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.
TN on experience rather than a degree: building the file for a management consultant
Hypothetical example: Veronique advises third-party logistics operators on network design from a base in Saint-Germain-de-Grantham. A United States provider wants to engage her as a management consultant. Her degree is in geography, not business, so her TN case rests on the experience alternative in the profession's qualification rule. That changes what the file has to contain: the evidence stops being a diploma and becomes a documented record of professional practice. The decision is whether evidence proves one particular TN profession and its prescribed qualification, not merely a related career. Create an occupation-specific index before requesting letters and records.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Read the qualification rule for the specific profession
- Evidence of practice, not evidence of employment
- Consultant status, self-employment and the line that matters
Permanent residence is not citizenship: what a millwright with a PR card can and cannot use
Hypothetical example: Oleksandr is a millwright at a Saint-Germain-de-Grantham feed mill. He was born in Ukraine, has been a Canadian permanent resident for four years, and has been told by a colleague that his PR card lets him take a TN job in the United States the same way any Canadian can. It does not. TN eligibility runs on citizenship, and understanding why opens up the question of which routes actually remain available to him. The decision is whether a route fits the person’s actual citizenship now or whether another category is needed. A Canadian PR card remains useful context but cannot replace the TN nationality requirement.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- TN is a citizenship rule, and it has no residence alternative
- The routes that do not turn on nationality
- What changes on the day citizenship is granted, and what does not
Leasehold, equipment and build-out: what counts as committed capital when nothing is being bought
Hypothetical example: Marc-Antoine is not buying an existing business. He plans to lease an empty industrial bay near a United States distribution corridor and fit it out as a trailer repair shop: hoists, a welding bay, compressors, diagnostic equipment and a parts inventory. There is no purchase price to point to, which changes how substantiality and commitment are demonstrated and makes the sequence of spending part of the legal case rather than just a business decision.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Money spent is committed; money budgeted is not
- Substantiality without a purchase price
- Marginality is the harder test for a new business
Opening a first U.S. cross-dock: what a new-office petition has to show and what year one buys
Hypothetical example: a refrigerated warehousing company in Saint-Germain-de-Grantham is opening its first American facility, a leased cross-dock near a customer's plant, and wants Sylvain, its operations director, to run it. Because the United States entity is new, the petition is judged on a different basis from an ordinary transfer, the approval is shorter, and the evidence that matters is about premises, funding and a realistic plan rather than an existing organizational chart.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Premises before petition: the requirement to have secured physical space
- Capacity to support the role within one year
- One year, then a real extension with real evidence
The sole owner's dilemma: transferring yourself on L-1A or investing on E-2
Hypothetical example: Nathalie owns one hundred percent of a customs brokerage in Saint-Germain-de-Grantham and wants to operate in the United States herself. She can incorporate a subsidiary and transfer herself as an L-1A manager, or she can capitalise a United States enterprise and apply as an E-2 investor. Both are available to her. They differ on duration, on what happens if she wants permanent residence, and on how much scrutiny sole ownership attracts. The commercial decision is whether a qualifying-company transfer or an investor-operated business better matches the facts. Prepare a short evidence list for each route before committing to a structure.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Sole ownership complicates L-1 without disqualifying it
- Duration and the exit are the real differences
- Procedure, and the practical fact people discover late
A payroll administrator who wants to keep her job, and a twenty-year-old in CEGEP
Hypothetical example: Guillaume is moving to a United States role on TN. His wife Anne-Sophie is a bilingual payroll administrator whose Quebec employer is happy for her to continue remotely, and their older child is twenty and in CEGEP. Both of those apparently simple facts are problems. TD carries no work authorization at all, and the child's twenty-first birthday will end dependant eligibility on the day it arrives. The immediate decision is whether every household member’s planned work, study, travel, and age timeline fits the selected category. Build separate rows for the principal, spouse, and each child.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Remote work for a Canadian employer is still work in the United States
- What the spouse's options actually are
- The birthday is a deadline, and it is earlier than families think
At-risk capital or a gift: two brothers compare what each program actually asks for
Hypothetical example: the Bergeron brothers sold a Saint-Germain-de-Grantham warehousing operation and are weighing EB-5 against the Gold Card program. They keep asking which one is faster, which is the wrong first question. The right one is what each program requires of them, because the requirements are not variations on a theme: one asks for capital invested at risk in a business that creates jobs, the other for a gift to the U.S. government under its own official framework. The core decision is whether the applicant is prepared for EB-5’s commercial-risk and job evidence or a gift payment under current Gold Card terms. The payment paths are legally separate from the beginning.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- EB-5 asks for an investment, and investment means risk
- The Gold Card program asks for something categorically different
- Decide on requirements first, then verify the terms on the day