Read the general pathway comparison overview
A purchase can create facts relevant to both routes, but it does not automatically qualify the buyer. L-1 needs a qualifying relationship and transferee history; E-2 needs treaty investment and direction. Review the proposed buyer entity, ownership after closing and source of the purchase funds before selecting an application strategy.
Identify the buyer and post-closing group
For L-1, determine how the acquired business will relate to the qualifying foreign employer. Obtain the purchase agreement and ownership records, and preserve evidence of the employee’s foreign role. A founder’s personal purchase may produce a different structure from a corporate subsidiary acquisition. Counsel should assess the actual relationship rather than infer affiliation from the buyer’s involvement in both companies.
Review the E-2 purchase commitment
For E-2, trace the investor’s qualifying funds, treaty ownership and control of the acquired enterprise. Examine financing and conditions, including any escrow arrangement. A signed acquisition price does not automatically equal qualifying invested capital. Keep the investment calculation connected to the actual transaction and obtain operating records that support the enterprise’s non-marginality rather than relying on seller projections alone.
Coordinate immigration review before closing
Give counsel the proposed documents while commercial terms can still be reviewed. Identify facts each route would need after closing without inventing guarantees or mandatory structures. Transaction and tax advisers have separate roles in assessing the acquisition. The business’s age, purchase price or existing employees do not by themselves establish the correct immigration category or approval timetable.
Identify what the group looks like after closing
An acquisition changes the ownership structure, and both analyses depend on the structure that will exist rather than the one that exists now. Draw the post-closing position: which entity acquires the business, who owns that entity and in what proportions, what relationship it will have with any foreign company, and who the individuals behind each holding are with their nationalities. Do this before the transaction is structured rather than afterwards, since the way an acquisition is arranged can determine whether a qualifying relationship exists at all and whether an ownership threshold is met. A structure chosen for tax or commercial reasons alone may foreclose an option that a small adjustment would have preserved.
Get the immigration review done before completion
Once a transaction has closed, the facts are fixed and the analysis works with whatever was done. Before completion, the structure, the funding route and the timing are all still capable of adjustment. Build the review into the transaction timetable rather than treating it as a subsequent step: give counsel the draft documents, the proposed structure and the funding plan while there is still time for their observations to be reflected. Where the vendor is pressing for speed, that pressure is a commercial matter and should not determine whether the review happens. The cost of the review is small relative to the transaction, and the cost of discovering a structural problem afterwards is not.
What else is on your mind?
Does being a business owner or director qualify me for L-1A?What employment history should an L-1 transfer review cover?What makes a new-office L-1A case different?How should an owner compare L-1 and E-2?Editorial source review: 2026-09-07. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.