Start with the E-2 eligibility and application overview
Reconcile estimates and commitments
Identify accepted orders, current quotes, payments and material price changes. The case requires substantial capital at risk with lawful source and path. Do not treat every estimate as committed expenditure or assume an expired figure accurately describes the business’s resources. Put the signed purchase agreement, escrow instructions, invoice, proof of payment, and current supplier confirmation beside each ledger entry. A cancelled order, a chargeback, or a deposit that the investor can freely reclaim needs to be described for what it is. The practical sequencing question is whether a transaction document can be made binding with a protective condition before the funds are released, not whether a brochure calls the expenditure committed. Hypothetical example: a Sooke prosthetic-limb workshop owner is buying a small U.S. fabrication studio and has paid a refundable machine reservation while the asset purchase agreement is still unsigned. The reservation receipt does not settle the investment question; the signed agreement and the release terms determine whether the payment becomes genuinely committed and commercially exposed.
Assess the whole enterprise
Relevant treaty-country nationals must own at least 50% of the enterprise, and the applicant must develop and direct it. The real business must be nonmarginal, including more than minimal living or significant economic contribution under applicable rules. There is no universal E-2 minimum or ten-job quota; Canadians generally require an E visa. E-2 status has no direct path to permanent residence. The first review also tests control, nationality, and operating reality against the documents rather than the intended story. The investor needs a qualifying treaty nationality and sufficient ownership or operational control to run the business. Funds must become irrevocably committed to the venture and face commercial risk; an arrangement that protects their return can undermine that showing. The enterprise must not be marginal. Compare forecasts, staffing, contracts, personal household needs, and the investor’s actual authority so the decision is whether the enterprise is ready for the filing, whether a term must change, or whether more operating evidence is needed.
Explain enterprise nationality and nonmarginality precisely
The enterprise must have the present or near-term capacity to generate more than a minimal living for the investor and family, typically shown by employees or by financial projections a reviewer can test. The investor has to be a national of a treaty country, which Canada is, and the enterprise itself must have the nationality of that treaty country, determined by the citizenship of the persons who own at least fifty percent of it. Personal unsecured loans may qualify; borrowing secured by the enterprise's own assets is treated differently. A seller-financed note secured by the business's own assets is generally not counted as investment because the enterprise, not the investor, bears the risk; a note personally guaranteed and secured by the buyer's Canadian house is a different picture. Projections that assume a ten-year horizon are unsupportable if the agreement expires in three with renewal at the franchisor's discretion, and projections that assume expansion into a neighbouring town are unsupportable if the territory does not include it. Nonmarginality is forward-looking as well as present-focused, so explain credible growth, employment, revenue, and household-support assumptions rather than offering a bare statement that the business will expand. Marginality is answered with a credible five-year projection showing staff beyond the two owners, supported by realistic wholesale and café revenue assumptions rather than an optimistic template.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.