Hurley1

I'd love to chat on here with anyone who has purchased a business in the US and got an E2 visa.

We are fully aware of the limitations with this route but it would be great to hear your stories, good or bad!

Thanks

Twigstar

We are on an E2 visa. There are the limitations but we have lived in the USA for 11 years. Our Daughter aged out at 21years old so she is now on a F1 visa and at university and my Husband and I are on an E2 with our start up independent maid service here in Texas. The downsides are it does not lead to permanent residence and kids age out at 21. The plus points are that if the business is put in one persons name the spouse can get an EAD and work outside of the E2 business.

Hurley1

Thanks Twigstar, good to hear your story. There's just the two of us and we are in our forties, looking for a bit of an adventure and change in lifestyle really. We spent the last four years travelling then nine months living in our property in South Florida and loved it so are currently looking to get our teeth into the right business. Not necessarily there, we also love parts of CA so are keeping our options open really. Just interesting to hear other people's E2 experiences, can't be too bad if you've been there 11 years ) Our immigration lawyer reckons at the moment they are giving five year visas, how often do you have to do your renewal and is that easy enough? Have you always been in Texas? We have friends from the UK who just spent three years in San Francisco and have now been transferred to Houston. Thanks again for your input, much appreciated.

civilservant

The E2 treaty investor visa is often called the 'visa from hell' because of the renewals. It's easy(ish) to get one, but people often come a-cropper at the renewal. If it's refused, you have to up sticks and leave the US immediately.

Hurley1

Thanks Civilservant, appreciate your thoughts. We would only buy a business doing good numbers which we could see room for improvement in so hopefully this would mean we would get the renewal until we wanted to get out.

Twigstar

As long as you know from the start that it is a non immigrant visa then you can see that the business has to be a success. We have set goals on this visa that we will probably not want to renew it but to sell the business and return to the UK at the end of it. If we decide different nearer the time then I will do the renewal myself as I have done every time. The guidelines are all on the embassy website to download and follow, it is easy to follow, step by step and does not have to cost thousands of $$$ to renew. I prefer to do a start up business as you build it the way you want to, my personal opinion of course. I have had 2 businesses in South East Florida and now we are in North Texas and have been for the past 5 years. We are coming up to our 1 year anniversary with this business (October 1st) and have already exceeded the first year goal. Love it in Texas but miss Florida and being by the coast.

ukwlf

don't you have to invest like $500k now for a business visa??

maemaesmummy

No, not at all

Hurley1

Thanks Twigstar, this is all really helpful info. Did you just use a lawyer for your initial visa application then? Was your first business in SF a start up? We were put off going that route as a friend told us we had to invest the money up front and submit our visa application and if we didn't get the visa we lost our money so it would be really interesting to chat more about how you did this. I can pm you if you prefer? Where were you in SF? We habe a condo in Delray Beach near Boca, we love the whole area of Palm Beach and desperately miss it back here in the UK. We have lots of friends there now and habing trialed it for nine months know we could live there, just need to find the right venture. Thanks again for your help.

Hurley1

Hi ukwif, you only have to invest 500k if you go the EB5 route or a million in some areas but on an E2 they look at a min of 100k but we are looking to spend more so we get a good income. We've seen some good, well established businesses asking around 300k doing a np of 180k. All these numbers are in dollars. The EB5 is a green card route where as the E2 isn't but we probably aren't looking to live there forever anyway, just want to live in the sun for a while and have an adventure for a few years! Life's too short not to try!

Twigstar

We did use a visa company to do our first E2. We brought a license to operate a business and yes it was a start up. If you are buying a business or doing a start up the the money will be put in escrow while the visa is applied for. If the visa is not approved then the funds are released back to you so no you do not risk losing money in escrow. We were actually in Boynton Beach so know the Palm Beach area very well.

maemaesmummy

We used a uk based visa company, they are very good and have a 100% record at the mo

sir_eccles

Please be careful about giving visa advice in PM. The advantage of giving it out in the open forum is that errors can be corrected.

Be very wary of companies claiming 100% success rate. Always make sure you are dealing with an actual attorney.

Steve_

There are tons of threads on here about it, do a search.

My advice is to not do it, the problem about your kids aging out isn't the only one - YOU will age out, you can't keep working forever. And so you've paid out a load of Medicare tax and derive no benefit from it.

However nobody ever follows my advice so anyway, the usual trick with E-2 is that whoever is going to be doing the most work in the US is the one who gets the EAD. I.e. you and your spouse can both run the business and one of you can get the EAD and work doing something else as well. This means the person who came up with the idea is not always the best one to be the principal applicant.

You can sort of get around the kids aging out problem by having them work for the business as an E-2 employee, if they've got the appropriate skills, but it means they're trapped in that job like the principal applicant is.

Being in the US long-term in a non-immigrant category is just a bad idea, lost track of the number of horror stories I've heard over the years. This one illustrates the point, it is about TN-1 but the same sort of thing can happen to anyone in a long-term non-immigrant category: U.S. border guards bar skilled Canadian from his job - British Columbia - CBC News

Basically at any point CBP can be in a bad mood, decide for whatever reason you don't have non-immigrant intent or whatever, and you're stuffed. Or the economy can go bad and your business fails - you're stuffed, you have to leave. Etc.

The only bright spot is that the immigration reform bill that passed the Senate has a couple of solutions, one is a new visa type called X which is similar to E but allows for AOS and another is allowing people who've had EADs for at least ten years to apply for AOS but that bill is dead and those provisions may never be enacted.

simplemum14

I'm currently a spouse of e2 visa from UK
I haveEAD and still Woking for my husband buiness Can my husband apply For GC for me as my employer

Thank you in advanced