Corporate records for both companies, including share registers and any parent-subsidiary agreements; U.S. bank statements showing funds arriving and being spent; contracts signed on behalf of the U.S. entity; and a written description of who performs which functions in each country. Add prior U.S. immigration history and a realistic account of expected travel.
Trace the funds across the border
The path matters more than the balance. Show where the money originated, how it left the foreign company or the investor's personal accounts, when it arrived in the U.S. entity, and what it purchased.
Intercompany transfers described only as management fees leave the committed investment ambiguous. Where records are held by a foreign accountant or bank, request them early; obtaining certified statements and translations across time zones takes longer than most preparation schedules allow. Add one document set that two-country structures make essential and that single-entity cases rarely need: a written record of the basis on which value moves between the businesses.
Management charges, shared staff, equipment transferred at book value, and services provided without invoice are all ordinary commercially and all capable of blurring what was actually committed to the U.S. enterprise. Agree the basis in writing before the transactions happen, and keep the agreement with the transfer records.
Hypothetical example: a scientific equipment distributor's foreign parent supplies inventory and technical support to the new U.S. operation on terms nobody has written down, and reconstructing what was a capital contribution and what was a trading arrangement takes longer than assembling every bank statement in the file.