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.
Build a Haldimand County soil scientist's TN packet so the officer never has to guess
A TN packet for a Canadian citizen is assessed directly by CBP at the port of entry, so it must answer three questions on its face: which Appendix 2 profession the job is, how the applicant meets that profession's credential rule, and who the U.S. employer is and what it is offering. Hypothetical example: a Haldimand County soil scientist with a baccalaureate in soil science is hired by a U.S. crop-input retailer to run field sampling and fertility recommendations across several states. The packet is built around the Soil Scientist entry, the degree, one plain employer letter and citizenship proof.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Lead with the profession entry and the matching credential
- Get the employer letter to state the four facts
- Prove citizenship, disclose the side business, and rehearse the questions
A permanent resident from a non-treaty country cannot borrow a Haldimand County spouse's citizenship
Canadian citizenship and Canadian permanent residence are different facts, and every U.S. category tests the applicant's own nationality. Hypothetical example: in a Haldimand County household, one spouse is a Canadian citizen and the other holds Canadian permanent residence as a citizen of a country with no U.S. treaty of commerce. The citizen spouse can pursue TN or E-2 on her own facts. The permanent-resident spouse cannot obtain TN, cannot be an E-2 principal, and cannot inherit either through marriage; his routes are dependant status under hers, or an L-1 through his own employer.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Write each person's nationality next to each category's rule
- Dependant status follows the principal, but activity does not
- Test whether his employer can open an L-1 door
Asset purchase or share purchase: what a Haldimand County buyer of a U.S. equipment dealership is really investing
The form of the purchase changes what the E-2 file can count and what it must explain. Hypothetical example: a Haldimand County farm-equipment technician with capital from selling a rental property is buying a U.S. agricultural-equipment dealership and must choose between buying the dealership's assets into a new corporation or buying the shares of the existing company. Either can qualify, but the asset route shows exactly what was bought and what it cost, while the share route brings the seller's liabilities and floor-plan financing along with the goodwill. The investment counted is what the buyer irrevocably commits, not what the dealership owes.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- List what the purchase price actually buys
- Trace the property sale into the deal without gaps
- Prove the dealership is real, growing and directed by the buyer
A Haldimand County steel fabricator's U.S. service branch: the first-year file that earns the extension
A new-office L-1 petition is approved for one year on the strength of premises, funding and a plan; the extension is approved on what actually happened. Hypothetical example: a Haldimand County structural-steel fabricator opens a U.S. sales-and-field-service branch to support installations across the border and transfers its projects manager under L-1A. The initial petition must show a signed lease, the parent's ability to fund the branch and pay the manager, and a plan that produces staff for him to supervise within twelve months. From day one, the branch should keep records aimed at the extension: hires, invoices, payroll and the manager's decisions.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Assemble what the new-office rules literally ask for
- Keep a running extension file from the first week
- Watch the manager's own duties, because the first year tempts him to do everything
Transfer herself or buy the plant: a Haldimand County co-packer's owner compares L-1A and E-2
Hypothetical example: the owner-manager of a Haldimand County agri-food co-packing company can either form a U.S. subsidiary that acquires a co-packing plant and transfer herself as its executive under L-1A, or personally buy the plant and apply for E-2 as the investor. L-1A ties her status to the corporate group and has a multinational-manager immigrant analogue; E-2 ties her status to her ownership and investment, renews while the business thrives, and offers no direct path to residence. Which is better depends on who will own the plant and what the family wants in five years.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Draw the ownership of the U.S. plant under each option
- Compare what she must prove and what she must keep proving
- Decide by the five-year picture, not the filing that is easier this month
A Haldimand County engineer's household plan: who works, who studies, who waits
Hypothetical example: a Haldimand County electrical engineer employed at a generating station accepts a TN position with a U.S. utility. Her husband is a registered early-childhood educator, their daughter is seventeen and their son is nineteen and hoping to work for a summer. Each of the four has a different answer. She holds TN. The husband and both children can hold TD, which allows study but no employment. The son's TD status ends at twenty-one. If the family wants the husband to work, the engineer should ask whether any other route would make him employment-authorized, because TD never will.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Start with the spouse's real intention, because TD will not bend to it
- Map the children's ages against the twenty-one line and the school year
- Coordinate the arrival, the licences and the fallback
Farmland proceeds and two very different doors: a Haldimand County comparison of EB-5 and the Gold Card
Hypothetical example: a Haldimand County family has sold a parcel of farmland and is weighing an EB-5 investment against the Gold Card. EB-5 places US$1,050,000, or US$800,000 for a qualifying targeted-employment-area or infrastructure investment, at risk in an enterprise that must create ten full-time jobs for qualifying U.S. workers, with the capital potentially returned and the family receiving two-year conditional residence, with Form I-829 filed in the 90 days before the second anniversary to seek removal of conditions. The Gold Card, as described on the official page read on September 7, 2026, is a gift of US$1,000,000 plus a US$15,000 fee per person, not returned, followed by EB-1 or EB-2 processing. Compare what the money does and what each person gets.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Follow the money to its end state under each route
- Count the family under each route, because the multipliers differ
- Weigh the tests each route imposes and the time each takes