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Hypothetical example: Gaelle is buying an American thermoforming shop. Most of the price is to be paid to the retiring seller in instalments over four years, and a materials supplier has offered a credit line she plans to count toward her investment. Both arrangements are ordinary commerce and neither is improper, but the treaty-investor requirement asks a narrower question: which of this money is hers, irrevocably committed to the enterprise and genuinely at risk today.
Unpaid instalments are not yet invested
Capital counts when it has been irrevocably committed to the enterprise and placed at risk, not when a contract promises it will be. Instalments Gaelle has not yet paid are a future obligation, and an obligation secured against the assets of the business she is buying leaves the enterprise, rather than Gaelle, bearing the loss if things fail. Where she is personally liable for the debt and it is secured against assets she owns outside the business, the position is ordinarily different, because her own property stands behind it. The practical consequence is that a heavily deferred purchase may show a much smaller present investment than the headline price suggests, and the file should be built on the smaller number.
Supplier credit is the supplier's money
A trade credit line lets the business buy materials before paying for them. It is working capital extended by a vendor, and it is not capital the investor has put at risk. Counting it inflates the apparent investment and invites a challenge that undermines the credible parts of the file at the same time. The same reasoning applies to leased equipment, where the ongoing rental obligation is not an investment of the lessee's capital, though payments already made and non-recoverable deposits may be. The safer approach is to list every line of the funding schedule and mark, against each, who would lose the money if the enterprise closed tomorrow.
Building the number the file can actually defend
Substantiality is proportional to the total cost of acquiring the enterprise, so a shrinking present investment weakens the file twice over: the amount falls and its proportion falls with it. Gaelle can strengthen it by increasing the sum paid at closing, moving funds into escrow released only on issuance of the visa, and documenting non-recoverable spending on premises, equipment and fit-out. She should also address marginality separately, since a business that supports only its owner does not qualify, and treat the absence of any direct path to permanent residence as a planning fact for the household rather than a detail. A supported valuation of the business ties the whole picture together.
What else is on your mind?
Is there one minimum investment that guarantees E-2 eligibility?Is holding money or owning an asset enough for E-2?Editorial source review: 2026-09-07. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.