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.
Which document decides an Engineer TN when the degree says 'engineering technology'
Hypothetical example: a Quinte West aircraft-structures designer holds a bachelor of engineering technology and no provincial licence, and a US airframe-repair company offers her an 'Engineer' position. The USMCA Engineer entry requires a baccalaureate or Licenciatura degree in the field or a state or provincial licence. Whether an engineering-technology degree is a degree in the field is the question her file must answer with the transcript, the program description and, if available, an evaluation, before she reaches a port of entry. Hypothetical example: a Quinte West industrial-hygiene specialist has a science degree whose transcript contains chemistry, exposure assessment and ventilation courses, but the US offer calls the role 'safety coordinator'. Before choosing documents, she must decide whether the actual duties are those of a listed profession or mainly workplace compliance administration. The answer controls whether a credential evaluation will help at all; it cannot transform an unlisted job into a listed one.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Read the entry's own qualification rule
- Decide whether an evaluation or a licence is the better cure
- Assemble the file around the answer
Sequence naturalization against a company transfer when the applicant is a permanent resident
Hypothetical example: a Quinte West quality manager at a food-processing plant is a Canadian permanent resident, a citizen of a country with no E-2 treaty, and married to a Canadian citizen. Her employer's US affiliate wants her. TN is closed to her until she is a Canadian citizen, and E-2 turns on her own nationality rather than her spouse's. L-1 does not depend on citizenship at all, so the practical question is whether to file an L-1 now or wait for citizenship to unlock TN, and the answer depends on dates.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Separate the routes that depend on citizenship from those that do not
- Put the dates side by side
- Plan the family around each person's own nationality
Proportionality for an equipment-heavy business: an excavation contractor's E-2 plan
Hypothetical example: a Quinte West excavation and septic-installation contractor plans to start a US operation from scratch, buying two used excavators, a dump truck and a trailer, leasing a yard and hiring an operator. He wants to know how much is enough and whether equipment bought while he is still in Canada counts. E-2 has no fixed minimum; the test is whether his committed funds are substantial relative to the cost of establishing this kind of business, and equipment purchased for the enterprise and irrevocably paid for is part of the investment.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Cost the business honestly, then compare
- Treat equipment purchases as investment only when they are irrevocable
- Sequence commitment, application and the first job
What usually goes wrong when an aircraft-interiors firm opens its first US facility
Hypothetical example: a Quinte West aircraft-interiors refurbishment company wins US customers and wants to send its production director to open a facility in a leased hangar bay. New-office L-1A petitions are approved for one year only, and the petition is vulnerable if the lease is not yet signed, the business plan does not show how the office will support a managerial role within a year, or the director will spend the year doing the upholstery herself. Each of these is avoidable if the petition is built after the premises and the staffing plan are real.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Secure the premises before filing, not after
- Show that the office will support a manager within a year
- Prepare for the one-year extension from day one
Compare the consequences before choosing between a subsidiary transfer and a personal purchase
Hypothetical example: a Quinte West family-owned meat-snack processor is deciding whether to form a US subsidiary and transfer the founders' daughter, its vice-president of operations, on L-1A, or to have her buy a US plant personally and apply for E-2. Both can put her in charge of a US plant. They differ in who must own what, how long she can stay, what her spouse may do and where the route ends, and those consequences, not the paperwork, should drive the decision.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Ownership decides which route is even available
- Duration, family and exit differ
- Count the business consequences too
Each family member's own route when the principal is a TN technologist
Hypothetical example: a Quinte West nondestructive-testing technologist is admitted in TN status to support a US engineering team. Her husband is a registered practical nurse and their daughter is seventeen. TD status lets the husband and daughter accompany her and study, but neither may work, and the daughter's TD ends when she turns twenty-one. The plan should give each of them a route of their own, sequenced against the principal's three-year admission period. Hypothetical example: a Quinte West occupational therapist is considering a TN position while her spouse operates a Canadian online retail business. They must decide whether the spouse will remain in Canada to perform the work, qualify for a separate status, or pause the business after moving. Dependant status does not make remote work from US soil permissible simply because customers and payroll remain in Canada, so the household's income plan must be settled before the move.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Start from what dependent status allows
- Map the husband's credential to a category of his own
- Calendar the daughter's twenty-first birthday
Compare timelines and family ages before choosing between EB-5 and a Gold Card
Hypothetical example: the founder of a Quinte West aviation-services contractor is selling to a partner, has a spouse and a twenty-year-old son, and is weighing a regional-centre EB-5 investment against the individual Gold Card route. EB-5 requires US$1,050,000, or US$800,000 in a targeted employment area or infrastructure project, invested at risk, at least ten full-time jobs for qualifying US workers, and two-year conditional residence, with Form I-829 filed in the 90 days before the second anniversary; the Gold Card framework involves a gift to the U.S. government plus a non-refundable processing fee with the existing immigrant criteria still applied. For this family the deciding factors are the son's age and how each route treats time, and both the EB-5 amounts and Gold Card terms should be re-verified before any money moves.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Lay the two timelines side by side
- Run the son's age through each route
- Compare what the money does and whether it returns