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BALDWIN · E-2 FIELD GUIDE

Should the investment budget include personal living expenses?

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THE DIRECT ANSWER

Keep household reserves separate from the qualifying business investment calculation. Available personal funds do not become committed enterprise capital merely by appearing in the same budget.

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Distinguish equipment, premises, operating commitments, personal living costs and professional or government charges. Substantiality and nonmarginality require their own assessment; there is no universal investment figure that guarantees them. Retain the actual terms behind every amount claimed as committed.

The valuable work here is judgement: reading the refund clause, deciding which payments count toward the committed total, and testing whether the revised plan still supports a non-marginal enterprise. Build a list: accounting review of the financials, a lawyer for the asset or share purchase agreement, a business plan written to a standard an adjudicator will read rather than a bank, immigration counsel, and post-closing working capital. Independent valuation and due diligence on a contracting business, legal work on the purchase agreement and the ownership structure, accounting review of the seller's records, and any environmental or licensing checks the trade requires are all real expenses incurred before the outcome is known. Replacement stock, deposits demanded by suppliers who do not yet know the new owner, and the working capital required until receivables begin arriving are three distinct requirements, and a lower purchase price funds none of them by itself.