Read the general investor planning overview
Hypothetical example: a Coalhurst buyer is negotiating for an American small-engine and equipment repair shop whose owner retired and locked the doors nine months ago. Treaty investment requires a real and operating commercial enterprise, and a shuttered business is not one yet. That does not end the plan, but it changes what has to be shown and when the application can sensibly be made.
A dormant business is not an operating enterprise
The requirement looks for an active commercial undertaking producing goods or services, not a passive holding of assets or an idle shell. Buying the equipment, the customer list and the name of a closed shop is a purchase of assets. What makes it an enterprise is reopening: a lease in place, utilities connected, staff engaged, licences current, inventory ordered and work actually being taken in. Plan for the application to follow that reopening rather than to precede it, and price the reopening properly. Ask the seller why the shop closed as well, since a retirement and a failing customer base look identical in an asset list and mean entirely different things for the projections.
Show the commitment even before the doors open
Funds must be irrevocably committed and at risk, which can be demonstrated in the reopening itself: the signed lease and deposit, equipment purchased or refurbished, inventory ordered, licences obtained, staff hired. Keep receipts and contracts for each step, and record dates. A buyer who holds money in reserve waiting for an immigration answer has not committed it. A buyer who has spent it on premises, tools and stock plainly has, and the paper trail is straightforward to assemble if it is kept as the work is done. Where a step must wait for a licence or an inspection, record that dependency in the file rather than leaving an unexplained gap between the purchase date and the reopening.
Rebuild the projections rather than reusing the old figures
The enterprise must not be marginal, so it needs the present or future capacity to generate more than a minimal living for the investor and family, or otherwise contribute significantly. Financial statements from before the closure describe a business with a customer base that has since gone elsewhere. Build projections on what will actually happen: which customers have been contacted, what work is committed, what the local market looks like, what the payroll will be. Show the assumptions and be prepared to defend them, because optimistic figures with no basis weaken everything around them.
What else is on your mind?
Is there one minimum investment that guarantees E-2 eligibility?Is holding money or owning an asset enough for E-2?Editorial source review: 2026-09-07. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.