Treaty · document checklist
E-2 document checklist
E-2 requires treaty-country nationality, a substantial investment that is irrevocably committed and at risk, a real and operating commercial enterprise, and evidence the enterprise is more than marginal. The evidentiary spine is financial: a traceable source-of-funds chain from origin to deployment, which is precisely the kind of multi-document chronology that manual assembly handles badly.
Governing standard
Substantial investment in a real and operating enterprise by a treaty national
8 CFR 214.2(e); 9 FAM 402.9
Top RFE trigger: Source-of-funds chain with an unexplained intermediate account
Criteria and evidence mapping- Documents listed
- 10
- Always required
- 8
- Median exhibit pages
- 210
- Initial RFE rate
- 22.4%
The checklist
Grouped by the purpose each document serves.
Documents marked as always required belong in every filing of this type. The rest apply where the fact pattern calls for them.
Nationality and ownership
2 required of 2
Passports of all owners
Establishing at least 50% treaty-country ownership
Cap table and share certificates
Reconciling to the claimed ownership percentage
Source and path of funds
3 required of 4
Source of funds documentation
Origin, accumulation and lawful provenance
Wire transfer records
Unbroken chain from source account to the enterprise
Purchase or lease agreements
Showing funds irrevocably committed
Escrow or closing statementswhere applicable
Where a business was acquired
Enterprise operations
3 required of 4
Commercial lease
Physical premises for the operation
Licences and registrations
State, local and industry-specific
Payroll records and employee listwhere applicable
Supporting the non-marginality argument
Five-year business plan
With job creation projections and financial model
This page prints cleanly — use it as a client-facing document request list.
Failure modes
What draws a request on a E-2.
Having every document on the list is necessary and not sufficient. These are the structural problems that produce requests even when the evidence is present.
Full RFE trends hub- Source-of-funds chain with an unexplained intermediate account
- Investment funds still held in a personal account rather than committed
- Business plan projections unsupported by the actual financial record
- Ownership documents that do not reconcile to the claimed treaty nationality percentage
Also treaty
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