The main costs are corporate and tax advice to document or adjust the chain, and professional time to assemble and explain it. If a restructuring is required it carries its own legal and tax consequences. Government charges are separate and current amounts should be read from official sources.
Coordinate the tax advice and the immigration advice
The expensive mistake is sequential advice: an accountant designs a structure for tax efficiency, the deal closes, and an immigration adviser then explains that the structure does not carry treaty nationality. Unwinding it afterwards costs more than designing it once with both objectives in view. Ask for a short joint discussion between the family's corporate adviser and a licensed U.S.
immigration attorney before the acquisition is structured; it is usually a modest amount of time and it is the highest-value spending in the whole process. Verify any government amounts from current official fee information rather than from older summaries, and do not treat preparation cost as an indication of outcome. Hypothetical example: Esteban wants to buy a coffee-roasting business with equipment requiring immediate replacement.
Build a use-of-funds schedule before committing separating purchase price, inventory, leasehold improvements, equipment, professional costs and working capital. The signed purchase and vendor invoices show what is committed; a bare account balance does not. Sequence the budget against the total cost of the enterprise so the investor can decide whether the expenditure is proportionate and sustainable.
A common misstep is treating legal and filing charges as the investment itself. There is no fixed universal amount, but the funds must be substantial for this business, committed beyond the investor’s control and exposed to loss.