IN THIS GUIDE · Whether a one-person consultancy is a business or just a job
Start with the E-2 eligibility and application overview
Marginality is the question a consultancy has to answer
Hypothetical example: a Conception Bay South software developer who has worked remotely for American clients incorporates a United States consultancy and proposes to run it from there. An enterprise that produces only enough income to support the investor and family is marginal, and marginality is assessed on present capacity or on capacity within a reasonable period, usually understood as around five years. Answer it with signed client agreements, a hiring schedule with roles, dates and wages, and projections built from actual contracted work rather than from assumed growth.
Real and operating means more than an incorporation
The enterprise must be a real, active commercial undertaking producing services or goods for profit. A registered company with a bank account, a website and no engagements is not that. Evidence includes executed client contracts or statements of work, a commercial lease or documented workspace arrangement, business insurance, licences or registrations required in the state, tooling and software subscriptions, and a payment history. Speculative enterprises and idle capital are expressly outside the classification, and a consultancy with no signed work is close to that description.
Low capital needs make substantiality harder, not easier
Substantiality is proportional: the capital is weighed against the total cost of establishing an enterprise of this type. Because a software consultancy costs little to establish, the proportion committed must be very high, approaching the whole. Count what is genuinely irrevocable: equipment purchased, prepaid lease and deposits, software and infrastructure commitments, professional and incorporation costs, marketing spend, and salaries committed for hires. Money sitting in the company's account uncommitted is not at risk in the sense the classification requires.
Develop and direct, and the remote-work question underneath
The investor must develop and direct the enterprise, ordinarily through majority ownership or operational control, which a sole founder satisfies easily. The harder issue for a remote worker is honesty about what is really happening: if the arrangement is one long-standing client paying an entity that exists to receive the payment, the enterprise may be a job in corporate clothing. E-2 also confers no direct route to permanent residence, and each renewal re-examines whether the business still qualifies.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.