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.
Documenting a designation-based TN for an accountant joining a hospitality group
Hypothetical example: Ruth, a chartered professional accountant in Orillia, has been offered a controller role with a U.S. hotel group. The USMCA list allows an Accountant to qualify by baccalaureate degree or by a professional designation such as CPA, CA, CGA or CMA. Ruth's degree is in history; her qualification rests on the designation. Her document trail has to prove the designation cleanly and show that the controller role is accounting work. Hypothetical example: A Canadian museum conservator has a U.S. gallery offer. The practical choice is whether the credential evidence and proposed conservation duties fit the listed profession before collecting supporting materials. The employer letter, passport and professional records should be assembled as one coherent request, not as disconnected exhibits.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Prove the designation with the regulator's own record
- Describe the controller role as accounting, not as management
- Keep ownership and self-employment questions out of the file
When one spouse is a Canadian citizen and the other holds only permanent residence
Hypothetical example: Simon, a Canadian citizen in Orillia, has a TN-eligible offer as a physiotherapist. His wife, Ana, is a Canadian permanent resident but a citizen of a country outside the USMCA. She assumed her PR card would let her take a professional job in the United States too. It does not: TN turns on citizenship, and Ana's citizenship is not Canadian or Mexican. Her route has to be worked out separately from his. Hypothetical example: A Canadian permanent resident who is a South Korean citizen receives a U.S. film-editor offer. The decision is not whether she has lived in Canada long enough; it is which of her citizenships opens the requested route. Her passport and the relevant immigration rules, not her provincial address, settle that question.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Her PR card answers a Canadian question, not a treaty one
- She can accompany him, with a visa, and cannot work as a TD
- Her own route depends on her own facts
Why keeping the money in a Canadian account until approval defeats an E-2 case
Hypothetical example: Gael, a Canadian citizen in Orillia, plans to open a boat-detailing and winterization business in a U.S. lake town. He has the funds but intends to leave them in his Canadian savings account until the visa is approved, then transfer and spend them. That plan fails the commitment requirement: E-2 needs funds irrevocably committed to the enterprise, not funds available for it. This guide explains what commitment looks like without forcing him to gamble everything. Hypothetical example: A Canadian owner of a mobile bicycle-repair business wants to purchase a U.S. service route. The first decision is how much to commit before the visa process so that the investment is commercially real but the contract still manages refusal risk. A signed agreement, payment trail and operating plan answer that more clearly than money left available in a personal account.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Available is not committed
- Commit in stages that a refusal would not ruin
- The funds also have to be substantial and the business non-marginal
Opening a first U.S. shop for a steel-fabrication company: premises and the one-year approval
Hypothetical example: a structural-steel fabricator in Orillia is forming a U.S. subsidiary to serve customers in a neighbouring state and wants to send its production manager, Iain, to set it up. Because the U.S. entity has no operating history, the petition is a new-office case: approval is limited to one year, physical premises must already be secured, and the group must show it can support a managerial role within that year. The filing must also prove the qualifying corporate relationship, Iain's one continuous year of qualifying employment abroad within the prior three years, and that the Canadian business will remain active while the U.S. office begins doing business. Hypothetical example: A Canadian maker of specialty bicycle components plans its first U.S. assembly and sales location. The decision is whether to secure premises and fund a hiring plan that will support a managerial or specialized-knowledge role within the initial year. Incorporation alone cannot answer that operational question.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Secure real premises before filing, not a mailbox
- Show the money and the plan to support a manager within a year
- Plan the extension from the day of approval
When the family hotel is owned by siblings with different citizenships
Hypothetical example: two siblings in Orillia own a hotel company equally. Lucas is a Canadian citizen; his sister Mireille is a Canadian permanent resident but a citizen of a country that has no investment treaty with the United States. The company wants to buy a U.S. motel and send Lucas to run it. Whether the route is E-2 or L-1 turns on ownership nationality — a factor E-2 tests and L-1 does not. Hypothetical example: The owners of an architectural-lighting company can either transfer an executive from their Canadian entity or personally buy into a U.S. showroom. Their decision turns on which factual foundation already exists: qualifying corporate employment and control, or treaty nationality, a committed investment and operational direction. The same commercial project can support very different answers.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- E-2 tests the nationality of the enterprise, not just the applicant
- L-1 ignores nationality and tests the corporate relationship instead
- Choose by which requirement you can actually satisfy
A TN nurse's husband is a licensed electrician: what he can and cannot do
Hypothetical example: Priscilla, a registered nurse in Orillia, is moving to a U.S. hospital on TN. Her husband, Owen, is a licensed electrician who expects to find trade work once they arrive. Their children are 12 and 19. As a TD dependant Owen cannot work at all, and electrician is not a USMCA-listed profession, so he has no TN of his own. The family's plan has to be built on each member's real status. Hypothetical example: A Canadian actuary accepts a U.S. position and is moving with a spouse who plans to work and a child who will start college. The household must decide whether the principal route gives each dependant a workable status, rather than assuming that a single approval creates identical work and study rights. A written family timeline makes the hidden constraints visible.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- TD dependants live and study; they do not work
- His trade does not give him a route of his own under the treaty
- The 19-year-old has a deadline the parents do not
The same capital, two very different uses: at-risk investment or gift
Hypothetical example: Dr. Anand, a physician in Orillia with liquid savings, is weighing an EB-5 investment against the Gold Card program. Her question is blunt: which route gives her a chance of seeing the money again? EB-5 capital is placed at risk in a job-creating enterprise and may be returned if the enterprise performs; a Gold Card gift is given to the government and, by its nature, is not an investment. That difference, not the headline amount, should drive her decision. Hypothetical example: A software-localization company owner has proceeds from a business sale and wants a permanent-residence option for a spouse and children. The decision is whether to accept EB-5’s job, documentation and commercial-risk obligations or evaluate the Gold Card’s processing fee, vetting and unrestricted-gift sequence. The official framework treats the gift as evidence through existing EB-1 or EB-2 mechanisms rather than requiring an independent conventional employment-based case first. Current official terms and payment instructions must be verified before either course is treated as available.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- EB-5 money is at risk, which means it can be lost or returned
- A Gold Card gift is not designed to come back
- Decide on obligations and risk tolerance, not on the label