E-2 business plan sample and template: the structure that works

A complete E-2 plan generally runs nine sections. Each maps to something an officer needs to confirm.

• 1. Executive summary — the business, location, owner, investment amount, and the applicant’s role, in one page.
• 2. Business description — entity, formation date and state, ownership, products or services.
• 3. The location — premises, lease, and why the site fits the business.
• 4. Industry & market analysis — target customer, geography, sourced market-size estimate.
• 5. Competition — the real competitors and the position taken against them.
• 6. Marketing & sales strategy — how the business reaches customers and the budget behind it.
• 7. Management & personnel — the applicant’s control plus a staffing and hiring roadmap.
• 8. Financial projections — five years of revenue, costs, net income, and break-even.
• 9. Use of funds & investment summary — the total investment broken down by category, tied to source of funds.

Plenty of free E-2 samples float around online. The ones that hold up share three traits, and the ones that fail usually miss them.

• Internal consistency — the use-of-funds total equals the investment figure, and revenue assumptions match the staffing plan.
• Evidence behind every claim — market numbers are sourced; financial assumptions trace to comparables or the applicant’s own data.
• A visible path past marginality — the financials and hiring plan show more than a minimal living within five years.

A template gives you the structure; it must not give you the figures. Copying another business’s projections is the fastest way to a plan whose numbers do not reconcile with your evidence — exactly what adjudicators look for. Fill each section with your facts and let the financials follow from your actual investment and staffing.

This is where a generated plan helps: it keeps the proven structure, then computes the financials and use-of-funds from your inputs so the document stays internally consistent.