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E2 Visa Success: Australia To USA My Story :)

57K views 32 replies 28 participants last post by  sanmetro  
#1 ·
Hi Guys,

I thought I would come here and share my experience about how I got granted a 4 year E2 Visa.

You can look up my first few posts here and you will see I had no idea what I was doing but after MUCH research I finally got my Visa.

I'm Australian and one of the frustrating things for me was there was not a lot of stories online from other Australians so hopefully this helps my fellow Aussies and anyone else going for this Visa.

Ok so I went for the E2 Visa which basically is where you invest either in a start up business or you buy a US business. You typically need to invest at least $100,000. My total investment was $104,000.

The thing with this visa is that you need to make the investment BEFORE you apply for the visa which can be very risky and stressful.

I personally had an online business that I wanted to move over to the US. So basically starting my own new business except my case was slightly different because my business was already running in Australia.

So what I done was setup an LLC online, very easy to do cost me about $1000 to get the complete done for you package.

My advice is get a good lawyer who specializes in E2 visa's specifically and has a proven track record, I went through two lawyers before I finally found a good one.

Then I flew to America and opened up a bank account, you can open up a personal bank account in person as long as you have ID, passport does the trick. At the time I opened up both a personal and business account but a month or two later I got an email saying my business account had been closed because I didn't have a physical business address, I had a registered agents address from the people who setup my LLC but I was told in the email I needed my own.

That didn't really matter because what I had to do next was actually make the investment. What I decided to do was go over on the visa waiver and stay for 3 months while I setup my business and made the investment.

So once I was in the US I got my bank account sorted and transferred $100,000 to my business account which was under my LLC name. Then I started making the investment.

I purchased a brand new car, an SUV for $45k and had my company logo put on both sides. The rest of the money went to renting an office and purchasing computer and office equipment plus a few other things like my online marketing plan and advertising costs etc.

An important aspect of the application process is having a strong business plan, I believe I had a slight advantage here because I already had a pretty successful business and had a few years of records to prove it. So my business plan basically documented the businesses previous success and explained why expanding to the US would bring even more success.

In most other cases the business plan is used to try and convince customs that they will be successful once they start up or buy an existing business, in my case I believe it was pretty easy to convince them as I already had proof of a successful business model.

Once I had made the investment and done as much as I could in America I headed back home and started completing all the paper work, again I recommend you get a good lawyer who knows what they are talking about as there as specific items you need in order to be approved.

In a nutshell you need the basic things like:

proof of identity
proof of business ownership
proof of funds
proof of residency in home country
letter of intent to leave US if visa is not approved

Then you need to actually apply, it was from memory about $350 to apply for the E2 Visa and you just done it at the post office. Just ask for the E2 Visa application fee and the person will know what you are talking about. You need to bring the original receipt for this to your interview.

Then you need to complete some online forms and basically you need to save every receipt and confirmation page and bring it with you.

By the way when you make the investment you need to keep every receipt as you need to thoroughly document everything. You need to show the money entering your US bank account, the exact transaction receipt and then you need to match it up showing the money leaving your account.

For example a computer receipt from Best Buy. You would need to match up the receipt with the transaction in your bank statements. You need to do this with every single thing you invest which can be multiple items when you are spending 100k.

Once you have everything your lawyer should prepare a professional binder which basically presents your case as to why you should be granted the visa. This packet includes your business plan and all your receipts and basically everything you are told to include. Again make sure you have a good lawyer who is familiar with this process. My pack was about 300 pages, a lot of that was the individual transaction pages but I believe it helped to have an overly large document.

Now an important step is to hire US citizens, this is one of the major factors they look at. Most people put in their business plan that they plan on hiring a US citizen, what I done was actually went out and found two people that could work for me and I wrote up a simple little document that said that they agree to work for my company based on my visa getting approved. I had them sign it and scan their ID and I included it in the packet. I think this was a significant advantage because I basically had 2 people ready to go and that is what they want, they want you to provide jobs for US citizens.

Now at this stage it got a little confusing because I believe different countries have different processes but this is how it is for Australia.

You send in that packet to your closest US Embassy, mine was Melbourne and you wait for them to get in touch with you.

They emailed me about a week later saying they have received my packet and I can go ahead and schedule my interview and let them know. Australia had a website where you would book your interview and you could select your time and date so once I got that email I booked my interview for the next week.

I booked the first spot of the day which I HIGHLY recommend doing as there are a LOT of people and it took me a couple hours so I could only imagine how long it took the people who came after me.

So at this stage all you need to do is show up to the interview, you need to bring your passport and that receipt I was talking about earlier.

How it works in the Melbourne Embassy is you walk in and there will be a little sign saying US Visa Applications, you wait there until a guy comes out and tells you to come into this room. You sign in on the computer and go through security. You then go up the elevator and go through security again and are given a ticket and go into a little waiting room and watch a "highly entertaining" video about how great America is. Which is interesting the first time you see it but after the 10th time it gets a little boring :p

So your ticket get's called up and you hand in the required forms (again make sure you have a good lawyer who knows what forms you need to bring to your interview) and show your ID and then he tells you to go back and wait for your interview.

So then I waited and eventually was called up and it's just a window, I was expecting a little room where you sit down at a table and get interrogated. But it wasn't really that bad, she just asked some basic questions like why America and why my business will succeed asked about the two people I had lined up and then said everything looked great and my visa was approved and it will be in the mail in a couple of days.

That was a Thursday and I was in the US by Tuesday so it moved really fast.

The interview isn't that scary as long as you know your business well and are able to speak professionally. Use fancy words like "brand awareness" and "market share" ;) and just show that you actually understand your business.

So the whole process took me about 18 months but that is because I didn't know what I should be doing and decided to stay in the US for 3 months.

The actual process from sending the packet in to being in the US was completed under a month.

Anyway that is my story so I hope it helps a few of you :)
 
#3 ·
congrats

So great to hear a success story on here, far too many people in these forums, (including many of the moderators) are negative, and always seem to try and scare people off their dreams.

I decided to look back at your very first post to see your journey, and unsuprisingly you had critisism of your plan on moving, saying that you would need between $500,000 and $1,000,000. So I am happy to see you proved the negative people in this forum wrong, and proved that it is possible with hard work with just the $104,000 you speak of!

Well done!
 
#4 ·
Vegas Lawyer

Hey Shout,

Thank you for "giving back" to the forum by writing this valuable post after successfully completing your E2 quest! And then of course, Congratulations.

I saw that you said somewhere that you were going locate your business in LV. If so, would you be able to recommend a good immigration lawyer?

I'm a German citizen, currently living in Costa Rica, and interested in investing in an existing business in Las Vegas to acquire a 50% share and get the E2.

I'd really appreciate some advice on the lawyer part as Vegas seems to be full of bad ones in general. I'm travelling in 2 weeks on a VWP.

Thanks so much!

Cheers,

Ziggy
 
#5 ·
Thanks for sharing your story, it's really helpful.
Do you know what influences how long the visa is granted for? Is it related to your business plan?
If you had to do it again, how quickly do you think you could do it in?
Did you have to be in the US to open bank accounts etc. or did you just want to be there then anyway?
Many thanks, and congratulations :)
 
#7 ·
Thanks so much for sharing your story. It's very encoraging to hear it is possible to go over on less than 500k and also to get a clearer idea of the steps involved from Australia. Finding a good lawyer specializing in E2 visas has also been my hindrance is there someone you could potentially recommend?
 
#14 ·
We are hoping to set our office in San Jose CA

We will then share our experience with Aussies how to set up co-operatives by pooling funds and working together using a LLC (Limited Liability Company).


In fact we are working with someone in Melbourne who is setting up a working environment in Melbourne for Geeks to use as spring board to Silicon Beach (Los Angeles) , Silicon Valley (San Jose) and Silicon Alley (New York).

Agree with you Sponsorship is difficult and hence the annual quota for E3 has not been exhausted .
 
#15 ·
Hello, hope this thread is still alive =)
Thanks for sharing.

One question though, you said that the money you invested you used on buying a car with logo and etc.
I assume this is not mandatory? I don't have to actually buy things on the invested money, I just need to show that there was an investment, right?
 
#19 ·
I'm in the process of applying for my E2 right now, with the help of a professional legal representative. My company in the UK set up US offices about 3 years ago, and I have been given the chance to move over there to head up the CS department. So we have everything in place in terms of funding, investment etc.

The process was started back in March, but I have criminal convictions (shop lifting in 1988 and driving without insurance in 1994). As a result we have to apply for a waiver of ineligibility which is going to add a fair bit of time to the application process as I understand it and has taken extra time to apply for police certificates, letters of recommendation and character references etc. The completed application was submitted on Monday and I have my actual interview with the Embassy on Tuesday. Not sure how much longer after that it will be, but I've heard some horrendous rumours of over 6 months....which isn't good.

still..as long as it gets approved, I'll be completely gutted if it's gets denied. The lawyers are fairly confident, and have said that they wouldn't be continuing with the work if they felt that it wasn't going to get approved.

I'll keep you posted.
 
#20 ·
Michael

Hi Shout.

When I logged onto ustraveldocs website to pay for visa fee. The only choice for E visa I can select is E3. I emailed ustravel and received this email:

Thank you for writing to U.S. Visa Service Desk.

In regard to your concern, please choose E3 visa category so that you can pay the $270 MRV fee. Please don't schedule an appointment. The U.S. Consulate General will contact you and provide you an appointment within 10 business days after you have submitted your requirements by mail.

I made mistake by following the prompt of ustraveldocs website and scheduled for an appointment. I turned up for an interview and have been told that only E3 applicants are schedule for interview that morning. I realised that I am now under E3 category as far as they concerned. I went back home and posted all document to consulate office in St Kilda. Now I received this email:

The review on your E-2 visa application has been completed and we are able to schedule the visa appointment. Appointments are held on Tuesday and Thursday at 2pm and we can offer appointments from 25th July 2013 onwards.

Now, the first email was: The U.S. Consulate General will contact you and provide you an appointment within 10 business days after you have submitted your requirements by mail.

Second email does not provide me any appointment.

So, how do you schedule an appointment with them?

Regards
 
#27 ·
Hi, please tell me which lawyer you did, how you make the business plan, you took help for someone.

I am new in business never done it but done freelance business I wanted to setup IT Consultancy firm so require your help. i Have personal account but not the LLC account

What type of your business was?
 
#29 ·
hey all.
great thread and post here! great to hear the success story and many others looking to do the same.

Like most here also, I am in the process now of starting the same journy.
Did anyone find out the original imigration lawyer Shout used? or does anyone have a contact that is great to work with in order to get the E2 visa process sorted?

Hoping this thread and users are still active, and can get some assistance :)

Cheers