Read the general pathway comparison overview
Owning part of the company helps one route and complicates the other. E-2 measures ownership deliberately, asking who holds the enterprise and whether the applicant can direct it. L-1 largely ignores the applicant’s equity until the transferee turns out to be an owner, at which point an extra condition appears. This guide takes a single shareholding and follows what each classification does with it.
E-2: the percentages that actually carry weight
Two ownership tests run in parallel and are frequently confused. The first concerns nationality of the enterprise: at least half of the business must be held by nationals of the treaty country, traced through to individual owners rather than stopping at a holding company, and those owners must not be lawful permanent residents of the United States. Canada is a treaty country for E-2 purposes, so a Canadian citizen clears the personal half of that test. The second test concerns the applicant’s own position, since an investor must develop and direct the enterprise — a majority stake satisfies that outright, while a minority holder can meet it only through demonstrable operational control such as a managing-member agreement, a board seat carrying executive authority, or a voting arrangement recorded in the constating documents. Equal fifty-fifty partnerships are the awkward case and need drafting attention. Neither test concerns how much was paid: capital is assessed separately and must be lawfully sourced, irrevocably committed and genuinely at risk in a real, operating, non-marginal business.
L-1: ownership is mostly irrelevant, until it is not
For an intracompany transfer the subject is the relationship between two companies and the history of one person, not the applicant’s equity. The petition must establish a qualifying parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate link, and that both entities carry on business in the United States and at least one other country for the duration of the stay. The beneficiary must have completed twelve continuous months of full-time employment abroad with that group inside the preceding three years, in a managerial, executive or specialised-knowledge capacity and excluding any days worked in the United States, and must be entering a role that is primarily managerial or executive for L-1A, or that turns on knowledge specific to the employer’s product, process or procedures for L-1B. A person holding none of the shares can qualify comfortably. Where the beneficiary is an owner or major stockholder, though, a further condition attaches: the record must show the United States assignment is temporary and that the person will be transferred abroad on its completion. That is the moment a founder’s equity begins working against the transfer narrative rather than for it.
Choosing when you hold both cards
Hypothetical example: a Mackenzie forestry-logistics operator owns sixty per cent of the Canadian company and has run its dispatch division for four years. Both routes are technically available. Presented as a treaty investor, that sixty per cent simultaneously establishes treaty-national ownership and satisfies develop-and-direct, but the capital placed in the U.S. enterprise must be substantial relative to that business, must sit at risk, and the enterprise must do more than support the household at a minimal level. Presented as an L-1A beneficiary, the identical sixty per cent invites the temporariness question, and a new-office petition — one where the U.S. entity has been doing business for less than a year — would be limited to an initial year, with secured premises, a qualifying year abroad spent specifically in managerial or executive work, and an operation able to support a primarily managerial or executive role within that year all still to prove; a new-office L-1B instead has to show the ability to pay the wage and commence trading. The practical divider is duration and intent: L-1A ends at seven years and L-1B at five, whereas E-2 may be extended repeatedly while the enterprise qualifies yet confers no path to permanent residence and requires an intention to depart when the status ends. Neither approval permits work for anyone but the sponsoring entity.
What else is on your mind?
Does being a business owner or director qualify me for L-1A?What employment history should an L-1 transfer review cover?What makes a new-office L-1A case different?How should an owner compare L-1 and E-2?Editorial source review: 2026-09-08. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.