IN THIS GUIDE · A business plan assumes an unpaid 22-year-old child will work
Start with the E-2 eligibility and application overview
Rebuild the staffing table with real labor costs
If the plan credits hours to a family member who is not paid and not authorized to work, the projections rest on labor that may never exist. Rewrite the staffing table with the roles the enterprise actually needs, the wage each would command locally, and who would fill it if the family member does not. Non-marginality is assessed on the enterprise's capacity, so the underlying figures have to hold up. Price the replacement, not the relative. For each unpaid line, write what an employer would have to pay locally for that work, the hours involved, and whether a new business could fill the role quickly. Hypothetical example: a regulatory documentation consultancy preparing device technical files budgets no salary for document formatting and quality checks because a family member was expected to absorb them; costed at a local rate, that work is a half-time position the plan never funded.
Check the 22-year-old child's own status separately
Dependent status for an E-2 investor covers unmarried children under 21, and dependent children do not receive employment authorization from that status. An 22-year-old child needs an independent basis to be in the United States and a separate basis to work. Neither living with the investor nor holding shares in the company creates work authorization. Ask what the child's current status is and what it permits. Ask for the child's own record rather than a description of it: the admission record, any current authorization document, and its expiry date. Adult children often hold something already, and what it permits is a question about that document rather than about the family. Where nothing is held, say so plainly in the plan and treat the position as vacant until an authorizing status is confirmed.
Keep the investor's own role clearly defined
The investor must genuinely develop and direct the enterprise, and ownership by itself does not authorize a person to perform work in the United States. Describe what the investor will actually do day to day and under what status. If the plan expected family members to cover operations while the investor remained in Canada, say so openly, because that changes both the direction question and the staffing budget. Write the investor's week in hours as well. Develop and direct is assessed on what the investor actually controls and decides, and a plan showing the investor abroad for most of the year while a manager runs the enterprise raises that question directly. If the intention is genuinely to hire a general manager, put that salary in the staffing table and set out what the investor retains: hiring, pricing, banking authority, the decisions that direct the business.
Turn the corrected plan into decisions
Once the labor assumptions are honest, review what changed: the capital needed, the hiring schedule, and whether the enterprise still shows capacity beyond minimal living for the investor and family. Decide whether the 22-year-old child is a possible employee to be sponsored later, an investor in a separate arrangement, or simply not part of the business. Record which numbers are estimates and what evidence supports them. Non-marginality can also rest on a significant economic contribution. Mark each revised figure with its status: contracted, quoted or estimated. A reviewer treats those three differently, and a plan presenting all three in the same typeface invites questions about all of them. Where the corrected numbers no longer show capacity beyond a minimal living, that is a finding to face before filing rather than a reason to restore the unpaid labour to the spreadsheet.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.