The phone is ringing, so I'm going to go get it.
But in this next video, I'll tell you what is the process to get an E2 visa as an investor
in the United States.
Stay tuned.
Hello everybody, this is Jacob here, an immigration attorney based in San Diego, California.
We do a lot of E visas, investor visas, and this video, I'll break down the process of
how you will actually apply for that visa.
We have many videos that we talked about E visas, a bunch of links up here, the different
categories and different structures of E visa categories.
But in this video, we'll break it down into the process of how we actually do this.
So what is an E visa?
An E visa is an investment visa that allows people that have a treaty with the United
States.
Countries like France, Germany, England, Mexico, Canada, there's a list of those countries
on the State Department's website, you can click to that link right here.
And you can find your country on that list.
And if you're on that list, you can go ahead and proceed with applying for an E2 visa.
That visa allows you, with an investment or I would say about $100,000 to start any business
in the United States, and live here for a period of two to five years at a time.
But how do we actually apply for the E visa?
You get so many questions.
So, the first step is to actually decide what you want to do.
We have so many investors that have the funds in their home countries, but they don't know
what they want to actually do in the US.
So it's really important to set yourself with ideas for what you actually want to do.
Do you want to run a coffee shop?
Do you want to run a restaurant?
Do you want to do a laundry business?
Do you want to be a consultant?
Whatever it is that you do, you have to make that decision first.
There are many ways where you can actually find a business if you don't know.
And there are brokers and there are websites that help you find businesses but that's a
topic for a whole different video.
In this video, we’ll assume that you already know what you want to do.
And we break down the process of actually doing it.
But the first step is, set up your US LLC or C Corp.
Again, the difference between an LLC and C Corp is a topic for another video.
But whatever that is, you have to form your US entity as a first step.
Once you open your US entity, the second step is you have to set up the bank account for
that US entity whether it's a C Corp or an LLC, you have to open the bank account.
The reason it's so important is because once the bank account is set up, now you're able
to move the funds from the foreign country to that bank account to that corporate bank
account.
Now, if you're in the US in another legal status, you're also able to remove some money
from the US.
But ideally, most of the investors will move funds from the foreign country to their corporate
bank account in the US.
Now before you move the money to the corporate bank account, you really have to document
the source of the funds.
One of the key elements of an E visa, investment visa, is to prove where did the money comes
from.
How do you document the source of the funds?
So, for example, you had a real estate property in a foreign country, and you sold it recently,
say the last year, if you can document the deed of sale, or if you can show the money
move from the seller to the escrow account, to your bank account, or if you have money
in investment stocks, and you sold those stocks, and you took the cash and you move them to
the US.
Whatever it is, it's very important you document the origination of the funds, that you have
control of those funds.
And then those funds move from your control to your corporate bank account in the US.
Once the money is in the US, you are now in the period of investment.
Now, if you're in a foreign country, you're able to enter the US either as a visitor on
a B1 visa or if you're from a European country and come on Esta as an Esta visitor to be
able to set up your business.
You can potentially try to lease an office space or warehouse or whatever the business
is, you can sign that lease.
Those are activities that are authorized on a visitor visa for business purposes, as long
as you have declared that upon entry that you come in to do that, in lieu of your E2
visa.
You can sign the lease, you can find office space, you can start doing some marketing
for that business, you can set up a website, you can even start looking for potential employees
for that business because all these activities are required when you apply for the visa,
at the end of the day, the US Embassy, or change your status, they want to see that
you've taken the step you've taken, you've used the money, you put them at risk.
One of the reasons why E visas are denied, getting denied is because the US Embassy or
the consulate or the immigration officer feel that your investment is not at risk or it's
too marginal because you have not used enough of the funds that are in the bank account.
Therefore, it's important to enter into an investment period so you will spend money,
you can prepare some of the lease money, you can hire an employee, you can set up payroll,
you can open a website, you can start doing some marketing.
If you’re buying a restaurant, you can actually already put most of the money into an escrow
account, and start getting training on the operations of the business.
Whatever that is, you have to show that you spend, at least I would say 25%, 30% of the
funds that are being invested before you apply for the visa.
And finally, once you have documented all these expenses, like hiring professionals
and attorney and accountant, some employees for the business, you've documented all these
expenses, you’re putting them in the package, and that package consists of the visa application
forms, all the proof of expenses, proof of the source of funds, as well as other documents
that are essential for the approval of the visa application.
You need to have all the documents organized.
A proof of your funds, proof of the investment, proof of your money transfer, documents to
show that you've actually been actively investing and it's not just a marginal business.
This is an example of an E visa, real visa application that is going on to the consulate.
And we put, usually, exhibits.
So, we have exhibits, we’ll put a cover letter where we explain to the embassy what
does your case consists of, what is the business about, we have the business plan as well,
that is part of the package, that’s included.
And you have to make sure that you have that business plan as part of your E visa application.
So, after the company set up, after of the bank account, after you've put the money in
there and you started spending the money, you have to create a business plan to show
the embassy a five-year plan as to how you going to make this business successful.
And one of the key strategies to making those applications successful is that we have a
binder that we send to the embassy, and most embassies have a limit of pages, you can’t
just send them thousands of pages.
Most embassies have a limit of about 90 to 100 pages.
So, we're very careful before we send any E visa application to check with the respective
embassy what they want, some of them want it via email, some of them wanted it in a
special binder like this, the US Embassy in Ciudad Juarez, that's how they want it.
Some embassies require specific colors of the tabs.
We always include all the corporate information at the backend, we have the applicant’s
information, in the beginning, we have the business plan inside the case, everything
is whole punched and exhibit will make it very, very easy for the consular officer to
understand what is this case about in a very organized and easy to understand manner.
So that then they know, once they review this case, they only have about 10 minutes per
application and they were able to issue a federal decision and approve the applicant.
So once again, forming the company bank account, moving the money, proving the source of the
fund, starting to spend the money, having all these documents organized in a binder
like this, having a strong business plan, five-year business plan, in which in this
case, we always create our business plans.
And finally, we ship the case to the embassy based on the requirements, we checked every
embassy to see what they need.
And we are very, very customizing all these applications per the embassy.
It’s very important to do that because every post requires their own way of presenting
the visa.
But all along is if you have a good investment, if you have a good strategy, if your business
plan is strong enough, E visa is an amazing visa to obtain to start your business in the
United States.
You can run a business, live on your own terms.
If you have a spouse, that spouse can work with a special work authorization that is
issued once you get your visa.
And typically, most of these E visas are issued for a period of about five years with an indefinite
renewal as long as your business operates.
So, it's one of my favorite visas.
I love it.
We have very, very high approval rates.
So, if you have questions about E visa, make sure you post them in the comments below.
We have a few more links for some of our favorite E2 visa videos.
And don't forget to subscribe to our channel.
We give videos about tips and tricks and information that will make your immigration process very
successful.
And if you have any topics that you want to see videos created, please let me know.
Thanks for watching and we'll see you in our next video.