Read it.
Use it.
Focused guides for the questions that need more than a quick answer. Each includes a worksheet to prepare your next conversation.
Guides for your next decision.
Build a TN employer evidence brief before drafting the letter
Read & prepare Applicant planningKeep an L-1A new-office record from approval to extension
Read & prepare Applicant planningCompare the E-2 evidence for a startup and a business purchase
Read & prepare U.S. destination planningCanadian RN planning for New York State
Read & prepare U.S. destination planningCanadian RN planning for California
Read & prepareSeven decisions, answered before you prepare.
When the job title and the listed profession are not the same word
Hypothetical example: an accountant at a Coalhurst bookkeeping firm is offered a position described as operations controller at an American distributor. Accountant appears among the listed professions, and its qualification rule is a Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree, or C.P.A., C.A., C.G.A. or C.M.A.; operations controller does not appear anywhere, because job titles are not what the list contains. The document work is therefore about duties and about getting the employer to describe them in terms the list recognises.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Match the work to an entry, then use that entry's language
- Watch for duties that quietly move the role off the list
- Assemble the qualification the entry actually requires
Citizenship is the fact, and it has to be provable at a counter
Hypothetical example: a Coalhurst engineer became a Canadian citizen eight years ago, still holds an overseas identity card from her country of origin and is unsure which document establishes what. The professional route depends on Canadian or Mexican citizenship, so the practical question is what she should carry, what a second nationality changes and what a permanent resident card cannot do.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- A valid passport is the clean answer
- A second nationality is not a problem, but choose which you present
- Check every family member separately
Buying a business that is currently closed
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.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- A dormant business is not an operating enterprise
- Show the commitment even before the doors open
- Rebuild the projections rather than reusing the old figures
A first American depot has to show it can support the role within a year
Hypothetical example: a Coalhurst industrial-coatings company is opening its first American depot and wants to send a manager to run it. Where the U.S. operation has been doing business for less than a year, the petition is treated as a new office: approved initially for one year, and expected to show secured premises and a realistic plan for supporting a managerial role by the end of that period.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Secured premises means a real place with a signed document
- The staffing plan is what makes the role managerial by year end
- Prepare the extension file from the first day of trading
The deciding fact is usually what happens to the Canadian company
Hypothetical example: the owner of a Coalhurst gravel-hauling company holds half the shares with his brother and is deciding whether to transfer himself into an American subsidiary or to invest in an American business personally. The comparison usually resolves on one fact: whether the Alberta company will keep trading and keep employing him, because a transfer route depends on that and an investment route does not.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- A transfer needs the company abroad to stay alive
- An investment needs the investor's own money and authority
- Write the two fact lists and mark what you can prove
A household where one member's citizenship changes the procedure
Hypothetical example: a Coalhurst family is preparing for a transfer. The principal is a Canadian citizen; the spouse is a Brazilian citizen with Canadian permanent residence; one child is the principal's stepchild. Every one of those facts changes something, and a plan built around the principal alone will meet each of them late, at the worst possible moment.
Several procedural conveniences available to Canadian citizens do not extend to a spouse who holds Canadian permanent residence but another citizenship. That spouse may need to apply for a visa at a consular post, with its own appointment, its own documents and its own timeline, even where the principal can be dealt with more directly. Identify this at the beginning and start the spouse's process in parallel, because a family that discovers it a fortnight before departure will travel separately or not at all. Ask the post handling the spouse's application what its current appointment availability looks like before any departure date is discussed with an employer or a school.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- A permanent resident spouse does not travel on the principal's advantages
- Derivative rights differ between the spouse and the children
- Stepchildren and other relationships need their own evidence
How to read an official program page when you are not a lawyer
Hypothetical example: an adult son in Coalhurst is researching both routes for his parents and keeps finding confident summaries that contradict each other. The reliable method is unglamorous: work only from official sources, record what each one actually says, and keep a separate list of the questions none of them answers. That list is usually the most valuable page in the file.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Identify what counts as an official source
- Record the date, because these pages change
- Keep an explicit list of what remains unknown