After the online application and fee, USCIS issues instructions and supporting documents are filed with Form I-140G through the official portal. Additional documents can be requested later, including around an interview. Collect identity, civil, and financial records early, but follow the official instruction list rather than ordering every conceivable certificate in advance.
Prepare a source-of-funds narrative
A payment of US$1 million invites questions about where the money came from, so the paperwork behind it deserves attention before filing. Trace the funds to identifiable earnings, sales, or transfers, and keep bank records, tax filings, and contracts that match the story. Note anything hard to document — cash gifts, older business income, foreign accounts — and decide whether a professional should reconstruct it now or explain it later on request.
Alongside the funds narrative, expect the ordinary civil record to be requested: birth, marriage and any divorce or death certificates, police records from countries of long residence, and identity documents in every name the applicant has used. These take longest where they must be obtained from a foreign registry, so begin the requests while the financial work proceeds rather than after it. Hypothetical example: a former agri-food company owner needs a marriage certificate issued four decades earlier in another country, and the reissue request is lodged in the first week rather than waiting until the official instruction list arrives.