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
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
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
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"
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