IN THIS GUIDE · Whether the business being bought is real and operating or merely a holding of property
Start with the E-2 eligibility and application overview
Ask the seller what the company actually does for its money
A management company earns fees for services: marketing, bookings, cleaning, maintenance, guest handling, owner reporting. A property holding earns rent. The two look similar in a summary and completely different in the accounts. Anouk should ask for the revenue split by category over three years, the list of management agreements with their terms and renewal dates, and the payroll register. If most of the revenue is rent on cabins the company owns, and there are no employees, she is buying property rather than an operating enterprise, and E-2 becomes difficult regardless of how much she pays for it.
Ask about people, because non-marginality is usually proved through them
The enterprise must have the present or future capacity to generate more than a minimal living for the investor and family. Employees are the most direct evidence. Anouk should ask how many staff there are, whether they are employees or contractors, what hours they actually work, and which of them will remain after closing. A company whose cleaning and maintenance is done entirely by the departing owner's relatives may have no transferable workforce at all. Where the current income is modest, a business plan showing capacity within a reasonable period can support the case, but it has to rest on the company's real trading history.
Ask your own lawyer how control will be documented, not just ownership
The investor must develop and direct the enterprise, ordinarily through at least fifty per cent ownership or through operational control. If Anouk is buying the whole company that is simple. If she takes a minority stake alongside a U.S. partner, control has to come from somewhere else — a management agreement, a role as sole managing member, or voting arrangements — and the treaty nationality of the enterprise itself also depends on its ownership. Her lawyer should draft those terms with the immigration test in mind rather than fixing them afterwards, because a share purchase agreement signed on ordinary commercial instincts is hard to unwind.
Ask when the money becomes irrevocably committed, and to what
Funds must be irrevocably committed and at risk, and substantial in relation to the total cost of purchasing or establishing the enterprise. A deposit that is fully refundable if Anouk changes her mind is not at risk. Money in an account earmarked for a purchase that has not happened is not committed. The usual solution is an escrow arrangement releasing on approval of the application, together with a signed purchase agreement, and Anouk should ask her lawyer to structure the payments that way before the deal is drafted. There is no universal minimum dollar amount for E-2, and the ten-job rule that applies to EB-5 has no application here.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.