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.
Building a hotel manager's TN file on the diploma-plus-experience route
Hypothetical example: a Harrison Hot Springs resort operations manager taking a U.S. lodge's general manager position qualifies under the hotel manager entry only if her post-secondary diploma is in hotel or restaurant management and she can document three years of management experience. The file therefore has two centres of gravity, the transcript and the experience letters, plus the lodge's offer, proof of citizenship and a statement that she owns no part of the employer.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Prove the diploma is in the field
- Document three years of management, year by year
- The offer, the ownership statement and the household
Married to a Canadian citizen, holding permanent residence: what transfers and what does not
Hypothetical example: a Harrison Hot Springs resort housekeeping supervisor is a citizen of the Philippines with Canadian permanent residence, married to a Canadian citizen. Her spouse's citizenship gives her nothing for TN, which requires her own Canadian or Mexican citizenship, and the Philippines is not an E-2 treaty country. L-1 ignores nationality, and EB-5 and the Gold Card framework do not require a particular one. Her route depends on her own documents and on which category her husband, if he moves first, holds.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Citizenship is personal; permanent residence is not citizenship
- What her husband's category gives her
- Routes that do not ask her nationality
Making sale proceeds into an at-risk E-2 investment in a small inn
Hypothetical example: a Harrison Hot Springs couple selling their bed-and-breakfast to buy a U.S. lakeside inn have a lawful source of funds but not yet an investment. E-2 counts money that is irrevocably committed and at risk in the enterprise, so the proceeds must move from their account into escrow or into the inn before the application is made. This guide follows the money through that transition and shows how the substantiality and marginality tests are met for a property of that size.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Where proceeds stop being savings and start being investment
- Substantial for an inn of this size
- More than a living, and directed by the couple
Opening a U.S. spa inside a partner's hotel: new-office evidence when the premises are leased from the joint-venture partner
Hypothetical example: a Harrison Hot Springs spa company's fifty-fifty U.S. joint venture will operate inside the American partner's hotel under a lease from that partner. The new-office rules still require secured premises, a qualifying relationship, financial capacity and a plan showing a managerial role within a year, and the lease from a related party must be documented as carefully as any other. The one-year initial approval and the extension test apply as usual.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Premises secured from a related party
- Capacity, the plan and the first-year role
- The manager, the year and the extension
Joint venture with an American partner or buy a U.S. spa outright
Hypothetical example: the owner of a Harrison Hot Springs spa company can enter the United States either by forming a fifty-fifty joint venture with an American hotel owner and transferring under L-1A, or by personally buying an existing U.S. day spa as an E-2 treaty investor. The joint venture brings a partner's capital and premises but must be structured with equal control and veto power; the purchase requires her own at-risk funds and control but no partner and no corporate relationship. The choice turns on control, money, the qualifying year and the family's long-term aims.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- L-1A through the joint venture
- E-2 through a direct purchase
- Choosing on the facts
When the spouse has a listed profession of her own: TN principal or dependant
Hypothetical example: a Harrison Hot Springs hotel general manager is moving to a U.S. lodge under TN, and his wife is a physiotherapist with a Canadian degree and licence. Physiotherapist is a listed USMCA profession, so she can hold TN status of her own rather than accompanying him in TD status, in which she could not work. Two principals in one family raises questions of sequencing, state licensing, the children's status and what happens if one job ends, and each should be answered before the move.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Two principals, two applications
- Children and the choice of whose dependants they are
- If one position ends
Ten jobs in a restaurant or a gift to the U.S. government: what each route asks of a restaurateur
Hypothetical example: a Harrison Hot Springs restaurateur comparing a direct EB-5 restaurant with the Gold Card framework is comparing a business she must build to ten full-time jobs with a payment that builds nothing. EB-5 places capital at risk in her own enterprise, requires the jobs and her management, and ends conditional residence with Form I-829. The Gold Card, on the official page checked on 2026-09-07, involves a nonrefundable processing fee and a gift after vetting, routed through an employment-based category. Verify every figure before acting.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- EB-5 direct: the restaurant is the case
- Gold Card: a payment, not a business
- The questions that separate the two