Read the general investor planning overview
Hypothetical example: Marisol Quintanilla-Reyes runs a seed cleaning and conditioning operation near Ramara and is negotiating to buy a grain-cleaning plant in North Dakota. The vendor has produced a one-page summary and a cheerful forecast. Nearly everything the treaty investor category will want to know is information she should be demanding as a purchaser in any event, which means the due diligence and the immigration file are the same piece of work.
Ask for filed statements rather than a forecast
Marginality is the requirement most often failed and the easiest to address with history. It asks whether the enterprise has the present or future capacity to produce more than a minimal living for the investor and her family, and several years of filed tax returns and prepared financial statements answer that in a way no projection can. Forecasts have their place where a business is being expanded or newly built, and then they need assumptions somebody can defend line by line. For an established plant, insisting on the filed record does two jobs at once: it tells Marisol whether she is buying what she thinks she is buying, and it supplies the strongest available evidence on a point the adjudication will test.
Ask how the purchase price is allocated
Substantiality is proportional. The capital committed is weighed against the total cost of purchasing an established enterprise of this type, so what the price is made of changes the comparison. A price allocated across equipment, inventory, goodwill and a non-competition covenant produces a different picture from one dominated by real property, and where land and buildings are included the question of how much has actually been invested in the operating business becomes more complicated rather than less. Ask for the allocation in writing before the agreement is signed, because it is negotiated for tax reasons on both sides and is rarely revisited afterwards. It also matters that funds borrowed against the assets being purchased are not treated as capital genuinely at risk.
Ask who the employees are and who will run it
A payroll register listing positions, hours and length of service is worth more than any statement about the plant's importance to the district. Existing employees demonstrate that the enterprise is real and operating and go directly to marginality, so their continuity through the sale should be negotiated deliberately rather than assumed. The related question is about her own role. The category requires the investor to develop and direct the enterprise, so an arrangement in which the vendor stays on to run the plant while Marisol remains in Ontario undermines the application even if it is commercially attractive. Where she will hold less than half the shares, the operating agreement should grant operational control expressly, and that drafting has to happen before closing.
What else is on your mind?
Is there one minimum investment that guarantees E-2 eligibility?Is holding money or owning an asset enough for E-2?Editorial source review: 2026-09-07. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.