I recently fought a battle with some folks in my industry who were attempting to manage what is somewhat of a mystery to many lawyers, brokers, buyers and sellers…namely the Various investor visa’s and what would and would not qualify. In short, a broker went to an immigration attorney and asked for him / her to define minimum standards for visas. This is nothing new. For the 9 some odd years I have been in this business I repeatedly have heard that there are rules of thumb about how much one has to spend, that you have to have a lease, that you have to have a minimum of 2 w-2 employees, and a myriad of other statements going as far as to say this type of business won’t work for the visa because the ’embassy’ doesn’t like them.
I AM NOT A LAWYER (SO COUNSELORS PLEASE DON’T CHASTISE ME) but I can read and have been handling immigration clients for quite a long time (never had a failed application by the way). If you are immigrating or thinking of immigrating do yourself a favor….read the (()^*(&^(*&^ website for the USCIS http://www.us-immigration.com/us-immigration-news/us-visas/how-to-an-obtain-investment-visa-for-the-us/?referrer=cse-organic-none-e-2
You will note that no where in the description of the investor visa is there a mention of minimum amount, numbers of employees or any other benchmark. It is in fact quite vague. Terms like substantial, sliding scale, smaller investment are used. The net net of it is that the process is a function of the investment, the investor, sad to say the country you are processing from, the number of family members and a variety of other subjective criteria. We have this year seen 5 year E2 visas awarded on as 35k, 50k, 115k sized transactions (by the way that has been consistent for the duration of my practice), lease assignments alone, and non operating franchises.
The point of this email is to beg you as a consumer to be educated, to read the LAW, solicit opinions of those who have EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE, and to use common sense. Below is a great link for an overview video of the process by someone who successfully gets visas through.