Read the general investor planning overview
Hypothetical example: the owner of an ag-input dealership in the Rural Municipality of Edenwold, a Canadian citizen, has agreed to buy sixty percent of an existing U.S. agronomy retail business from its founder, who keeps forty percent and stays on as agronomist. The purchase price would be funded partly by a loan from the investor's own Canadian company. E-2 requires the investor's own funds at risk, substantial and irrevocably committed, treaty-national ownership of at least half, a real and non-marginal enterprise, and the investor's direction of it. Two questions dominate: whose money is it, and who directs the business.
Make the money the investor's before it becomes the investment
E-2 capital must be the investor's own or borrowed on the investor's personal credit. A loan from the investor's Canadian company to him personally, documented with a promissory note and repayment terms, can be a legitimate personal source if it is genuinely a debt he owes, though officers look closely at loans from companies the investor controls and may treat them as circular. Cleaner alternatives are a dividend declared and paid to him, a documented salary accumulation, or a loan from a bank secured on his personal assets. What does not work is the Canadian company buying the shares itself while the investor applies as an individual, or a loan secured on the U.S. retailer's assets, which puts the enterprise rather than the investor at risk.
Settle direction with a sixty-forty founder
Sixty percent ownership meets the ownership threshold, and the enterprise is at least half owned by a treaty national. But the founder is the agronomist, knows the customers and has run the business for years; a shareholder agreement that gives him veto rights over budgets, hiring or strategy can shift operational control back to the minority and undermine the claim that the investor develops and directs. Draft the agreement so the investor holds the managerial position, controls the bank account and has final say on hiring, pricing and capital spending, with the founder's role defined as professional and advisory. If the founder insists on equal control, the honest response is that the E-2 case becomes doubtful and the deal structure should change.
Prove substantiality, reality and the closing sequence
Buying a majority of an established retailer at a fair price with qualifying funds generally satisfies substantiality when most of the price is paid from those funds rather than seller financing; the proportion should be planned with that in mind. Reality and marginality are shown with the retailer's financial statements, tax filings, payroll of agronomists, applicators and clerks, its supplier agreements and its customer base. The purchase should close through escrow released on visa issuance or under an agreement conditional only on that event, so the commitment is irrevocable but the investor is not left holding a U.S. minority-run business if the visa is refused. He applies at a U.S. consulate with the enterprise file; his spouse is employment-authorized incident to E-2 status and children may study but not work. There is no direct route from E-2 status to permanent residence.
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.