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.
A hospitality diploma plus three years is a genuine TN route, and it is proved differently
Hypothetical example: Rosaire manages an inn and its restaurant in Stratford. He never finished a degree, holding instead a post-secondary hospitality diploma and eleven years running rooms, kitchens and payroll. A resort group on the American coast wants him as a property manager. Hotel Manager is one of the few listed occupations reachable without a baccalaureate, but the alternative branch has its own conditions, and evidence assembled for a degree-based claim will not carry it.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Say which branch of the entry you are claiming, and claim only one
- Experience is proved by records, and a curriculum vitae is not a record
- The letter must describe management of a hotel or restaurant, in those terms
Permanent residence in Canada does not answer the citizenship question TN asks
Hypothetical example: Teodora is an economist employed by a seafood export council with offices in Stratford. She has held Canadian permanent residence for six years, pays tax here, owns a house here and has begun the citizenship process. An American research institute has offered her a post. Economist appears on the professions list, and her doctorate meets its rule comfortably, yet TN is closed to her today for a reason that has nothing to do with her qualifications.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The card in her wallet answers a Canadian question
- What remains open, and what depends on which passport she holds
- Documents and travel work differently for her than for her colleagues
An earn-out postpones the seller's payday and complicates the at-risk test
Hypothetical example: Emilien is buying a coastal inn with a small marina in an American state, from a seller who wants part of the price paid over three years out of future takings. The structure suits both of them commercially. It also means that on the day Emilien applies, a meaningful share of the purchase price has not been paid, is not at risk and may never become payable. That is the tension an investor route puts under a microscope.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Capital that is contingent is not capital that is committed
- A five-month season and the marginality question
- Develop and direct, and the honest conversation about permanence
A new office is approved for one year, so plan the second year before filing the first
Hypothetical example: Pascale owns a seafood export brokerage in Stratford and wants to open an American sales office with cold-storage space near her largest customers, moving herself across to run it. Where the American entity has been doing business for less than a year, the first approval is limited to twelve months. Most of the planning attention goes into winning that year. The harder document is the one filed at the end of it, and what it will say is decided by choices made now.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- What the first petition already has to show
- What the extension will actually ask about
- The failure mode is an entity that exists only on paper
Choosing between transferring yourself and buying something is a question about year eight
Hypothetical example: Gaetan owns a marine services and charter company in Stratford and can go two ways. His company could open an American subsidiary and transfer him into it, or he could buy an established charter operation there outright. Advisers usually compare the two on cost and speed. The comparison that actually matters to his family is what each looks like in year eight, because the two routes expire in completely different ways.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- What each requires before the choice is even available
- The ceilings, and the renewal that has no ceiling
- What each route does to the household and to the Canadian business
A spouse who needs to work should be given a route of her own, not a derivative one
Hypothetical example: Yolande is a chartered professional accountant in Stratford. Her husband has been offered work in the United States and the household assumes she will accompany him and find a position there. Whether she can depends entirely on which category he uses, and in one of them the answer is a flat no. Because Accountant is itself a listed occupation, the better question is not what she may do as a dependant but whether she should be applying in her own right.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The dependent category is defined by the principal's, and one of them forbids work
- Accountant is on the list, and it has its own rule
- Children are assessed individually, and two dates end eligibility
- Write one line per person before comparing any categories
One route audits your money in detail and the other simply requires you to part with it
Hypothetical example: Constance holds shellfish leases near Stratford and could realise a substantial sum by selling them. She is weighing the investor route against the Gold Card and has been given a comparison of prices. Price is the least useful axis. The two differ most in what they ask of her: one examines the money exhaustively and keeps it at risk in a business, the other asks for a nonrefundable fee and then a gift that no longer belongs to anyone but the U.S. government.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The investor route audits the money and keeps it working
- The Gold Card does not audit it; it takes a fee and then a gift
- What the difference means for someone with an asset rather than cash
- What neither one buys