Identify the actual uncertainty and review its effect before relying on a nationality conclusion.
Do not invent a completed fact
Keep the transaction and evidence status accurate. A commercial deadline does not establish treaty eligibility or guarantee approval. Before treating the investment as complete, confirm that the funds are irrevocably committed and at risk. E-2 is a nonimmigrant classification and does not itself provide a direct path to permanent residence.
Set milestones you control — records retrieved, investment evidence assembled, counsel's read on the refusal — and avoid commitments keyed to a decision date nobody can promise. Review the purchase agreement, escrow conditions, lease, licences, and business accounts before deciding that money has been committed in a qualifying way. Set the order as: due diligence, agreement with a visa-contingent closing and escrow, source-of-funds file, consular application, interview, issuance, release of funds, closing, arrival. Sequence commercial readiness by recording each consent, transfer, payment, and condition with its actual effective date. Complete due diligence and reconcile the seller's figures before signing anything, because a marginality problem discovered after closing is expensive. Applying before commitment fails the at-risk test; closing unconditionally before approval risks owning a U.S. business the buyer cannot lawfully run. A seller's preferred closing date is commercial pressure, and it cannot convert collateral over enterprise assets into qualifying capital, so a timetable with no room to redraft is a risk to the transaction as much as to the application.