E-2 Digital Enterprise
E-2 Visa for an Online or Remote Business
How ecommerce, software, digital agencies, online services, and remote businesses establish real operations, substantial investment, physical presence, marginality, and investor control.
Direct answer
What the governing framework requires
An online business can qualify for E-2 if it is a genuine commercial enterprise and satisfies all ordinary treaty investor requirements. The current FAM states that physical office space is not necessarily required. A digital business must nevertheless prove real commercial operations, committed investment, substantiality, more than marginal economic capacity, and the investor's ability to develop and direct it.
01 · Eligibility
There is no separate rule barring online enterprises
E-2 law focuses on whether the enterprise is real, active, commercial, substantial, more than marginal, and directed by the investor.
A business does not cease to be commercial merely because customer acquisition, sales, service delivery, or operations occur principally online.
02 · Physical Presence
The current FAM says a physical office is not necessarily required
9 FAM 402.9-4(D) expressly states that an E applicant does not necessarily need physical office space.
The absence of traditional premises should still make sense for the business model.
A software company, online agency, or ecommerce enterprise will naturally have different infrastructure from a restaurant or manufacturing company.
03 · Commercial Reality
Digital evidence should establish genuine business operations
Online businesses should document the systems through which they actually operate.
Relevant evidence can include websites, ecommerce stores, payment processing, customer contracts, software subscriptions, advertising accounts, logistics, fulfillment, vendors, platform records, intellectual property, and bank activity.
04 · Capital
Digital companies can have low infrastructure cost but still must satisfy substantiality
A digital business may require less physical equipment than another enterprise.
The proportionality test still applies. A lower total business cost generally requires a higher proportion of the actual enterprise cost to be committed.
Intangible property can also constitute a capital asset when its value can reasonably be determined under the FAM.
05 · Growth
An online company still must be more than marginal
Low overhead does not eliminate the marginality requirement.
Customer growth, recurring revenue, employees, contractors, marketing, intellectual property, platform expansion, and financial projections can help demonstrate economic capacity.
06 · Evidence
The filing should make an intangible business tangible to the adjudicator
- Website and platform evidence
- Customer and subscriber records
- Merchant processing
- Advertising accounts
- Software subscriptions
- Digital contracts
- Vendor and fulfillment records
- Intellectual property
- Bank records
- Business plan
Questions and answers
Frequently asked questions
Can an online business qualify for E-2?
Yes, potentially. It must satisfy the same treaty investor requirements as another real commercial enterprise.
Does an online E-2 business need an office?
Not universally. The current FAM expressly states that physical office space is not necessarily required.
Can an ecommerce store qualify?
Potentially, if it is a real commercial enterprise and satisfies investment, substantiality, marginality, control, and the other E-2 requirements.
Can software or intellectual property count toward investment?
Potentially. The FAM recognizes intangible property as a capital asset where its value can reasonably be determined.
How does an online company prove it is real?
Web operations, customers, payment processing, contracts, advertising, vendors, software, bank activity, and other objective records can establish commercial reality.
Does low overhead hurt an online E-2 case?
Not automatically. Low business cost affects substantiality through proportionality and does not eliminate marginality or other requirements.
Case-specific review
Document the digital enterprise as carefully as a physical business
A review can identify how operating systems, customers, investment, intellectual property, projections, and control should be presented.
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