Read the general investor planning overview
Hypothetical example: Ramona owns a landscaping and snow-removal company in East Ferris and is buying an American grounds-maintenance business that currently supports its retiring owner and one seasonal helper. Her capital is real, her ownership is Canadian, and the money will be committed and at risk. The condition she has not addressed is marginality: an E-2 enterprise must do more than provide a minimal living for the investor and family, and this one, as purchased, would not.
What marginality actually asks
The test is capacity, present or future, to generate significantly more than a minimal living for the investor and dependants. A business whose entire output is the owner's own income is marginal, however comfortable that income may be for one household. Where present capacity is absent, a projection may serve, but the horizon is not open-ended: capacity is expected within a reasonable period, ordinarily understood as roughly five years from the start of the E-2 activity. Ramona's purchase as it stands is exactly the profile that fails, since a business built around one working owner has no employees to speak of and no revenue that does not pass through her own hands.
The plan is the evidence, and it has to be checkable
A business plan for this purpose is not a marketing document. It should show the contracted work already in hand, the crews needed to service it, the equipment being bought and when, the hiring schedule by role and by month, and the revenue that supports the payroll. Every number should trace to something: the seller's three years of financial statements, the customer contracts assigned at closing, quotations for the equipment, wage rates for the local market. Where Ramona intends to add commercial snow contracts, the plan should say which tenders, on what cycle, and what happens if she wins half of them. A projection that grows smoothly at a chosen percentage tells a reviewer only that nobody checked.
Fix the structure before the closing, not afterwards
Two structural changes usually convert a marginal purchase into a qualifying one, and both belong in the transaction rather than in a later explanation. The first is scale: acquiring the seller's book together with a second route, or committing capital to equipment that supports crews instead of one truck. The second is staffing that exists on paper before the application, through hiring commitments and written offers rather than intentions. Ramona should keep the other conditions in view while she restructures — Canadian ownership of at least half the enterprise, capital irrevocably committed and at risk, substantiality in proportion to this business, and the fact that E-2 offers no direct path to permanent residence.
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: 2026-09-08. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.