hey everyone welcome back to my channel this is Adrien pandev business and immigration attorney and today we're going to talk about the E2 investor visa specifically we're going to talk about the eligible countries or I should say um El citizens of countries that are eligible for the E2 Visa as background the E2 Visa is an investor visa it is based on a investment treaty between the United States and a foreign Nation so only citizens of countries that have a treaty an investment treaty with the United States are eligible for an E2 Visa so before you
you know dive any further and explore this E2 Visa as an option for you the very first thing you got to do is make sure that your country of nationality your country of citizenship is actually eligible for it so how do you do that well we have an article on it it should be in the description but most importantly and this is what you should do um go to the state department website and it lists all the E2 countries right and not only that it also lists um the duration right the duration of the Visa
how long it's valid for and how many entries are allowed with that Visa so let me explain this a bit further um because first thing you got to do is make sure the country your country of citizenship is on the list if it's not you won't be able to pursue the E2 Visa um the second thing is right look at the duration so to give you an example right many E2 Visa um citizens of you know many countries are eligible for an E2 Visa that's has a maximum duration of 5 years right so in those
cases right um You can use the visa to enter the US for those 5 years while it's valid now some other countries right um the Visa will only be valid for a few months 3 months is fairly common sometimes a year sometimes two years right and that makes a big difference because once it expires you have to renew the Visa so if you know you have a business that's going to require a lot of traveling back and forth internationally well maybe the E2 Visa is not the best option if you're only going to be able
to you know use it for 3 months and then have to reapply for a new Visa every time through the consulate right um the other thing you got to pay attention to to is the amount of entries allowed right so many countries are eligible for what's called a multi-entry E2 Visa so what that means is you can kind of come and go as many times as you want but some other countries the E2 Visa will be limited to just this one you know one single entry or a few say three entries so to illustrate this
with a hypothetical right um say you know you going to have to travel three times back back and forth during the summer internationally right um if you have a multi-entry E2 visa and it's valid during the duration of that uh entire period well then you can go ahead and you know exit enter exit enter both all three times and there should be no issue however if your um Visa only allows you let's just go with one single entry well you won't be able to come and go exit and enter as many times as you want
right so it's going to be ineffective so to wrap this all up basically you got to look at a are you a citizen of a country that's actually on the list and two um you should look at the amount of entries allowed as well as the duration of the Visa because these three things together determine whether it's a viable option one other thing um I wanted to say [Music] is if your country is not on the the the list right if you're citizen of a country that is actually not on the list um that doesn't
mean you should quote unquote give up hope because the list changes Portugal is a recent addition um there's always discussions with adding you know other countries so you know and this has to do with US foreign policy and treaties with foreign Nations so um if your country is not on the list doesn't mean it won't ever be and similarly if your country of citizenship is on the list doesn't mean it always will be there because treaties also end right so the bottom line here is um double check and make sure right um just sort of
um a little bit of you know background about the E2 before I go into a let just call it an FAQ I've got a couple commonly asked questions so E2 Visa I think is arguably the best option for anyone starting a business any Foreigner starting a business in the US right it's specifically geared to individuals and you know companies that want to expand to the US and grow a business in the US it requires a substantial investment so the best way to think about this is you open a company in the US you register a
company you um capitalize that company right with uh sufficient funds and then you use those funds to invest in what's necessary to get the business up to an operational State once the business is close to operational or already operational you can go ahead and apply for uh the Visa you will have an interview at which you have to explain the investment and everything that was done and what the business plan is and you know if everything's successful it's approved you get the visa and you can enter and start um directing and developing this business um
now the questions that I get um very very often are the following what if my country is not on the list well believe it or not most of you watching this probably fall into to this category simply because some of the world's largest countries are not E2 countries so think China India Brazil Etc these are not E2 countries right so in these cases like I said you would have to um see if something changes or explore alternative options you know the L1 is one we use very frequently my um country of birth um Hungary is
not um on the list and we use L1 visas for most hungarians looking to expand into the us because we can't use de2 at least at this time it might change you know by the time you're watching this video um similarly um you know in many other countries because it's not an option but in those cases summarize it quickly you got to look at Alternatives l11 H1B and others right and I will try to shoot videos on all of those so you have more you know information the second question I get very often is what
if I'm a dual citizen what if you know I'm a citizen of let's just say um can Canada which is an E2 country um and let's just say India which is not right well in that case you can apply for an E2 Visa yes you can because you're a Canadian citizen you can use that second citizenship to um acquire to apply for the E2 Visa right um followup to that I get very often is okay well I'm a citizen of a country that you know has the E2 Visa available but I don't reside in that
country right so just to continue with with that example I had going I'm a citizen of Canada and say I live in South Africa South Africa is not an E2 country well the question I get is what can I still apply because I live in South Africa am I allowed to apply at say the Johannesburg um consulate and the answer is yes um there's one exception I'll go through that in in a second but um generally speaking yes um as long as you hold this citizenship the the E2 citizenship you're able to apply in your
country of residence we see this very often we've applied for several um E2 visas in Johannesburg like I said in South Africa in Hungary like I said Brazil is another common one um and and many others frankly so that is not an issue however you got to be careful with the exact treaty um that your specific you know nationality has with with the United States the example is the United Kingdom um and again these things could change so always double check but the United Kingdom actually requires that you be domiciled in um the UK before
applying for this Visa so um unlike many um you know other countries if you're applying based on UK UK citizenship United Kingdom citizenship you got to make sure um that you meet that domicile requirement um and anyway there's a lot of strategies on how to address it and how it can you know how how this can be addressed but again just once you've identified you know which country you're up what the basis right which country you're applying based on just double check and make sure you have a sound strategy and make sure there's no extra
requirements like in the case I mentioned um similar question to this that I get very often is um citizenship through investment so basically many countries maybe not many a few countries um in the world provide or you're basically able to obtain citizenship by making an investment in into that country's economy um you are able to use um that passport so a common one we see is Grenada um there there's other ones too right depending on when you acquired the citizenship but basically if it was through investment um and the citizenship you acquired through investment is
an E2 country you're eligible to apply however you have to have resided in the country of citizenship you're using for at least 3 years in those cases so just make sure I know many from countries that are not E2 eligible realize that this is a great option to start a business in the US um and then they see oh well what if I you know acquire citizenship through investment in one of these other jurisdictions that is um great but just make sure that you realize that there's also this domicile requirement for 3 years so you
can't just acquire the citizenship through investment and then never actually live in that country or have no documentation to prove that and then apply for this E2 Visa now final question that also comes up and it's kind of similar to this what if I am a citizen of an E2 country but I'm from an overseas territory right so this very often we see this with again United Kingdom France um the Netherlands Etc um again it's treaty specific and it's very specific about where you live right which overseas territory generally speaking um you should be able
to qualify in most cases but it's very very fact specific because each and every territory is treated differently depending on the treaty right so if you are from an overseas territory just um make sure like be aware um that you need to double check whether or not you're eligible for the E2 treaty generally speaking you should be the majority are right um but there are exceptions and that's why you got to be um careful I I could make a whole video about the exceptions and all of that so I don't don't want to go in
into all of this um here um sort of to wrap this all up I love the E2 Visa I think it's one of the best options to start and grow a business in the US however you got to be from a country that's eligible for it so start your journey with the E2 Visa by checking whether or not you are eligible um thank you for watching this video um please subscribe and like um it really helps me and I will try to continue to post more of these videos that I hope you find helpful thank
you [Music] [Music]
