IN THIS GUIDE · Read financing and cancellation terms before treating a deposit as committed capital
Start with the E-2 eligibility and application overview
Trace the funds and their legal obligations
Hypothetical example: a purchase deposit is partly financed by a loan with several assets listed as collateral. Identify the borrower, security and lawful source and path of funds. Personal-asset-secured or unsecured borrowing may be considered; enterprise-secured borrowing does not count as qualifying E-2 capital, and mixed security requires careful review. Debt secured partly by enterprise assets is excluded even when personal assets are also pledged; personal-only secured or unsecured borrowing may qualify on its actual terms.
Explain refund and escrow conditions
Read the actual cancellation rights and release conditions rather than assuming every deposit is committed or every escrow is disqualified. Have the agreement assessed under the applicable at-risk and irrevocable-commitment rules before relying on a payment as investment evidence.
Assess the whole enterprise
Describe the actual business, cost, operating plan and development-and-direction role. Substantiality depends on the enterprise and applicable proportionality analysis; no universal fixed minimum applies. Paying a large sum does not resolve marginality, nationality or control.
Coordinate the transaction with separate advice
Business, financing and tax review address questions distinct from immigration eligibility. Do not assume a seller’s assurance or contract deadline establishes E-2 approval. Identify which commitments are binding and what remains subject to review.
Explain enterprise nationality and nonmarginality precisely
The enterprise generally must be at least 50% owned by nationals of the relevant treaty country; the applicant’s passport alone does not establish enterprise nationality. Nonmarginality includes capacity to provide more than a minimal living for the investor and family, with the alternative of a significant economic contribution. Apply those conditions to the real operating proposal rather than importing EB-5’s capital amounts or ten-job rule into E-2. The investor must also intend to depart when E status ends; a purchase agreement does not establish that individual requirement. If relying on future capacity, it should generally be realizable within five years after normal business activity begins.
Develop and direct means control, not merely majority ownership
The buyer must develop and direct the enterprise, ordinarily through at least fifty percent ownership or operational control. The investor must genuinely develop and direct the enterprise; delegating routine operations to employees is ordinary, but handing strategic control to someone else is not. A 40 percent stake with a U.S. citizen holding 60 percent fails the ownership test: the company would not be a Canadian enterprise for treaty purposes. The investor must place a substantial amount of lawfully obtained capital into a real enterprise in a way that is beyond the investor’s unilateral recall and exposed to genuine business loss. Explain customers, suppliers, staffing, revenue assumptions, and the timing of material commitments. Projections that assume a ten-year horizon are unsupportable if the agreement expires in three with renewal at the franchisor's discretion, and projections that assume expansion into a neighbouring town are unsupportable if the territory does not include it. An operating business with slip rentals, fuel sales, storage and a service shop employing seasonal and year-round staff shows economic contribution beyond the owners' living, especially if the business plan projects continued hiring. Money reserved for possible purchases is not automatically invested; appropriately structured visa-contingent escrow requires review.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.