty-country national enterprise ownership, development and direction, substantial at-risk capital and lawful source/path remain necessary. The enterprise must be real, and a compensation decision alone does not establish every requirement. E-2 status has no direct path to permanent residence.
Respect the applicable economic timing
Nonmarginality includes more than minimal living or significant economic contribution under the applicable rules. There is no universal E-2 minimum or ten-job quota. A future growth plan does not create unlimited time to satisfy the standard.
Hypothetical example: a small-engine repair shop that pays its owner little on purpose
Hypothetical example: a Highlands investor bought a US outdoor-power-equipment sales and repair shop on an E-2 visa. In the first full year she paid herself a modest salary and left the rest of the profit in the business to buy a second service van and hire a technician. Her accountant warns that the low salary will make the enterprise look marginal. It need not, if the file explains the choice. Marginality asks whether the enterprise has the present or future capacity to generate more than a minimal living for the investor and family, or to make a significant economic contribution, judged against what is realistic within five years of beginning normal operations. A shop whose retained earnings bought a van and whose payroll now carries a technician is demonstrating capacity, not the lack of it. What the reviewer asks for first is the tax return, the payroll filings and the general ledger entries for the van and the hire, so that the small owner draw is read beside the profit it came from.
Which document decides the economic picture
The business tax return decides the profit; the payroll filings decide the jobs; the fixed-asset register and invoices decide the reinvestment; the bank statements decide that none of it is fiction. A written one-year plan showing the second van’s expected service revenue and the technician’s billable hours turns retained earnings from an unexplained balance into a documented purpose. The other conditions must remain visible: the investor retaining treaty-country nationality, at least half the enterprise owned by nationals of that same treaty country, the investor developing and directing it, and the original funds irrevocably committed and traceable to a lawful source.
Sequence the renewal around the reinvestment
Complete the van purchase and the hire before the renewal application so both appear in the record rather than in a forecast; if the hire will follow, show the posting and the budgeted wage. File any extension of stay before the authorized stay shown on the I-94 expires. Visa expiration instead determines when the visa can be used to seek entry, and a fresh E-2 admission is generally granted for up to two years. Her spouse is employment-authorized incident to E-2 status; children may study but not work. There is no direct path from E-2 to permanent residence, so a longer plan needs its own route.
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.