Read the general pathway comparison overview
Hypothetical example: Karine is the sole shareholder of a company near Saint-Majorique-de-Grantham that mills wood shavings into animal bedding for farms and stables. She wants an American operation and has been told she could either transfer herself into a new American subsidiary or invest as a treaty investor. Both may be available on her facts. They differ most in what happens after the first few years, which is the part of the comparison that is usually left until it is too late to act on.
Sole ownership helps one route and complicates the other
For a transfer she must be an employee of the group, so the file has to show a genuine employment relationship with her own company: payroll, a role, and duties that are managerial or executive rather than simply proprietorial. A sole owner transferring herself is permitted but is examined closely, and the American entity will be a new office with the one-year approval and the staffing expectations that go with it. For treaty investment, sole ownership is straightforwardly helpful, since treaty nationals plainly hold at least half of the enterprise and the develop-and-direct element is answered by the same fact.
The clocks run differently
Time as an intracompany manager or executive is capped at seven years, and as a specialized-knowledge transferee at five. Treaty investor status carries no equivalent lifetime ceiling and can be extended while the enterprise continues to qualify, which suits an owner who intends to run an American business indefinitely. The trade is that it remains temporary in nature and offers no direct path to permanent residence, and it ends if the business is sold or fails. A transfer, by contrast, sits inside a corporate structure that some families later use as the basis for a separate employment-based immigrant filing, which is its own project with its own requirements.
Questions to put to a United States lawyer and accountant together
Ask how the American entity should be owned so that neither route is closed off by the structure chosen for tax reasons. Ask what payroll and corporate records will need to exist for a transfer to be credible, and by when. Ask what level of capital would be substantial for a milling operation of this size, and what would be treated as committed. Ask what Karine's exit looks like under each route if she wants to sell in ten years. The answers usually narrow the choice faster than any comparison of the categories in the abstract.
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.