Read the general pathway comparison overview
One founder may have the foreign-employment history while another provides most of the capital. Do not combine their facts into a single imaginary applicant. Compare the role and evidence for each person under the route actually being considered. Decide the entity questions before the founder questions. Which company employs whom, which company owns what, and which company the U.S. operation is related to are all answered from corporate records, and those answers determine which route is even available to each founder. Personal history is assessed against that structure, not before it. Ask for the share register and the employment records first.
Make one record for each founder
Hypothetical example: one founder manages the foreign operation and another recently joined as an investor. List each person’s citizenship, employment history, ownership, authority and proposed U.S. duties. Identify who owns the proposed funds and which entity employs whom. A business plan should not attribute one founder’s qualifications or capital to the other without a factual basis.
Apply the conditions to the right person and entity
L-1 requires the qualifying company relationship and the individual’s continuous qualifying year abroad in the relevant three-year period, with an appropriate proposed role. E-2 requires treaty nationality for the relevant applicant and enterprise, substantial committed at-risk investment, a real non-marginal operation and the ability to develop and direct. One founder’s eligibility does not automatically qualify the other, and shared ownership does not answer all of those questions.
Coordinate responsibilities after the review
Ask which roles each person could actually perform under any proposed authorization and what evidence remains missing. Keep hiring, control and investment decisions consistent with the reviewed arrangement. If spouses or children would accompany either founder, prepare their own records; qualifying E and L spouses have a valid-status work rule with appropriate I-94 evidence, while children do not receive the same benefit. Avoid treating a group plan as one household or one approval.
Order the structural decisions before the personal ones
Some choices close doors, and the founders should know which before making them. Ownership percentages are one: E-2 requires that nationals of the treaty country hold at least fifty percent of the enterprise, so a cap table settled for commercial reasons can remove that route for everyone in it. The corporate relationship is another: L-1 depends on a qualifying relationship between the U.S. entity and a foreign employer, which a newly formed standalone company does not have. Employment history is the third, and it is the one that cannot be created retroactively — the continuous qualifying year abroad either happened within the relevant period or it did not. Take these in order: establish what the structure already is, identify which routes remain open to which founder under it, and only then consider whether the structure should change. Restructuring after a filing invites questions about why.
What else is on your mind?
Does being a business owner or director qualify me for L-1A?What employment history should an L-1 transfer review cover?What makes a new-office L-1A case different?How should an owner compare L-1 and E-2?Editorial source review: 2026-09-07. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.