Read it.
Use it.
Focused guides for the questions that need more than a quick answer. Each includes a worksheet to prepare your next conversation.
Guides for your next decision.
Build a TN employer evidence brief before drafting the letter
Read & prepare Applicant planningKeep an L-1A new-office record from approval to extension
Read & prepare Applicant planningCompare the E-2 evidence for a startup and a business purchase
Read & prepare U.S. destination planningCanadian RN planning for New York State
Read & prepare U.S. destination planningCanadian RN planning for California
Read & prepareSeven decisions, answered before you prepare.
Which document actually decides a land surveyor's TN application
Hypothetical example: Anton works as a land surveyor from Bonfield, running boundary retracement and topographic work for building contractors and woodlot owners. A U.S. firm wants him for cadastral and construction layout work across the border. He holds a survey degree and assumes it settles the credential question. The document likely to decide his case is not the parchment but the licence, because the duties he is being hired to perform are the regulated practice of surveying in the state where he would work.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The list entry and the practice rule are two different things
- What to establish before anything is drafted
- Building the package around the decisive paper
What goes wrong when a Canadian permanent resident assumes the TN rules apply to her
Hypothetical example: Mei-Ling is a Chinese citizen holding Canadian permanent residence and works as quality manager at a steel fabrication shop in Bonfield. A U.S. customer wants to hire her. Her husband is a Canadian citizen and their two children hold Canadian citizenship. She expects to travel with her PR card and be treated as her colleagues are. That expectation is where these cases usually come apart, and the household then discovers it has to split into different routes.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The mistake made at the port of entry
- What a household with mixed citizenship has to work out
- Practical steps before anyone gives notice
How to sequence spending when an E-2 business is being built from nothing
Hypothetical example: Rasheed owns a hydraulic repair shop in Bonfield, rebuilding cylinders and pumps for forestry and construction equipment. He wants to start a mobile hydraulic service in the United States from scratch, with a service truck, a small shop and two technicians. There is no business to buy, so his investment will be built out of purchases he makes before anyone has approved anything. The order in which he spends decides whether that money supports his case or simply disappears.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Why the sequence matters more than the total
- Spending that documents itself
- What to have in place before the application, and what can wait
What a new-office business plan has to prove about the first year
Hypothetical example: Petra owns a timber-frame manufacturer in Bonfield that cuts and ships frame packages to builders. She is opening a U.S. distribution office and intends to transfer herself as its manager. Because the U.S. entity has not been doing business for a year, the petition is a new-office filing, approved for one year rather than three. What that year has to look like is decided now, in the business plan and the organizational chart, and those two documents carry more weight than anything else in the file.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Premises and capacity are evidentiary, not aspirational
- What the staffing plan and the chart must demonstrate
- The extension is the real test, so build for it
The question to put to your lawyer before comparing L-1 with E-2 at all
Hypothetical example: Osei runs a short-line rail maintenance contracting business from Bonfield, doing track inspection, tie replacement and switch repair for regional operators. He wants to work across the border and has been told to weigh L-1 against E-2. The comparison is premature. One question about how his business is legally structured decides whether L-1 is even on the table, and it should be answered before anyone spends time on a trade-off analysis.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The threshold question: is there anything to transfer from
- If the answer closes L-1, what E-2 asks instead
- Where both remain open, the differences that matter
The remote-work assumption that goes wrong for TD families
Hypothetical example: the Lavoie household plans a move from Bonfield. One spouse holds a TN offer in a listed profession. The other intends to keep her existing job with a Canadian employer, working from the new home, and the two school-age children will enrol locally. The plan sounds tidy and it contains one serious error: TD permits study but not employment, and work performed from inside the United States is work regardless of who signs the cheque or where that employer is located.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Why the Canadian payroll does not solve it
- What the household can do instead
- The other dates the Lavoie household should write down
How a nineteen-year-old changes the comparison between EB-5 and the Gold Card
Hypothetical example: Ilse is the widow of a gravel and forestry contractor near Bonfield and holds the proceeds of the business sale. She is comparing EB-5 with the Gold Card framework for herself and her unmarried nineteen-year-old son. Both routes treat a derivative child by the same age limit, and both take time. What decides her choice is less the money than what happens to her son if any part of the plan slips by a year or two.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The age limit is the same, but the clocks are different
- What each route asks of her money
- Planning for the slip rather than the schedule