E-2 visa business plan: what it must show, requirement by requirement

BusinessPlanHub Editorial Team · Published 14 October 2026

An E-2 visa business plan is the document that sets out, for a consular officer, how your US enterprise meets the treaty investor criteria in the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual, 9 FAM 402.9. Its heaviest job is marginality: the State Department’s own checklist asks a new business for five years of financial projections “supported by a thorough business plan”. Everything else in the plan supports that forecast or the investment behind it.

Every quotation below is from the FAM section as revised on 17 February 2026 (CT:VISA-2190) and from the USCIS E-2 Treaty Investors page (last updated 20 August 2026). We checked both on 29 September 2026. The rules are the officer’s, so we quote them rather than paraphrase them into numbers they do not contain.

What the FAM requires, and what the plan must show

9 FAM 402.9-6(A) lists nine things an officer must determine in an E-2 investor case. A business plan speaks directly to five of them, supports two more, and has nothing useful to say about the last two.

Treaty nationality and ownership

The treaty country list is 9 FAM 402.9-10, and it carries footnotes that matter more than the table. Bolivia and Ecuador remain listed but are limited to investments made before a cut-off date. Israel qualifies for E-2 only from 1 May 2019, under a later law rather than the original treaty.

For UK nationals, footnote 10 says the 1815 Convention applies only to British territory in Europe (it names the British Isles, the Channel Islands and Gibraltar) and to “inhabitants” of that territory, and the applicant must be a UK national. If your residence or nationality sits anywhere near that edge, that is a question for your attorney before it is a question for your plan.

What the plan contributes is simple: a table of owners, nationalities and percentages that matches the share certificates you file.

Invested, or actively in the process of investing

The FAM defines investment as “the placing of funds or other capital assets at risk, in the commercial sense, in the hope of generating a financial return” (9 FAM 402.9-6(B)). Funds that are not exposed to loss if the business fails do not count. Loans secured on the business’s own assets do not count either; only borrowing secured on your personal assets, or unsecured personal borrowing, can be included.

Timing matters as much as source. To be “in the process of investing”, the funds must be irrevocably committed and you must be “close to the start of actual business operations”. The FAM rules out “mere intent to invest, or possession of uncommitted funds in a bank account”.

For the plan, that means a sources-and-uses table with three columns, not one:

• spent, with the invoice or receipt it ties to;
• committed, such as funds held in escrow against a signed purchase agreement;
• still to be spent, with the quote or estimate behind each line.

Rent is a trap here. The FAM counts lease payments only up to the amount devoted to that item in any one month, unless rent has been paid in advance, so do not list a year’s lease as invested capital.

A real and operating enterprise

The FAM’s list says “real and operating”; the heading of the section that explains it says “real and active”. Either way the test is the same: the enterprise must be “a real and active commercial or entrepreneurial undertaking, producing some service or commodity” (9 FAM 402.9-6(C)). It cannot be “a paper organization or an idle speculative investment held for potential appreciation in value”, and it must be for profit.

For a business not yet trading, the officer “must be convinced that it will be” real and active if the visa is issued. That is the operating plan’s whole job. Name the premises and the lease status, the suppliers, the licences applied for, and the week-by-week steps from visa issue to first sale. A plan that describes the market for three pages and the operation in one paragraph has the weight the wrong way round.

A substantial investment, and why there is no minimum

The FAM is explicit: “No set dollar figure constitutes a minimum amount of investment to be considered ‘substantial’ for E-2 visa purposes” (9 FAM 402.9-6(D)). A substantial amount is one that is:

1. substantial in a proportional sense, under the proportionality test;
2. “sufficient to ensure the treaty investor’s financial commitment to the successful operation of the enterprise”;
3. “of a magnitude to support the likelihood that the treaty investor will successfully develop and direct the enterprise.”

The proportionality test weighs “the amount of qualifying funds invested against the cost of the business”, and the FAM calls it “a sort of inverted sliding scale”: the lower the cost of the business, the higher the percentage you are expected to have invested. It also states that “there are no bright line percentages”. USCIS words it the same way on its E-2 page.

So the number the plan must get right is the cost of the business, not the size of your cheque. For a new business, the FAM defines cost as “the actual cost needed to establish such a business to the point of being operational”, built from assets already bought plus estimates for what is still needed. Itemise it, tie each line to a quote or invoice, and make sure the total matches the sources-and-uses table to the dollar.

One sentence in this section should shape how you write the whole financial plan: “Unverified and unaudited financial statements based exclusively on information supplied by an applicant normally are insufficient to establish the nature and status of an enterprise.” Projections that trace back to nothing but your own say-so carry little weight.

More than marginal: where the five-year forecast earns its place

A marginal enterprise, in the FAM’s words, is one “that does not have the present or future capacity to generate enough income to provide more than a minimal living for the treaty investor and their family” (9 FAM 402.9-6(E)). There are two ways out of that definition, and a plan should address both:

• Income: the business produces more than a minimal living for you and your family.
• Economic contribution: even if it does not yet, it has “a present or future capacity to make a significant economic contribution”.

The future capacity “should generally be realizable within five years from the date the applicant commences normal business activity of the enterprise.” That five-year window is why the State Department’s checklist asks a new business for five years of projections, not the three that most plan templates stop at. Our own coffee shop sample, for example, models $660,000 in year-three revenue with a three-year staffing table. Written for E-2, both would need two more years.

Note the two clocks. The FAM counts the five years from when normal business activity starts. The USCIS page counts them “from the date that the treaty investor’s E-2 classification begins”, citing 8 CFR 214.2(e)(15). Which start date applies to you is a question for your attorney; the plan should state the start date it assumes.

What the forecast has to make visible

The FAM gives no revenue figure and no headcount. Several pages ranking for this query quote a number of employees or a year-three target; neither source we checked sets one. What the FAM does do is file the payroll register, W-2 records and the five-year projections under one checklist heading, “Marginality”. That tells you what the forecast is for: showing income and jobs beyond the investor’s own living.

Three things make that visible in a plan:

1. Owner’s draw on its own line. If your living comes out of the business, show it separately from payroll to other people. Otherwise the officer cannot see how much of the income is yours.
2. A dated hiring plan. Role, start quarter, hours and salary for each hire, tied to the revenue that pays for it. Salary costs in the hiring plan must equal the payroll line in the P&L.
3. Assumptions you can evidence. Price, volume and capacity per staff member, each traced to a quote, a lease, a market source or trading history. The checklist lists trade association statistics, chamber of commerce estimates and market surveys as evidence for a new enterprise’s cost; the same kind of source should sit behind your revenue.

An illustrative five-year hiring and revenue table

The table below is fictional. It shows the shape of the forecast for a made-up café, not a benchmark, a target or a figure any officer has accepted. Your numbers must come from your own business and its evidence.

Read it the way an officer would. From year one, more money goes to other people’s wages than to the owner, and the gap widens each year. Each step up in headcount follows a step up in revenue rather than running ahead of it. And every figure in the table has to reappear, unchanged, in the P&L, the cash flow and the hiring plan. A forecast that hires six people while the cash flow cannot fund three undermines itself.

For how to build the underlying model, see our guide to business plan financial projections.

In a position to develop and direct

The FAM requires that treaty nationals “own at least 50 percent of an enterprise” and that a treaty national, “through ownership or by other means, develops and directs the activities of the enterprise” (9 FAM 402.9-6(F)). USCIS puts it as “at least 50% ownership of the enterprise or possession of operational control through a managerial position or other corporate device”.

Two details catch partnerships. An equal 50/50 split between two parties can give control, which the FAM calls “negative control”, if each keeps full management rights. An equal partnership of more than two does not give any one party control through ownership.

In the plan, the management team section should state your title, your decision rights and what you will actually do week to week. The investor develops and directs; a plan that describes a hired manager running everything while you advise from abroad is describing something else.

Executive, supervisory or essential-skills role

Item 8 of the FAM list asks whether the applicant is “destined to an executive/supervisory position or possesses skills essential to the firm’s operations”. For the investor, the organisation chart and the management section cover it. For employees coming on E-2 status, the checklist asks for a letter from the enterprise on each person’s role and an organisation chart “showing current staffing pattern at U.S. company”. Build the chart once and use the same version in the plan and the application.

Documents that sit alongside the plan

The plan is one exhibit among many. The FAM’s suggested checklist (9 FAM 402.9-11(B)), which it describes as “a guide only and is not a list of required documentation”, groups the rest like this:

• Proof of nationality: passport, birth or citizenship certificate.
• Ownership: share certificates, share register, partnership or joint venture agreement.
• Cost of the business: purchase price or, for a new business, estimated start-up cost with supporting statistics or surveys.
• Source of funds: net worth statement prepared by a certified accountant, sale or loan documents, bank records.
• Evidence of investment: escrow statements, purchase agreements, invoices, receipts, wire transfers, lease and first rent payment.
• Marginality: payroll records and the five-year projections with the business plan.
• Real and operating: business licences, utility bills, supplier invoices, account statements, marketing material.
• Role: a letter on the applicant’s duties and an organisation chart.

The FAM asks applicants to tab and index this file and to highlight corroborating figures. Every number in the plan should point to a tab.

Fees are not quoted here. The FAM refers to the Machine Readable Visa fee and to reciprocity schedules that vary by nationality; amounts change, so check the State Department’s current treaty trader and investor visa page and your embassy’s instructions before you apply.

Your first step

Before you write a word of narrative, build two schedules: the itemised cost of getting the business to operational, and the five-year hiring plan with the revenue that funds each hire. If those two hold together against your evidence, the rest of the plan has something to describe. If they do not, no amount of prose will fix it. Take both to your immigration attorney early.

If the model is where it stops working, our visa business plan consultation works through the plan and financial requirements with you. It is not legal advice. If you want the plan written, see our entrepreneur visa business plans or the business plan writing service.