IN THIS GUIDE · Acquisition records and seller claims
Start with the E-2 eligibility and application overview
Reconcile the trading history
Compare sales claims with financial statements, tax records where available, bank activity and material customer contracts. Explain unusual owner adjustments and one-off revenue. The purpose is to understand what the enterprise actually earns and spends. A broker summary can orient the review, but it cannot resolve inconsistencies in the underlying operating evidence.
Understand what is being purchased
Identify whether the transaction transfers assets, shares or another interest, and list what stays with the seller. Customer relationships, equipment, leases and permissions may not all transfer automatically. Immigration analysis should use the actual transaction documents, including outstanding consents, instead of assuming that the advertised business continues unchanged after closing.
Connect the price with qualifying capital
Separate purchase price, closing adjustments, financing and additional operating funds. Trace the investor’s money to its source and intended recipient. Business-secured borrowing has different E-2 treatment from qualifying personal funds. A high headline price does not establish how much eligible capital the buyer has actually put at risk.
Explain the first operating period
Show who manages the enterprise after handover and how the investor obtains real control. Address seller transition support, key employee retention and continuity of essential contracts. Use the historical results to support projections, then identify any changes the buyer proposes. Do not present past performance as a guarantee of future commercial success.
Test the seller's figures against records the seller did not prepare
A vendor's summary of trading is an assertion until something independent corroborates it. Ask for records generated for other purposes and reconcile them: filed tax returns, bank statements showing deposits, merchant or point-of-sale settlement reports, payroll filings, supplier statements and lease payment history. Where the summary and the independent records diverge, establish why before the price is agreed rather than afterwards. Common explanations are legitimate — cash timing, a changed accounting period, an owner's personal expenses run through the business — but each needs identifying rather than assuming. Hypothetical example: a veterinary clinic acquisition where the seller's stated revenue exceeds the deposits reconciled from bank records requires an explanation that the buyer can repeat to a third party. This is commercial due diligence rather than an immigration requirement, but the resulting record is what makes the enterprise's prospects explicable later.
Establish what the purchase actually transfers
Two transactions described in the same conversation can transfer very different things. Buying the shares of a company generally carries the entity's contracts, licences, staff and liabilities with it; buying the assets generally does not, and each item may need separate assignment or reissue. Work through what the enterprise depends on and confirm how each element passes: the premises lease and whether the landlord must consent, any operating licence or permit and whether it is transferable or must be applied for afresh, key supplier and customer agreements and whether they contain change-of-control provisions, and the employees and the terms on which they continue. Note also what the seller retains and what restrictions bind them afterwards. An enterprise that cannot lawfully operate on the first day because a permit did not transfer is a commercial problem before it is anything else.
Ask what the seller will do next
The seller's plans after closing are a commercial fact with real consequences for the enterprise being acquired. Establish whether they intend to retire, to remain for a handover period, or to start something similar nearby, and whether any restriction has been agreed and for how long. Where customers deal with the business because of the individual rather than the brand, their departure is the principal risk to the trading history the buyer is relying on. Get the answer in the agreement rather than in conversation, and factor the realistic outcome into the plan for the first operating year.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.