IN THIS GUIDE · Launching a new U.S. enterprise: committed capital before any trading history
Start with the E-2 eligibility and application overview
From concept to a real, operating enterprise
A plan on paper is not yet an enterprise. Leases signed, equipment ordered, licences applied for, insurance bound, a business bank account funded, these convert a proposal into something active or close to it. E-2 contemplates a real operating business, not an idle account or a speculative holding. List the steps already taken with dates, and the steps that remain, so the two are never blurred in a single confident paragraph.
Build the startup budget from the work, not toward a number
Cost the premises, fit-out, equipment, licensing, insurance, opening inventory, software, and the working capital needed until revenue arrives. Each line should exist because the service requires it. There is no universal qualifying amount, so padding a budget to reach a figure someone advertised produces spending without support. Where a quote is provisional, mark it as such and note when a firm price is expected from the supplier.
Show the money is committed, not merely available
Funds sitting in a personal account remain the founder's to spend elsewhere. Deposits paid, equipment purchased, a lease guaranteed, and capital transferred into the company's own account show a different posture. Keep a clean record of what left the founder's hands and when. If part of the funding is borrowed, the security matters: debt secured against the business assets is not viewed the same way as personal collateral, so have the structure reviewed.
Plan the opening without working ahead of authorization
Setting up a company, signing a lease, and instructing advisers are ordinary preparatory acts; running the business day to day is not, and a founder should not begin U.S. work without authorization. Decide who can accept the first orders if opening day arrives early. Preparation, however thorough, guarantees no visa, no admission, and no lawful start date, so the opening calendar needs slack rather than optimism.
Make the staffing plan carry the capacity argument
Marginality is the requirement a pre-opening case most often underprepares. The enterprise must have the present or future capacity to generate more than a minimal living for the investor and family, and that capacity is far easier to show through operations than through a revenue line. So build the plan from the work outward: what has to be done each week for the business to serve its customers, how many hours that is, who performs it, what they are paid, and at what point the volume requires another pair of hands. A staffing schedule constructed that way explains itself, and the revenue figures then follow from capacity rather than being asserted ahead of it. Resist the opposite habit of choosing a headcount because it sounds substantial; there is no universal job-creation number in this context, and an invented figure undermines every other number sitting near it. Keep the plan consistent with what has already been committed — the premises size, the equipment ordered, the opening inventory — because a reviewer reading those documents together will notice a forecast that the lease could not physically accommodate. Hypothetical example: a founder planning a small marine survey operation discovers that the equipment ordered supports two crews rather than the four the forecast assumed, and corrects the forecast rather than the equipment list.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.