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.
Decide whether the technologist's diploma or the engineer's degree carries the TN file
Hypothetical example: a West Kelowna civil engineering technologist with a two-year diploma and twelve years on municipal water projects is offered a US position supervising pipeline inspection. The employer's draft letter calls him an engineer. The TN list treats Engineer and Scientific Technician/Technologist as different professions with different qualification rules, and his diploma fits only one of them. Choosing the right entry, and then assembling the documents that entry actually requires, decides the case before anyone reaches the border.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Match the diploma to the entry that accepts it
- Rewrite the employer letter around the correct duties
- Assemble proof for each element, then check the ownership question
Use the Mexican passport you already hold instead of waiting for a Canadian one
Hypothetical example: a West Kelowna software developer is a Mexican citizen and a Canadian permanent resident, with her Canadian citizenship application still in process. She assumes TN is closed to her until the Canadian passport arrives. It is not. TN is available to Mexican citizens as well as Canadians; what differs is the procedure, because a Mexican citizen applies for a TN visa at a consulate rather than at the port of entry. Her permanent-resident card is irrelevant to eligibility either way.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Separate the passport that qualifies from the card that does not
- Follow the Mexican-citizen procedure rather than the Canadian one
- Plan for the day the Canadian citizenship arrives
Work out how much of a seller-financed landscaping purchase counts as E-2 investment
Hypothetical example: a West Kelowna landscape contractor is buying a US landscaping and irrigation company whose owner is retiring. The seller offers to finance a portion of the price with a note secured against the company's trucks and equipment. The buyer needs to know what part of the purchase price will count as his investment for E-2 purposes, because debt secured by the enterprise's own assets is excluded, and the answer determines whether the counted amount is substantial relative to the cost of the business.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Split the purchase price by what secures each part
- Test the counted amount against the cost of the business
- Keep the rest of the E-2 case in view
Sequence a winery's US import office so the premises and the plan arrive together
Hypothetical example: a West Kelowna winery wants to open a US subsidiary to import and distribute its wines, staffed initially by its export manager. There is no US operation yet, so the petition is a new-office L-1A, approved for one year at most and judged on whether the company has secured premises, has the financial capacity to start, and can support a managerial role within the year. The order in which the winery signs leases, forms the entity and applies for licences determines whether those three showings exist on the filing date.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Form the entity and secure the premises before filing
- Show the money and the licences the first year needs
- Describe the year that will justify the extension
Choose between being sent by the contractor and buying into one
Hypothetical example: a site superintendent at a West Kelowna concrete-forming contractor has two possibilities in Arizona. His employer would open a US branch and transfer him to run it on L-1A. Alternatively a retiring Arizona contractor has offered to sell him a controlling interest in her company, which he would fund himself and run on E-2. The routes differ on who owns the business, who bears the risk, how long each lasts and what follows. Comparing them on speed alone would miss the facts that actually decide it.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- In the transfer, the employer's structure carries the case
- In the purchase, his own money and control carry the case
- Decide on ownership appetite and end-state, then check the calendar
Plan for the spouse whose trade is not on the TN list
Hypothetical example: a West Kelowna pharmacist accepts a TN position in Montana. Her husband is a journeyman electrician who assumes he will find work there too. Electrician is not a TN profession, and TD status, which he would hold as her spouse, does not permit employment at all. The household's plan needs a separate line for him, and possibly a different route for her, because his options depend on facts the couple has not yet examined.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- State plainly what TD allows and what it does not
- Examine whether any status fits his own qualifications
- Consider whether the pharmacist's own route should change
Decide what an orchard sale should fund: at-risk capital or an outright gift
Hypothetical example: a West Kelowna couple in their sixties are selling the orchard they have farmed for thirty years and want to spend part of the proceeds on US permanent residence. Two immigrant routes involve large sums: EB-5, where the money is invested in a job-creating enterprise and may come back, and the Gold Card framework, where the official page describes a gift to the U.S. government that does not come back. The couple's question is less which is cheaper than what each sum is for, when it must be liquid, and what obligations follow. Because the Gold Card framework can change, they should re-verify its official terms before moving any money.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Compare what the money does, not the headline figures
- Match the liquidity of the sale to each route's timing
- Weigh the obligations after residence for a retiring couple