FLAGSHIP PRACTICE
Investment Migration & Cross-Border Entrepreneurship
Treaty-country investors come to the United States by acquiring or founding a real business. Lotus sources the company, structures the acquisition, and prepares the commercial record. Independent immigration attorneys advise on the law and sign the filing.
Lotus Partners is not a law firm and does not give legal advice. Licensed immigration attorneys — independent of Lotus, engaged by you and named on your case — advise on eligibility and legal strategy, prepare every filing, and sign it. Lotus sources businesses, conducts diligence, and prepares the commercial record your counsel builds on. No one at Lotus, and no one anywhere, can promise a visa outcome.
An E-2 case stands on three questions. Is the enterprise real and operating? Is the capital genuinely committed and at risk? Will the business do more than support the investor and family? Each question is answered with evidence, and most of that evidence is commercial, not legal: financial statements, purchase agreements, escrow terms, leases, hiring plans. The legal argument is built on top of the business record, which is why the business record is where a case is won or quietly lost.
This market serves you from two directions, and both stop short. Listing brokers sell inventory and leave the case to you. Law firms take the case and leave the business to you. The acquisition itself — which company, at what price, on what terms, with what diligence — is treated as your problem. A visa built on a weak business is a poor trade even when it is granted.
You get the whole exchange worked as one problem: deal flow sourced through Legacy Business Brokers, the national brokerage group our founder leads; acquisition diligence to a transaction standard; structuring that anticipates how a consular officer reads a file; and preparation that hands your attorney a record worth signing. The path runs Source, then Structure, then File, in that order, because the case is only as strong as what comes before it.
01 — Source
Your criteria shape a sourcing brief: capital, industry, geography, the life you intend to run. Lotus screens acquisition targets from Legacy Business Brokers deal flow and franchise systems against both tests at once: is this a sound purchase, and can it carry a case. You receive a qualified shortlist with a diligence memo on each candidate.
02 — Structure
Every deal term becomes evidence. Diligence covers quality of earnings, lease assignment, staffing, and the seller’s add-backs; structuring covers proportional capital deployment, source-of-funds documentation, escrow terms, and a hiring plan with real names for real roles. You receive a structured diligence file and the business-plan foundation your counsel builds the legal case on.
03 — File
Independent licensed immigration attorneys advise on eligibility, choose the legal strategy, prepare the application, and sign it. Lotus supports them with the commercial record and stays through closing and transition. The law is counsel’s domain; the decision is the government’s; the business, from day one, is yours.
INVESTMENT MIGRATION
An operating company hands the adjudicator records instead of forecasts: customers instead of projections, payroll instead of promises.
INVESTMENT MIGRATION
A franchise arrives with the documentary skeleton of a case. It does not arrive with the case.
INVESTMENT MIGRATION
Five tests decide an E-2 case. None of them is a number, and all of them are evidence.
INVESTMENT MIGRATION
Nine Latin American nationalities currently hold a full E-2 treaty and two more hold restricted access; the State Department table is the one that counts. For those who qualify, ownership is a door most investors do not know is open.
No one can promise a visa. The standards that decide one are written in the controlling consular guidance, 9 FAM 402.9, not in anyone’s marketing: substantiality, capital at risk, marginality, a lawful and traceable source of funds. Preparation is the variable you control, so it is the one we work.
Every target is evaluated as an investment on its own terms first: earnings quality, durability, transition risk. Only then is it evaluated as a case. A company that only makes sense with a visa attached is not a sound purchase.
Lotus does not interpret regulations, predict outcomes, or select legal strategy. Your named counsel does. The boundary is structural, not stylistic: counsel signs only their own work, and the commercial record is built to be examined.
The E-2 standard requires capital genuinely committed to the enterprise. In an acquisition, how and when purchase funds are committed is structurable; what satisfies the at-risk standard is your attorney’s determination on the drafted terms. Where a deal cannot be structured the way counsel needs, you hear it before you sign, not after.
Lotus advises the purchase, and deal flow runs through the brokerage group our founder leads, which means the advice and the inventory can sit on the same side of the table. You see every fee and every seat Lotus holds in your transaction, in writing, before you engage.
If your nationality does not qualify, you hear it in the first conversation. Brazil, China, India, and Russia hold no E-2 treaty with the United States. Pretending otherwise would waste your capital and our name.
The E-2 is available only to nationals of countries holding a qualifying treaty with the United States: roughly eighty countries, including most of Latin America and Europe. The list changes: countries are added, and a few hold restricted, grandfathered access. Check your nationality against the current State Department table before planning anything on it.
Latin America
Caribbean
North America
Europe
Asia-Pacific
Middle East
Notably absent: Brazil, China, India, and Russia. A national of these countries cannot qualify on that nationality alone. Some investors hold, or can lawfully acquire, a second treaty-country nationality; whether that reaches an E-2 is a question for immigration counsel, and it is the first question we put to them.
* Access is conditioned or grandfathered — details matter; confirm with counsel. Treaty status changes: the controlling list is the U.S. Department of State's, and your attorney confirms it for your case.
The E-2 is a U.S. nonimmigrant visa for nationals of treaty countries who make a substantial, at-risk investment in a real U.S. business they will develop and direct. It is renewable indefinitely while the enterprise remains active and qualifying, but it is not a green card and does not by itself lead to one.
Only nationals of countries holding a qualifying treaty with the United States can apply: roughly eighty countries, including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, and Suriname in Latin America. Brazil, China, India, and Russia hold no treaty. A few countries, including Bolivia and Ecuador, hold restricted grandfathered access. The State Department publishes the controlling list; check it first, and confirm the details with counsel.
Not on Brazilian nationality: Brazil holds no E-2 treaty, and no preparation changes that. Some Brazilian investors hold or can lawfully acquire a second nationality from a treaty country, through descent or through established citizenship-by-investment programs, and eligibility would then rest on that nationality. Whether such a route exists in your case, and whether it holds up, is a question only an immigration attorney can answer. Other U.S. visa categories may also fit; that, too, is counsel’s call.
There is no statutory amount, and the controlling consular guidance sets no dollar threshold. The test is proportional: the investment must be substantial relative to the total cost of the specific enterprise, so smaller businesses are generally expected to be funded almost entirely by the investor. The honest question is what the business costs to truly own and operate, and whether you have put that in. No amount carries a promise of approval.
Yes. An operating company brings history instead of projections: revenue, customers, employees, a lease, tax records. That is evidence the enterprise is real and more than marginal. Acquisitions also give counsel more room over how and when your capital is committed; what that looks like in your deal is your attorney’s call. The trade-off is that the business itself must withstand real diligence; a poor acquisition is a poor outcome even with a visa attached.
Franchises are a common and viable E-2 foundation: the brand, disclosure document, training program, and system economics give the business plan documented substance. But buying a franchise does not by itself resolve a case. Officers still examine the capital, the hiring plan, the unit’s own economics, and whether you will actively develop and direct the business, which is why models marketed as semi-absentee fit the E-2 poorly. Franchise selection and case preparation are separate disciplines; both matter.
Generally, no. The capital must be genuinely committed and at risk: spent, contractually obligated, or bound in structures like escrow tied to the purchase. Money resting in an account demonstrates means, not investment. In an acquisition, counsel have more room over how and when your capital is committed; whether a given structure meets the at-risk standard, and how your funds must be deployed, is your attorney’s determination.
An enterprise that will only ever support you and your family does not qualify. The case must show present or reasonably projected capacity beyond a living: employees, credible hiring plans, growth the numbers support. Marginality is written into the consular guidance, not invented by advisors, which is why it should shape which business you buy, not just how the application is written.
The E-2 standard is that the investor develops and directs the enterprise: majority ownership or operational control, actively exercised. Passive shareholding does not meet it, and operating models built on the owner’s absence work against the case. What it requires of you specifically is a question to put to your attorney early.
It varies by post and by path. For applicants abroad, practitioners describe a period of months end to end, dominated by interview backlogs that differ sharply from one consular post to another. Applicants already in the U.S. may petition USCIS for a change of status instead; that status does not travel, and leaving the country still means a consular application, examined fresh. USCIS offers optional premium processing on the petition, and availability and timing change. Your attorney can confirm what applies to your post and path when you file.
They are different instruments. The E-2 is a nonimmigrant status: treaty nationality required, renewable indefinitely while the business qualifies, no green card attached. The EB-5 is an immigrant-investor program leading to permanent residence, with materially larger capital and job-creation requirements and no treaty-nationality condition. Which fits your capital, nationality, and intentions is a strategy decision for immigration counsel.
Initial visa validity varies by nationality under reciprocity schedules. The status itself is renewable indefinitely while the enterprise remains real, qualifying, and under your direction; E-2 businesses can run for decades. It remains a nonimmigrant status throughout: it does not accrue toward a green card, and each renewal is a fresh look at the business. Keeping the enterprise genuinely non-marginal matters at every renewal, not only at the first filing.
They age out. Children hold derivative E-2 status only until 21; after that, the E-2 offers them no continuation of their own, and whatever status comes next is a separate case. Spouses are treated differently: under current policy, an E-2 spouse is authorized to work in the United States. Families with teenagers should have counsel model this timeline before the acquisition is chosen, not after it closes; it can change which business, and which filing date, makes sense. What applies to your family is your attorney’s analysis.
No. Approval decisions belong to consular officers and USCIS, and no advisor, attorney, or consultancy controls them; a quoted approval likelihood is marketing. What preparation does control is the quality of the record: the business, the capital trail, the plan. That is the part you can decide to get right.
Lotus is not a law firm and gives no legal advice. Licensed immigration attorneys advise on eligibility, select legal strategy, prepare every filing, and sign it; they are independent of Lotus, engaged by you, and named on your case. Lotus does the commercial half: sourcing the business, running acquisition diligence, structuring the deal, and preparing the record your counsel builds on. The boundary is deliberate: attorneys decide the law, and the record they receive is built to be examined.
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