Start with the E-2 eligibility and application overview
Read the customer commitment accurately
Identify what each customer has actually agreed to and any unresolved conditions. E-2 requires a real nonmarginal enterprise, with capacity beyond minimal investor-family living or the applicable significant economic contribution standard. Interest letters can inform a forecast without being described as guaranteed sales or money already earned. The useful decision is not whether a letter sounds optimistic but whether it changes a forecast assumption. Sort communications into signed contracts, conditional commitments, repeat-customer history, quotations, and informal interest. State the cancellation terms, deposits, delivery obligations, and timing for each material customer. Hypothetical example: A mobile dental-equipment repair company receives three letters from clinics; only one contains a signed maintenance term and deposit, so the forecast should not treat the other two as booked revenue.
Separate projected customers from the qualifying capital
Treaty nationality, at least 50% relevant national enterprise ownership, development and direction, and substantial lawful at-risk capital remain required, with no fixed universal minimum. Canadians generally need an E visa. Trace actual funds and commitments; working capital and visa-contingent escrow depend on genuine terms, and enterprise-secured debt differs from qualifying personal financing. Potential future revenue is not automatically capital the investor has committed. Keep the market case separate from the investment proof. Bank records, closing documents, invoices, escrow instructions, and ownership documents answer different questions from customer letters. The review should identify the point at which funds cease to be revocable, the loss exposure if the venture fails, and the applicant’s actual control. If the model supports only the investor’s household for the foreseeable future, revise the operating plan rather than trying to solve marginality with a larger-sounding projection.
Develop and direct means control, not merely majority
The applicant must develop and direct the enterprise, which is ordinarily demonstrated by owning at least fifty per cent or by holding operational control through a managerial position or other device. What matters for your case is the capital you committed, its substantiality relative to the cost of this enterprise, and whether it is genuinely irrevocably at risk. Keep director or shareholder resolutions from the Canadian seller authorizing the disposal, resolutions of the U.S. buyer approving the purchase and the price, the asset purchase agreement, bills of sale, and assignments for contracts, licences or intellectual property. Canada is a treaty country, so a Canadian citizen may qualify regardless of residence, and at least fifty percent of the enterprise must be owned by treaty nationals of that country. A loan secured by the investor's personal assets, or backed by personal liability, is treated differently from one secured by the assets of the United States enterprise being acquired or built. If part of the price is seller-financed, only the portion actually paid and any indebtedness secured by the buyers’ personal assets counts; a loan secured on the business itself does not. Substantiality is assessed proportionally against the total cost of buying or creating the enterprise: a modest sum can be substantial for a small service business and plainly insufficient for a manufacturing acquisition. If financing is involved, describe the collateral, including whether the investor is personally liable and whether enterprise assets secure the borrowing.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.