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.
A management consultant's TN file: the five-year route and the self-employment trap
Hypothetical example: a Pilot Butte resident who spent six years as an internal continuous-improvement adviser at a Regina manufacturer, and two years consulting independently through her own corporation, is offered a twelve-month engagement by a U.S. consulting firm. Management Consultant is listed, with a rule of a bachelor's degree or five years of consulting experience. The two dangers are proving the five years, and structuring the engagement so she is employed or contracted by the U.S. firm rather than selling her own corporation's services, which TN treats as self-employment.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Which qualification the letter should claim
- Why her corporation cannot be the contracting party
- The rest of the file
Dual citizenship, a permanent-resident spouse and choosing which nationality carries the case
Hypothetical example: a Pilot Butte software developer holds both Canadian citizenship and the citizenship of the country where she was born, which has no treaty with the United States. Her husband is a Canadian permanent resident from a third country. She is weighing a TN job and, later, an E-2 business purchase. Her Canadian citizenship qualifies her for both; a dual national may rely on the treaty nationality. His permanent residence gives him nothing under U.S. law: as her dependant he needs a consular visa, and on his own he would need a route with no nationality requirement.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- How dual nationality is treated
- The permanent-resident spouse
- Sequencing the two routes
Fund a low-cost mobile repair startup to a level the E-2 proportionality test accepts
Hypothetical example: a Canadian-citizen heavy-equipment technician from Pilot Butte wants to start a U.S. mobile hydraulic and diesel repair service with a service truck, tools and a small shop lease. The total cost of establishing it is modest. The U.S. enterprise must be at least 50% owned by treaty-country nationals. E-2 has no fixed minimum investment, but it applies a sliding scale: the lower the cost of the enterprise, the higher the proportion the investor must fund personally, and for a business at this price the expectation is close to the whole amount. The second hurdle is marginality, since a one-technician service earns one technician's living unless the plan credibly shows hiring.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- How the proportionality test works at the low end
- Showing the money is committed and at risk
- Escaping the marginality finding
Reviving a dormant U.S. company: why a five-year-old LLC is still a new office
Hypothetical example: a scaffolding and access contractor based near Pilot Butte formed a U.S. limited liability company five years ago for a project that never proceeded. The entity exists, has a registered agent and a small bank balance, and has never invoiced a customer or paid an employee. The company now wants its operations manager to launch U.S. work through it. Because a new office is one that has been doing business for less than a year, the dormant LLC is a new office despite its age, and the petition must carry new-office evidence and accept a one-year initial approval.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Doing business is measured by activity, not formation
- Using the old entity or forming a fresh one
- The first year and what the extension will require
A thirty-percent shareholder wants to run the U.S. business: L-1A, or E-2 as an employee
Hypothetical example: the general manager of a Pilot Butte electrical contracting company owns thirty percent of it; the founder owns the rest. The company wants him to establish and run a U.S. operation. He cannot be an E-2 principal, because he neither holds fifty percent nor controls the enterprise, and the capital would be the company's. Two routes remain: L-1A as a manager transferred to a U.S. subsidiary, or E-2 as an executive employee of a Canadian-owned enterprise. Which fits depends on the subsidiary's structure, his year of employment, and how long the family expects to stay.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Why he is not the E-2 investor
- L-1A and E-2 employee compared
- Choosing on the facts
A common-law partner and an adult daughter: who can come, and on what
Hypothetical example: a Pilot Butte millwright has accepted a U.S. transfer with his employer on L-1B. He has lived with his partner for twelve years without marrying, and his daughter from an earlier marriage is 23 and works as a dental assistant. Neither can derive status from him. U.S. dependent status requires a legally valid marriage, and Saskatchewan's recognition of common-law relationships does not create one; a child must be unmarried and under 21. The household's plan has to give each of them a route of their own, or change the facts by marrying before the move.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Why the partner is not a spouse
- The adult daughter's own options
- Sequencing the household
Two years of conditions or none: how the EB-5 and Gold Card timelines differ for a couple near retirement
Hypothetical example: a Pilot Butte couple in their late fifties, one a retiring school administrator and the other the owner of a small trucking company being sold, want to retire in the United States and can fund either route. Beyond at-risk capital versus an irrevocable gift, the routes differ in shape over time. EB-5 leads to two years of conditional residence and a later petition to remove conditions, with capital tied up until the project exits. The Gold Card proceeds through EB-1 or EB-2 to unconditional residence, but only if one of them fits those categories.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The EB-5 timeline
- The Gold Card timeline
- Fitting the routes to a retirement