hey everyone welcome back to my channel this is Adrien Pandi business and immigration attorney and today we're going to talk about the E1 versus the E2 visa and if you're eligible for both it is important to consider these differences because depending on the goals and needs of your business um it important to choose the right one and not commit to the one that may not be the most advantageous to your business now first and foremost make sure you're actually eligible for both E1 and E2 visas make sure your country of citizenship has a treaty that
qualifies you for both E1 treaty Trader and E2 um treaty investor visas some countries only have one for example Greece only has an E1 does not have an E2 Visa similarly many countries only have an E2 Visa but not an E1 some off the top of my head are Albania Bulgaria Slovakia but there's several others so first and foremost make sure you're actually eligible for both first let's talk about the E1 Visa the E1 is a treaty Trader um Visa so what that means is the government is looking at for issuing the Visa whether there
is substantial trade between the United States and the treaty country so how is substantial trade defined well it's defined as continuous flow of international items so Goods as well as Services between the treaty Country and the United States important to keep in mind there's no minimum monetary threshold there's no minimum amount of trade that has to occur in order for it to be considered sub substantial trade and there's no minimum monetary value of each specific transaction right generally the government um looks at three criteria right the volume of trade right how many transactions there are
the value of trade so what the value of of each transaction is obviously the higher the volume the higher the transaction value the better and also they the government looks at continuity right so is it frequent continuous trade or is it just one or two three transactions right the more transactions the more frequent the more continuous the more likely the government will find that it is in fact substantial right one thing to notice often people think that the E1 is mainly for big companies right and the there has to be huge transaction value think of
large manufacturing or you know import export businesses and that that's not really the case so um high frequency of transactions so high volume lower value is often um approved right for an E1 Visa also important to notice people get very focused on Goods right the trade of goods and don't look at the fact that it can be items or Services right goods or services so Services where if you know the services are continuously being sold into the us or vice versa you know from the US into treaty country and back and forth um that works
too right so don't only think of physical goods for an E1 Services also qualify so now let's contrast this with the E2 Visa the E2 Visa is granted to those who have made a substantial investment into a US business into a US Enterprise so a couple of requirements for the E2 right the investment the invested funds they have to be at risk they have to be committed and at risk they can't just be sitting on a bank account the business that you're investing in must be real and active and ready to operate right so that
you can come in receive the C2 visa and develop and direct the business also your investment has to be substantial enough right where it's not deemed marginal and marginal is defined as a business that only provides for the investor and their family so basically the investment has to be substantial enough where the business has the capability to grow or it can employ employees and create a living for others than the investor um themselves okay so now let's look at the key differences between the E1 and the E2 Visa so the key difference is the purpose
the E1 is for businesses that trade between the US and the treaty country the E2 is for those treaty country citizens who've made a substantial investment a capital investment right a cash investment into a US business now to make this very simple think of it as trade versus investment so what I tell everyone is look at what the business needs right so if you're on the fence I'm not sure which one's um better for my my needs look at what does your business need right so for example if you already know that you need to
make a capital investment you need need to invest cash in order to get the US business to grow and start and and develop for example this could be you need to rent physical space like a warehouse or an office or um a retail space or it could be the purchasing of inventory or other products or hiring employees if you know you have to make a cash investment well then the E2 is probably a good choice however what I see with many businesses and business owners right considering the the E1 and E2 visas is that they
already started a business that is selling into the us or selling out of the US into the treaty country and there's already this selling of of products or services in and out of the US so in those cases often there's no need for that Capital initial capital investment so if there's no need for that initial capital investment and you've already um you know that the exchange the transactions going back and forth between the US and the treaty country are already there and they're growing well then the E1 is probably a better choice because if there's
no need for a capital investment the E2 is probably not the best Visa option and that way you can use the E1 to um obtain work authorization on visa to live in the US anyway I hope you found this video helpful I would really appreciate it if you hit the follow and like button if you if you found it helpful if you have any questions or comments just put them in the comments below thank you so much for watching [Music] [Applause] [Music]
