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 credential a medical laboratory technologist relies on decides how the whole file is built
Hypothetical example: a Hanwell medical laboratory technologist is offered a position at a hospital laboratory across the border. The profession is listed in the USMCA appendix, but the listing sets its own qualification test and any destination-state licensing requirements apply separately. Decide which qualification alternative establishes eligibility, obtain the evidence for it, and treat any state licensure process as parallel to rather than part of the immigration question.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Identify the qualification alternative you are actually using
- Keep the immigration test and the state licence apart
- Make the offer letter describe professional laboratory work
Citizenship, permanent residence and treaty nationality answer three different questions
Hypothetical example: a Hanwell occupational therapist is a Canadian citizen; her husband holds Canadian permanent residence and is a national of a European treaty country. Each fact does different work. Her Canadian citizenship can support TN if the profession, position and qualification rules are met, and Canada is also an E-2 treaty country. His Canadian permanent residence alone supports neither TN nor E-2, while his own treaty-country nationality may support a separate E-2 analysis if the enterprise's corresponding nationality, investment and control conditions are met. Sort the household by person before choosing a route.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Permanent residence is not citizenship for these purposes
- Treaty nationality belongs to the person and to the enterprise
- Dependants are assessed one at a time, and a dependant cannot work
A start-up has no seller, so commitment has to be built out of orders and leases
Hypothetical example: a Hanwell couple plan to open a commercial laundry serving hotels and care homes across the border rather than buying an existing business. There is no purchase agreement and no escrow, so commitment must instead be shown through funds already spent and obligations the investors cannot abandon without real loss. E-2 also requires qualifying treaty-country nationality for the investor and enterprise ownership, substantial capital relative to the business, a real operating non-marginal enterprise, and development and direction ordinarily through at least fifty percent ownership or operational control. It creates no direct path to permanent residence. Hypothetical example: an industrial-rope-access training centre owner has agreed to lease a U.S. warehouse but must choose whether the instructor payroll and equipment deposits will be binding before applying. That choice determines whether the money is genuinely committed and whether the enterprise has a credible operating plan. The lease, deposit terms, equipment orders, and revenue forecast answer separate questions; neither a business idea nor a bank balance answers all of them.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Spend before you apply, in ways that are documented
- Make substantiality proportional to what this business costs
- Answer marginality with contracts and a hiring schedule
A new office is approved for one year and judged on what actually happened
Hypothetical example: a Hanwell animal-feed and farm-supply company opens its first U.S. office and transfers its procurement director to run it. L-1A requires one continuous year of full-time qualifying managerial or executive employment abroad within the preceding three years, a qualifying parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate relationship, continued qualifying operations abroad, and a U.S. role that will be primarily managerial or executive. A new-office filing must show secured premises and capacity to support that role within one year; initial approval is limited to no more than one year. The L-1A maximum is seven years. Plan for the extension review from the first week and document the U.S. entity's actual commencement of business.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Show premises and capacity before filing, not intentions
- Collect the extension evidence as it is generated
- Decide now what happens if the office is behind
With two equal owners, the choice turns on who will actually run the U.S. business
Hypothetical example: a Hanwell millwork and cabinetry company is owned equally by two unrelated Canadian shareholders, and both want a U.S. presence. Treaty investment asks who develops and directs the enterprise. The transfer route asks whether a qualifying corporate relationship exists and whether the person moving will hold a managerial role. Those are different questions about different people, and answering them in the wrong order produces a structure that fits neither route properly. Hypothetical example: a historic-window restoration company has Canadian payroll for its managing director, but the director personally owns none of the contemplated U.S. venture. The owners must decide whether the foreign company will establish and control the U.S. operation, supporting a transfer analysis, or whether a qualifying treaty-national investor will own and direct it. The share documents and payroll history decide that choice before a preference for one label can matter.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Map the ownership before choosing a route
- Name the person, then test the role against the rule
- Let the operating documents record the answer
An investor household should check each child's status before it checks the business
Hypothetical example: a Hanwell couple buying a U.S. business have three children: a daughter of twenty-two who works in the family firm, a son of seventeen, and a daughter of eleven. Two of the three can accompany them as dependants and the third cannot, and the difference has nothing whatever to do with how involved she is in the business. Sort the family by age and by intended activity before the transaction is structured. Hypothetical example: a map-restoration conservator has an L-1 possibility through an employer while the spouse may invest independently, and their child will turn twenty-one next year. The family must choose which adult's route best protects the practical plan for work, school, and timing. Passports, relationship records, intended activities, and the coming age deadline make that comparison concrete; a principal applicant's salary alone does not.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Derivative status ends at twenty-one, and marriage ends it sooner
- The spouse may work; the children may not
- Write down each birthday and each person's own plan
Comparing an at-risk investment with a gift starts with what your money can actually do
Hypothetical example: a Hanwell couple hold most of their capital in a locked-in retirement account and a jointly owned property. One route requires capital placed at risk in a business that must create jobs. The other, on its official terms, requires a gift to the U.S. government together with a processing fee. Before comparing them on principle, find out how much money either route could actually be given, and on what date it could be given. Hypothetical example: a hearing-aid component maker can release funds from a business sale, but only by accepting a discount on a vendor note. The owners must decide whether money should remain exposed in a job-creating enterprise or be paid away under the official process. Sale documents, liquidity records, the business's staffing plan, and current official terms settle distinct parts of that decision. A large nominal asset value does not answer which option the household can actually carry out.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Find out what is genuinely available, and by when
- Compare an investment with a payment, not two fees
- Check what each route asks you to prove, then re-verify the terms