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.
The list is closed, so the work has to be matched to an entry that exists
Hypothetical example: a grazing and pasture specialist in Picture Butte is offered work with an American ranching consultancy. The professions covered by the agreement are set out in a fixed appendix, and the exercise is to find the entry the work genuinely fits, or to establish that none does. Guessing at a near match wastes months; reading the list carefully takes an afternoon.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Read the whole list before deciding nothing fits
- Each entry brings its own qualification rule
- If nothing on the list fits, say so and move on
Planning around a citizenship application that has not finished yet
Hypothetical example: a feed-mill supervisor in Picture Butte is a Canadian permanent resident with a citizenship application in progress, and an American employer wants to hire him next year. The professional route depends on Canadian or Mexican citizenship, so the plan has a date attached to it. What matters is knowing what changes on that date, and what can usefully be done before it.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Nothing changes until citizenship is actually granted
- Use the waiting period for everything that does not depend on citizenship
- Ask what the employer will do if the timing does not work
What happens to a treaty investment after the first approval
Hypothetical example: a Picture Butte investor is four years into running an American custom-butchering business and is thinking about selling part of it, hiring a manager and taking longer trips home. Each of those changes touches a requirement that was satisfied at the beginning and has to remain satisfied. The status is not a permission granted once; it is a description that must stay true.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Every extension re-examines the requirements
- A change in ownership can change everything
- Hiring a manager is fine; disappearing is not
Show that the American company can actually pay for what it plans
Hypothetical example: a Picture Butte livestock-genetics company is opening its first American sales office and wants to send a manager. Where the U.S. operation has been doing business for less than a year, the petition is treated as a new office and is approved initially for one year. Alongside premises and a plan, it has to show that the entity has the financial ability to commence doing business and to support the role.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Capitalise the American company before filing
- Connect the funding to the first year's plan
- Remember the parent company has to keep trading too
Ask which refusal your household could survive
Hypothetical example: the owner of a Picture Butte feed mill can plausibly transfer himself into an American subsidiary or invest in an American business as a treaty investor. Both routes have requirements he could probably satisfy. The sharper question is what each one costs if it is refused, because by the time an investment case is filed the money is already committed and at risk, and by design it cannot be taken back.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- An investment case is decided after the money is spent
- A transfer case is decided before the household moves
- Price both refusals and then choose
What happens to the family if the principal's status ends
Hypothetical example: a Picture Butte family is preparing to move on the strength of one member's status, and nobody has asked what happens to everyone else if that status ends. Derivative status depends on the principal's, so a job loss, a business sale, a serious illness or a marriage breakdown affects the whole household at once. Knowing that in advance changes what a family arranges before leaving.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Derivative status follows the principal's
- Ask what the options would be, before you need them
- Keep the Alberta arrangements recoverable for longer than feels necessary
Status belongs to individuals, but Gold Card also permits corporate sponsorship
Hypothetical example: a Picture Butte family holds most of its assets in a corporation and a family trust and is comparing EB-5 with the Gold Card. Permanent resident status is held by an individual, not by the corporation or trust. The current Gold Card framework nevertheless allows a corporation to sponsor an employee under its separate corporate program, while an EB-5 investor and an individual Gold Card applicant proceed as individuals.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Trace funds differently for EB-5, individual Gold Card and Corporate Gold Card
- Choose which family member is the applicant deliberately
- Compare on what each route requires afterwards