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.
A portfolio does not replace the credential the profession lists
A graphic designer preparing a TN file often has strong work samples and an imprecise credential record. 8 CFR 214.6 sets the credentials for each listed profession, and for graphic designer it provides for a baccalaureate or licenciatura degree, or a qualifying post-secondary diploma or post-secondary certificate together with three years of experience. Decide which of those two routes your documents actually support before you assemble anything else, and write down what is still missing for each.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Read the two credential routes separately
- Give the portfolio and the experience records different jobs
- Separate translation, evaluation and who receives the work
A Quebec practice permit records a qualification, not a citizenship
A permit issued by a Quebec professional order answers whether you may practise a regulated profession here. It says nothing about which citizenship you hold. TN concerns Canadian and Mexican citizens, and Canadian permanent residence alone does not open it. Before a planning discussion, prepare two separate lists: the citizenships you hold and the evidence of each, and the licensing facts about the profession you would practise.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Keep the licensing file and the nationality file apart
- Ask the route question person by person
- Put the procedural questions in order
When the purchase closes in tranches, show what is already irrevocable
A staged closing spreads payments across several dates and conditions, which makes the funding picture easy to overstate. An E-2 review considers capital actually committed and placed at risk, and there is no fixed universal minimum that settles the question. Before signing, list every tranche and mark which ones are already irrevocable, which depend on a later decision of yours, and which depend on someone else acting.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Read the conditions attached to each tranche
- Test the schedule against what can be shown now
- Keep substantiality and the enterprise in the same frame
Who continues the foreign business once the founder transfers
A new-office L-1 plan assumes the qualifying foreign organization keeps doing business, yet the person leaving is often the one who runs it. The evidence should show who will actually perform the work and make the decisions abroad after the departure. There is no headcount formula to satisfy; describe the arrangement that will genuinely exist, with the documents that support it.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Map the operating work that leaves with the founder
- Test the plan against the size of the foreign operation
- Prepare for what the first year has to show
Two valuations disagree: what each route asks of the numbers
When a broker's appraisal and an accountant's valuation of the same business give very different figures, the temptation is to choose the route the larger number appears to help. Neither route is selected by valuation. L-1 turns on the qualifying company relationship, the qualifying employment, the proposed role and the ability of the operation to support it; E-2 turns on treaty nationality, the investment relative to the enterprise, and the enterprise itself.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Ask what each figure was produced for
- Notice which facts the number cannot change
- Compare the evidence still missing on each side
An unpaid internship arranged through a college needs its own review
A spouse holding TD status and enrolled at a college may be offered an unpaid placement as part of the programme. TD status permits study and does not authorize employment. Unpaid activities are not all permitted, and they are not all barred either: the specific activity is what gets reviewed. Collect the placement documents before anyone signs, and separate what the school requires from what the host would receive.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Describe the placement precisely
- Separate the school requirement from the work question
- Compare the household statuses and keep the dates
When a compliance hold delays the funds you meant to commit
A bank compliance review can hold an outgoing transfer without giving a release date, and nobody can promise how long that takes. Before treating money as available for an EB-5 investment or for a Gold Card payment, describe where each amount sits, what the institution has asked you to provide, and the path the money took to get there. Readiness to transfer is a separate fact from having the balance.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Document the path, not only the balance
- Move funds only through channels you can verify
- Keep the two commitments distinct while you wait