hey everyone welcome back to my channel this is Adrien pandev business and immigration attorney and today we're going to talk about which types of businesses are best suited for an E2 Visa so before we go any further let's go over the E2 visa requirements so an E2 Visa is issued to someone from a treaty country so first and foremost you got to make sure that you're a citizen of a treaty country then you have to make a substantial atrisk investment into a US Enterprise into a us business so what that means is the investment cannot
be passive it can't just be money sitting on a bank account it has to be a committed at risk capital investment into this us business the business itself has to be real active and ready to operate upon issuing um your Visa um you also you're going to be entering the US to develop and direct this business right um so your role is going to be one and to manage and direct the business and finally the business must generate enough income to support more than just your living expenses and your family's living expenses now before we
go into the various types of businesses um one thing to note and it's really important is all businesses qualify I think this is one of the most amazing parts of the E2 Visa is that you're you're not limited in what you can invest in you're not limited into the type of business you can invest tested so I tell everyone look at your skills look at your professional background what are you good at what is it that you actually want to do right maybe you don't have experience with what you want to do but you really
want to try something I see this very often with e2s where someone is changing careers or sold out of a business abroad or wants to end their career abroad and they're going to try something new I mean it's it's an awesome way to do it right I think the fact that there's no restrictions on the type of business is amazing because it lets you explore businesses outside of your background outside of what you have done in the past and my advice is to use this to your advantage right now if you want to do if
you've are you know if you have a business abroad or you are already engaged in a certain type of activity abroad and you want to bring that to the US that's perfectly fine but I do want to encourage everyone that you're not limited to your background you can you can try something completely new and something you don't have experience with so let's talk about businesses that are not well suited for an E2 Visa so to put it bluntly passive businesses right so passive investment so think real estate stocks money sitting on a bank account these
will be viewed as passive the reason is they don't meet several of the requirements I mentioned earlier in the video right so the question I often guess get is hey we own a home in the US I own a condo apartment a house um isn't that an investment in the US economy well yes it's an investment in the US economy but it's not a real active operating business it's just a piece of real property right um it also is not um at risk in the sense of an operating active business because you can sell that
real estate um and that way exit the investment it's not the same with um with an active operating business business right now and the same thing applies just to to to say this right to stocks um just cash in a bank account the idea is it is not committed at risk an active operating business however I work with Real Estate Investors um a lot I work with a lot of private Equity clients a lot of people who are actually um making these real estate um Investments and they trade stocks and and other financial instruments and
do qualify for E2 Visas so how does that work well there's a difference between I own a property or maybe I own two properties that you know I use for a vacation and owning a real estate management company so for example say you are purchasing several properties and you are renting those out you have a property manager that manages them you have booking software if you're you know short-term rentals that are booking them well that's a real active operating business and you have all those other expenses beyond the real estate itself that would qualify for
an E2 visa and we've done several of these but again it's critical to go from I own some real estate passively to this actually being a real estate business I've done you know real estate developers Real Estate Management Companies um individuals who buy and sell right flip houses those are all active businesses and yes they require a little bit more explanation because real estate usually looks um office Consul officers often view real estate as passive but if you're able to explain to them that no this is an active real operating business it just happens to
be in the real estate sector there that doesn't necessarily preclude it similarly with with financial investments right whether it's stocks um other types of financial instruments if it's an actual business and you're trading and investing and um you know I see this often with private Equity groups who um acquire various different types of businesses well that's going to qualify for an E2 Visa because again it is an active a real operating business rather than I just bought XYZ stock um and I'm holding it in my Charles schwap account or whatever it may be right that's
not the same so when evaluating whether a business is a good fit for an E2 Visa look at the rules for the E2 visa and see if the business is a good fit and actually meets those requirements easily right so for example a business bus that requires employees will help with the marginality requirement right because it will by by definition if you have I'm making this up five or 10 employees the business is generating enough income to go beyond and provide for more than just you and your family's expenses right so businesses that require the
employment of several employees are a good fit for an E2 Visa right similarly businesses that require higher upfront on cash expenses are a good fit because there is a a bigger initial investment which is what the Visa category looks for so for example businesses that require the lease or purchase of um real estate whether that's um you know a retail space a warehouse an office right that's going to bring up the investment figure it's a good fit for an E2 Visa similarly businesses that require the purchase of inventory or um equipment or um you know
any sort of resources for production um they're going to be a good fit because you're by default making a higher cash investment to acquire those goods now that being said right yes these types of businesses are a better fit I tell everyone don't follow these rules blindly because again the beauty of the E2 Visa versus many other Visa categories right is that it gives you the flexibility so look at what you want to do and see how you can build an E2 case around it rather than immediately discount you know disregarding any idea because it's
not a perfect match for the rules and I I really mean this I've done e2s for so many different types of businesses from you know Consulting companies that don't require a ton of employees know Professional Services companies don't require a lot of employees Tech startups Commerce businesses that don't require you know physical office or retail space um I've done like I said a lot of private Equity wealth management a lot of financial services um manufacturing literally so many things so many businesses um that initially when you look at them they don't neatly fall into the
rules yet um with some adjustments um with focusing on the right things in a good business plan and explaining the business well to officer they do end up qualifying so although these are the the general guidelines of what you should look at as you're thinking through um your your E2 business my my number one advice is focus on your goals focus on on your business plan obviously work with your you know investment advisors and and and all advisers to pick the best type of business for your goals and then um the E2 strategy can be
built around that thank you for watching this video I hope it was helpful if you have additional comments or have other topics you want me to cover please feel free to put them in the comments if you enjoyed the video please like it and follow the channel and I will try to put out more content that is um hopefully helpful to all of you thank you again bye [Music]
