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E2 TREATY INVESTOR VISA AND L1 INTRACOMPANY TRANSFEREE VISA AS BEST ALTERNATIVES

Most of the immigration investor visa calls we receive are for the E2 treaty investor visa, or the L-1 Intracompany Transferee visa. Often, the person does not know which of the 2 he or she qualifies for and what the difference is. We will explain this for you here to make it easier to understand. The other alternative for investors is the EB5, but it requires an invesment of $500,000 or a million dollars, depending on a number of factors. The H1 can work as a self-employment visa, but that is not an easy case to win unless you have no other choice. The third alternative is NAFTA. However, we have received too many calls from people who had their status unrenewed without notice and were stuck in Canada or Mexico with a house and a life in the US. They could not enter at times to sell their property. The NAFTA status is a risky one. It works for some people, but not really for investors.

Most people who do not want the EB5 look to the L1 Intracompany Transferee or the E2 Treaty Investor Visa as alternatives. We will attempt to explain the 2 investor visas for you here and hopefully after reading this page you will understand what works best for you.

THE L-1 INTRACOMPANY TRANSFEREE AND E-2 TREATY INVESTOR VISAS COMPARED

THE L-1 VISA CALLED INTRACOMPANY TRANSFEREE VISA

The L1 Intracompany Tranferee visa is the best choice if you are limited to an E or L visa (ie you do not want to invest half a million or more into the EB5 Green Card program). The catch to this visa is that you must have run an operation in a foreign country for a year and you must intend to keep on running it. For some people this is not an option. For large companies. this is often an easy choice. If this is not possible, see if you qualify for the E Treaty visa.


The main benefits of the L1 Intracompany Transferee visa are:

1. You can enter this country with a very small investment [we routinely have won cases with an investment of $100,000]. Compare this to the EB5, which requires a bare minimum of $500,000 and you must hire 10 employees for a period of two years.

2. It can lead to a Green Card, which the E visa doesn't. Once you have the L1 Intracompany Transferee visa for a year, you can apply for a Green Card in the highest category available, called the EB1. The nice feature of this is that you can apply for the Green Card and you don't have to advertise your position. We have never lost such a case. Please Note: There are 3 categories of persons who can enter with the L1 visa: Managers, Executives, and persons with Specialized Knowledge; only Managers and Executives qualify for the Green Card Status.

The problem our clients as E2 Treaty Investors often face is they enter the US with the intent of simply opening up a business for w few years. They then make friends and get accustomed to the lifestyle and want to remain. Although the E2 is technically renewable forever, it never leads to permanent residence, also called the Green Card, and its sense of permanence, should something negative happen to the business. With the E2 Treaty Investor visa, if something should go wrong, the client has to either invest in another company or leave the US. As many people put their life savings into the company, they lack the option of investing in a new one.

3. The L1 is also called the Intracompany Transferee visa. The reason for this is the person in the US is a transferee of the company; in other words, he or she has been transferred from the company in the other country to the company in the US. The office or location in the US can be a branch, subsidiary, or affiliate. Affiliate means commonality of ownership and was the latest change to the L1 Intracompany Transferee visa and is a very useful one. Essentially, you could own a software consulting firm in Toronto and a Fish n Chips restaurant in Orlando. The two of them may be unrelated, but as you own both of them, they are affiliates and you would qualify for the L1 Intracompany Transferee visa.

If you have a company in a foreign country, call us before you sell it, especially if you are selling it in order to invest in the US operation. There may be a way to conserve it while you are here. This is one of the reasons you will enjoy dealing with our office; we don't only understand the law: we understand business; most immigration lawyers don't.

THE E2 TREATY INVESTOR VISA

The Treaty Invesor or Treaty Trader E visa is for persons who are from a Treaty Country. In general terms, the treaty countries include Western European countries, Canada, Mexico, and Australia. You are welcome visit the list of Treaty Countries to ascertain whether your country qualifies; there are many. Some qualify for E1 Treaty Trader status (import/expoert only), and others qualify for the E2 Treaty Investor only, while others offer you a choice. Be careful to plan this carefully before you plan to make a move.

The E visa (when we state E visa we will be referring to both the E1 Treaty Trader and the E2 Treaty Investor) is a very interesting visa. It can be renewed indefinitely, which makes it very different from the rest. Although the F1 student visa can last for as long as your education takes, also called D/S, fpr duration of study, at some point the government will expect you to stop studying. On the other hand, you can keep renewing the E Treaty Investor visa for decades. It has a very strange catch to it: you must have an intent to return to your country of origin at some time in the future. However, and this is surprising, you do not have to define when that is. As a result, people come to the United States, run their businesses for many years, and then return home, some die of old age before that intent is ever manifested. Frankly, even we are surprised this has never become better defined.

Some people look at the E visa as an alternative visa when other situations fail. For example, there have been couples who were gay or people who wanted to spend their retirement years here and could not find a visa that met that requirement. The E visa provided that alternative. The investment required is at least $100,000 to be safe, yet it is not defined.