IN THIS GUIDE · Equipment contributions and valuation
Start with the E-2 eligibility and application overview
Identify the contributed assets
Prepare an itemized list of equipment the investor owns and intends to contribute, with acquisition records and identifying details where available. Distinguish owned items from leased equipment and assets already belonging to someone else. An enterprise’s access to machinery does not automatically establish an investment by this particular applicant.
Support value without inflation
State Department guidance permits qualifying goods and equipment to be considered, including items transferred to the United States for an operating enterprise. Establish the value claimed with appropriate evidence. Original cost, current condition and present value may differ; explain the basis rather than using a replacement estimate or an unsupported round number.
Connect delivery with business use
Document transfer to the enterprise and how the equipment will support actual commercial activity. Shipping records, installation arrangements and operating contracts may be relevant. Personal-use items do not become business investment because they appear on the same shipment. Explain any shared use accurately and avoid counting the same asset and its purchase payment twice.
Consider the whole operating system
Machinery alone may not enable the business to trade. Identify premises, power, permissions, inputs and qualified personnel needed to use it. Match those dependencies to the startup schedule and forecast. The file should show a functioning enterprise supported by substantial capital, rather than a warehouse of assets without a credible route to revenue.
Establish ownership, then value, then use
Equipment evidence answers three questions and they have a natural order: who owns the item, what it is worth, and how it will be used in the business. Ownership comes first because it decides whether the other two are worth asking. An asset the investor does not own, or owns jointly, or leases, produces a different figure and sometimes no figure at all. Value comes second, established on a stated basis with the reasoning visible, since original cost, present condition and replacement estimate are three different numbers and only one of them is usually the right one. Commercial use comes third, and it is what connects the asset to the requirements actually governing the case: that the investment be substantial in proportion to the enterprise, irrevocably committed and at risk, and that the enterprise be real, operating and not marginal. Working in reverse produces a familiar defect, which is a confident valuation attached to machinery whose ownership was never established, supporting an enterprise with no route to trading.
Hypothetical example: staging a refrigerated processing build
Hypothetical example: an investor proposes a refrigerated repacking facility and intends to contribute processing equipment currently held by a business abroad. Sequence the work as follows. Confirm who legally owns each item now and what must happen for the enterprise to own it, since a transfer between related businesses is a transaction requiring its own record. Fix the valuation basis next and apply it consistently across the schedule. Then arrange the transfer and document it through shipping records, customs entry, installation and the point at which the enterprise took control. Only then test whether the assets can actually be used, considering premises with adequate power and drainage, the necessary permissions, inputs and staff able to operate the line. That final test frequently changes the budget, so run it early as a planning exercise even though its evidence is assembled last. An investor who reaches it early can adjust while the capital remains uncommitted, and the investor must in any event develop and direct the enterprise rather than hold assets in it.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.