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.
Keeping the final TN file and admission record connected
An organized preparation file remains useful after travel. Keep the final supporting documents available and review the admission record that results from entry. The record should be understood on its own terms; a planned employment duration or a passport’s expiry does not substitute for checking the actual admission details. When something in the arrangement moves — the employer’s name, the worksite, the supervisor, the length of the assignment — the file and the record drift apart quietly. The working discipline is to date every version, hold superseded copies outside the travel folder, and treat each change as a question about what the record should now say rather than as an administrative detail.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Carry the agreed final version
- Check the issued record promptly
- Treat discrepancies as a follow-up task
- Re-date the file whenever a fact moves
- Reconcile the record with what actually happened
Does investing from Canada remove nationality requirements?
The origin of a bank transfer does not establish the investor’s nationality. For a Canadian PR considering E-2, nationality, enterprise ownership and investment evidence remain distinct questions. Canadian savings or a Canadian company account should not be treated as a substitute for the treaty-nationality analysis of the actual proposal. Permanent residence in Canada is a Canadian immigration status rather than citizenship, and E-2 turns on the nationality of a treaty country held by the investor or by owners holding at least half of the enterprise. What Canadian residence does not do is the recurring theme below: it confers no treaty nationality, it does not make a Canadian-incorporated company a treaty enterprise, and it cannot convert an at-risk commercial investment into a route to permanent residence.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Distinguish the investor from the funds
- Trace the enterprise ownership
- Review the commitment independently
- What Canadian residence does not decide
- The misreadings that cost the most
Should expansion capital be mixed with the first location’s E-2 budget?
Adding a location can involve a new commitment and possible changes to the approved enterprise. Keep the existing operation’s history separate from the expansion budget, then show how ownership, funds and management connect them. Do not assume the first location’s investment automatically establishes every element for a later acquisition or expansion. Ordering decides how hard this becomes. Structure first, then funding, then the commitment of those funds, then an operating plan that has to carry both locations, and only afterwards a schedule for opening. Running the steps in parallel is what produces a file where money arrived before anyone settled which entity would receive it, and unpicking that costs more than taking the steps in order once.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Draw the entity and payment structure
- Separate old capital from new commitments
- Review the enlarged operating plan
- Which step has to close before money moves
- Work that genuinely cannot start early
Which entity will earn the new office’s revenue?
A cross-border business plan should explain who contracts, delivers, invoices and receives payment. Revenue earned by the foreign business should not automatically be presented as U.S. operating revenue. Clarify the allocation so the new office’s activity, resources and proposed managerial role can be assessed on accurate facts. Documents answer this question, not intentions. A customer contract names the contracting party, an invoice names the issuer and the payer, a bank statement shows which entity received the money, and a ledger shows where it was booked. Where those four disagree with the business plan, the plan is the item to correct, since a new-office petition carries a shorter initial period and needs evidence that the office will support the role.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Trace a representative transaction
- Match the structure to staffing
- Reconcile financial and immigration descriptions
- The four records that answer the revenue question
- Evidence that the office can support the role
Must the qualifying foreign L-1 business be Canadian to compare it with E-2?
Living in Canada does not require every relevant business or prior job to be Canadian. L-1 examines the qualifying foreign employment and organization; E-2 examines treaty nationality and investment. Map the actual countries, entities and individuals rather than forcing an international history into a simplified Canada-to-U.S. narrative. Comparisons fail in a characteristic way: the facts get trimmed until they fit whichever route was described first, and the trimming is invisible six months later. A year of employment with a group entity in a third country is dropped as irrelevant, a minority shareholder’s citizenship goes unrecorded, a dormant holding company is left off the chart. Each omission removes precisely the fact one of the two routes depends on.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Trace the actual foreign employment
- Trace people rather than incorporation labels
- Organize the cross-border evidence
- How a route comparison goes wrong
- What it costs to change route late
How should a working spouse plan travel around document review?
A spouse’s ability to work and the documents needed for a future trip are related but separate questions. Review the current status, employment evidence and proposed travel under the actual category. Do not assume that a work document, an extension approval or the principal’s visa alone answers every return-travel requirement. Responsibility for the answer is split, and naming the split is what prevents the gap. The employer knows the work schedule and nothing about admissibility; the spouse holds the personal history and the documents; counsel reads the category and the travel requirement together; and the decision at a border or a consulate belongs to the officer. None of them can speak for another, which is why a manager’s reassurance about a trip is not a document.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Describe the proposed trip
- Separate evidence functions
- Coordinate the employer’s expectations
- Who answers which part of a travel question
- The verification nobody can delegate
When is a reduced EB-5 amount a valid comparison point?
The reduced EB-5 figure applies only when its qualifying conditions are met. Compare it with Gold Card using the actual proposed investment category and current terms, not a universal discount assumption. The location of the applicant’s Canadian home does not determine whether a U.S. EB-5 investment qualifies for a reduced amount. Every comparison ages. A qualifying designation can change, a project can move, programme terms can be revised, and a household can gain or lose a member while the analysis sits in a drawer. Record the date of every figure and the condition it depended on, so that a later change appears as a change rather than as a quiet inconsistency between the plan and the world it was describing.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Identify the qualifying basis
- Match the Gold Card scenario
- Refresh before committing
- When the basis for a figure moves
- Household changes that reopen the comparison