Read it.
Use it.
Focused guides for the questions that need more than a quick answer. Each includes a worksheet to prepare your next conversation.
Guides for your next decision.
Build a TN employer evidence brief before drafting the letter
Read & prepare Applicant planningKeep an L-1A new-office record from approval to extension
Read & prepare Applicant planningCompare the E-2 evidence for a startup and a business purchase
Read & prepare U.S. destination planningCanadian RN planning for New York State
Read & prepare U.S. destination planningCanadian RN planning for California
Read & prepareSeven decisions, answered before you prepare.
Prove three years of freelance experience for a graphic designer's TN
Hypothetical example: a Balgonie graphic designer holds a two-year diploma and has worked freelance for five years, and a U.S. marketing agency wants to hire her. The Graphic Designer listing accepts a degree, or a post-secondary diploma or certificate together with three years of experience. The experience must be documented with records a self-employed person may never have organized: contracts, invoices, tax filings and client letters. The U.S. engagement must also be employment or a genuine engagement by a U.S. company, not continued freelancing through her own business.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Build the experience file from tax and client records
- Make the diploma and the profession match the listing
- Choose the port of entry or the petition and prepare for questions
Map which passport does what when a Balgonie permanent resident holds British citizenship
Hypothetical example: a Balgonie equipment sales representative holds Canadian permanent residence and a British passport. His employer wants him to spend a year with its U.S. distributor, and separately he is considering buying a small U.S. business. Canadian permanent residence gives him nothing under TN, which requires Canadian or Mexican citizenship. His British nationality, however, is treaty nationality for E-2. L-1 does not depend on nationality at all. The household plan should be built from what each document actually permits.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Rule TN out and stop planning around it
- Test L-1 and E-2 against his actual facts
- Sequence the household around the routes that exist
Spend a carpenter's startup capital in the order that proves E-2 commitment
Hypothetical example: a Balgonie journeyman carpenter wants to start, not buy, a deck-and-fence construction company in a U.S. state, with his own savings and no partners. A new business can qualify for E-2, but the investor must show funds irrevocably committed and at risk, a substantial investment relative to what such a business costs to establish, a real operating enterprise that will be more than marginal, and his own direction of it. For a startup, what has been spent, on what, and in what order carries the case.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Decide what to commit before the visa and what to hold
- Meet the substantiality and marginality tests for a one-person startup
- Keep control, nationality and licensing straight
Send an electrical contractor's owner to open a U.S. office on a new-office L-1A
Hypothetical example: a Balgonie electrical contracting company with nine employees has won a maintenance contract for a U.S. customer's solar installations and wants its owner-manager to open a U.S. subsidiary. A new-office L-1A petition is approved for one year and requires secured premises, proof of the qualifying relationship, the transferee's continuous year abroad in the prior three in a managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge capacity, and evidence that the U.S. office will support a managerial role within a year. An owner can be the transferee, but only if the Canadian company keeps operating without him.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Prove the subsidiary is real before the petition is filed
- Show the owner will be a manager, not the only employee
- Document the year abroad and plan the extension from day one
Choose between L-1A and E-2 on the ten-year horizon for a cabinetry manufacturer
Hypothetical example: a Balgonie couple own a Canadian custom-cabinetry manufacturer and want a U.S. showroom and installation arm run by one of them. They can structure it as a subsidiary of the Canadian company and transfer on L-1A, or invest personally and apply for E-2. Ownership structure is one difference; the more useful comparison is time. L-1A is capped at seven years but sits next to a permanent-residence category for multinational managers; E-2 can be renewed indefinitely while the business qualifies but leads nowhere permanent on its own.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Ask where the family wants to be in ten years
- Weigh what each route demands of the business
- Compare the household terms and the exit
Move a blended family from Balgonie when the principal is a TN dental hygienist
Hypothetical example: a Balgonie dental hygienist accepts a TN position with a U.S. dental practice. Her husband is a self-employed bookkeeper with Saskatchewan clients, and her 16-year-old from a previous relationship shares custody with a father who will stay in Canada. Each person's situation raises a different question: the husband cannot work in TD status and needs a decision about his Canadian clients; the child needs the other parent's consent and a school plan; and the hygienist's own licensure in the destination state is separate from her TN qualification.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Settle the spouse's work question before the move is budgeted
- Prepare the child's consent, custody and status documents
- Keep the principal's TN and state licence on separate tracks
Check the family route before a Balgonie retiree pays for EB-5 or a Gold Card to join her daughter
Hypothetical example: a 58-year-old retired provincial employee in Balgonie, widowed, wants to live near her daughter's family in the United States. She has heard of EB-5 and the Gold Card and is prepared to use her savings. Her daughter is a U.S. citizen. Before either money-based route is priced, the ordinary family route should be examined: a U.S. citizen aged 21 or over may petition for a parent as an immediate relative, with no capital, no gift and no job creation. The money routes are the comparison, not the default.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Start with the immediate-relative petition
- Understand what EB-5 would add and what it would demand
- Understand what the Gold Card would add and what it would not