IN THIS GUIDE · Documenting funds drawn from an existing company as E-2 investment capital
Start with the E-2 eligibility and application overview
Name the transaction correctly
Money leaving a company is a dividend, salary, bonus, shareholder loan, repayment of a loan, or proceeds from selling shares or assets, and each has different corporate authority, tax treatment and documentation. Decide which one is happening before the transfer, and make sure the accounting records, board approvals and eventual immigration narrative all describe it the same way. A characterization chosen after the fact tends to conflict with the paperwork already created. Ask the company's accountant to confirm the characterisation before the payment rather than record it afterwards, since the accounting entry made at the time is what a reviewer will read. Where the company is co-owned, the other shareholders' consent belongs in the same file, because a distribution taken without proper authority is not securely the investor's own money.
Build an unbroken trail to the enterprise
The path should run from the company's earnings, through the authorized distribution, into the owner's personal account, and out to the U.S. business — with statements, resolutions and transfer confirmations at each step. Gaps invite questions about whose money is really at risk. If the company is co-owned, the other shareholders' position needs to be visible too, since a distribution taken without proper authority is not securely the investor's own. Reconcile the amounts at each step and explain any difference, since withholding, professional fees and exchange charges routinely mean the sum arriving is smaller than the sum authorised. An unexplained shortfall between two figures is the kind of gap that generates questions out of proportion to its size, and a one-line note written at the time closes it permanently.
Do not confuse the two companies
The existing company and the U.S. enterprise are separate. Treaty nationality questions apply to the investor and, where the enterprise is owned by a company rather than an individual, to that enterprise's ownership — so how the U.S. business is held matters. Direct investment by the individual and investment through the existing corporate group raise different structuring questions, and the answer should be settled with counsel before shares are issued or funds land. Settle also who will hold the United States enterprise, since that decision determines whose nationality is examined. Where an individual invests directly, the treaty question runs to that person's citizenship; where the existing company invests, it runs to that company's ownership. Those are different analyses with different evidence, and reversing a structure after shares have been issued is expensive.
Leave the source company able to operate
Stripping the existing business of its working capital to reach a figure someone described as sufficient creates two problems: a weakened company at home and no legal benefit, since there is no published minimum to reach. Account for tax on the distribution, transaction costs, and the obligations the original company still carries. What can prudently be extracted, after those deductions, is the amount actually available to invest. Ask the accountant for a figure the source company can prudently release, after tax, transaction costs and its own forward obligations, and treat that as the ceiling rather than a starting point for negotiation. There is no published minimum investment to reach, so weakening a working business to hit a number someone quoted achieves nothing legally and creates a genuine commercial problem at home.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.