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.
For an economist, the transcript decides more than the job title does
Hypothetical example: Théo works as an economist for a regional development consultancy in Callander, producing labour-market and sector analysis for public clients. An American consultancy has offered him a post it calls senior market analyst. Economist is a listed profession, but its Appendix 2 entry is met by a degree and nothing else, and Théo's parchment reads Bachelor of Commerce. Whether this application succeeds turns on two documents: the transcript showing what he actually studied, and a letter describing work that is economic analysis rather than market research.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The parchment names the programme; the transcript names the discipline
- Economic analysis and market research are different occupations on paper
- What to check before travelling, and what not to improvise
Permanent residence in Canada opens some routes and closes this one
Hypothetical example: Ravi is an Indian citizen who has held Canadian permanent residence for four years and works as a computer systems analyst for a software firm near Callander. Computer Systems Analyst is a listed profession and he meets its credential rule comfortably, so his employer assumes the American office can simply arrange a TN. It cannot. The category is open to citizens of Canada and Mexico, and a permanent resident card, however long held, does not make a person a citizen of the country that issued it.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Why the answer is short, and why it is not negotiable
- The categories that look at the employer instead of the passport
- Households where the passports differ
Escrow written for the buyer's comfort can undo the investment it protects
Hypothetical example: Sylvie owns a fencing and gate installation business near Callander and is buying an American fence and guardrail contractor. Her lawyer has drafted an escrow that releases the purchase price only when a visa is issued, and returns everything if it is not. That structure is a recognized one rather than a disqualifying one: a binding purchase conditioned solely on issuance of the E-2 visa can still be irrevocably committed where the assets are held in escrow for release once that condition is met. What decides it is the drafting, because a commitment the buyer can unwind at will, or one that is still only an intention to invest, is neither committed nor at risk.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Irrevocably committed, and at risk, are the words that matter
- What spending before approval looks like when it is done well
- Substantial is a ratio, and marginal is a separate question
A mailing address is not premises, and year one is not year two
Hypothetical example: Bassam owns an industrial cleaning and facilities contracting company in Callander and is opening its first American office. He has incorporated a subsidiary, taken a desk in a shared workspace to establish an address, and expects to be its manager. Two features of the new-office rules will shape his filing more than anything else in the plan: what counts as sufficient physical premises at the time of filing, and the fact that a first-year approval is granted on a promise that has to be redeemed twelve months later.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Sufficient physical premises means space the work can happen in
- First-year duties are allowed to look different from the eventual role
- The extension is the real examination
Choose between L-1 and E-2 by asking how the arrangement ends
Hypothetical example: Freya owns a commercial signage and printing company in Callander and could plausibly use either route to run an American operation: transfer within a corporate group she would create, or invest in a business she would own. Most comparisons of the two stop at the entry requirements. The more useful comparison starts at the far end and asks what each arrangement looks like in year six, year eight and on the day she wants to sell, because that is where the two categories differ most sharply.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The clocks run differently, and one of them stops
- Neither is a route to permanent residence, but they fail differently
- Selling the business ends one of them immediately
Four people, four separate answers, and only one of them is automatic
Hypothetical example: the Ferland-Achebe household is preparing for an L-1B assignment. Ozioma is the principal. Her husband Guillaume is a pharmacist and assumes that being allowed to work means being allowed to practise. Their daughter is twenty-two and has already passed out of derivative eligibility without anyone noticing. Their son is fifteen. Guillaume's mother, who has lived with them for nine years, expects to come as well. Four people, four different answers, and only one of them follows automatically from Ozioma's status.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Permission to work is not permission to practise
- The children are already in two different positions
- An adult relative needs a route of her own, and so does a student
Compare the two by asking what happens when things go wrong
Hypothetical example: Lucien owns a waste-collection and roll-off container business near Callander and has enough capital to consider either an investment route or the Gold Card. Every comparison he has been shown is built on the best case. The more revealing exercise runs the two frameworks through their failure modes, because they fail at different moments, for different reasons, and with very different consequences for the money and for the family's status.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- An investment can fail late, and the family is already living there
- A gift fails early, and it fails as money already gone
- Ask which risk your household can actually absorb