E-2 Visa Business Plan for a Mobile App or SaaS Company

Under 8 CFR 214.2(e)(15) and 9 FAM 402.9-4(B)(2), the E-2 investor must be coming to the United States to 'develop and direct' the enterprise. An enterprise from which the investor is an entirely absent owner collecting royalties or advertising revenue is not qualifying. Consular officers are trained to probe whether a software business truly requires the investor's day-to-day presence in the United States or whether it could be operated remotely from the treaty country.

The concern compounds when the business model relies on algorithmic or automated revenue—in-app advertising, app store purchases, or subscription renewals that occur without any active customer service transaction. Officers applying the passive investment framework from 9 FAM 402.9-4(B)(2) may characterize such streams as portfolio income rather than operating business income. The business plan must preemptively address each of these concerns with concrete operational facts.

The develop-and-direct standard requires the investor to hold at least fifty percent ownership (or operational control) and to direct enterprise policy on a day-to-day basis. For a mobile app or SaaS company, the business plan's management section must map specific operational duties to the investor personally—not to contracted developers or an overseas co-founder.

Qualifying functions typically include: leading product roadmap decisions, managing customer acquisition and marketing spend, overseeing contractor or employee relationships, negotiating enterprise licensing or distribution agreements, and directing customer support operations. A plan that describes the investor as 'overseeing' the product without specifics will not satisfy the standard. Each function should be described in terms of weekly time commitment and the business decisions it involves.

If the company has a co-founder or technical lead who performs significant operational work, the plan must still show that the E-2 investor is the ultimate decision-maker on enterprise policy, not merely one of several contributors. The investor need not write code, but the plan should explain what the investor contributes that could not simply be contracted out.

A common denial ground for app-based E-2 applications is that the enterprise's revenue is 'passive'—generated by the app running autonomously rather than by the investor's active labor. The business plan must rebut this characterization by showing that sustained revenue depends on ongoing, investor-directed activities.

Effective rebuttal strategies include: (1) documenting the product development pipeline—new features, platform updates, and regulatory compliance updates that require active management; (2) detailing the customer acquisition funnel, including paid advertising campaigns, app store optimization, and partnership outreach that the investor manages; (3) describing customer success or support workflows that require human oversight; and (4) explaining how the business would materially deteriorate without the investor's continued presence.

If the app generates a meaningful share of revenue from advertising or in-app purchases that occur passively, the plan should show that these streams are themselves the result of active marketing investment, platform relationship management, and iterative product decisions—not of an asset sitting undisturbed. Citing the volume of monthly decisions the investor makes to sustain and grow that revenue line helps ground the narrative in operational reality.

The marginality test under 9 FAM 402.9-4(B)(3) asks whether the enterprise will generate enough income beyond the investor's personal living expenses to have economic impact—or will create jobs for U.S. workers. Many app startups launch with one or two remote contractors and minimal current revenue. Meeting the test requires projecting credible growth.

For a mobile app or SaaS company, the five-year financial projection must show a trajectory from seed-stage revenue to a business that either employs U.S.-based workers (product managers, customer success representatives, salespeople, engineers) or generates income significantly exceeding the investor's personal needs. The projection must be supported by market size analysis, comparable company benchmarks, and a customer acquisition model with defensible conversion assumptions.

If the business currently operates on contractor arrangements rather than employees, the staffing plan should identify when full-time U.S. hires are expected and in what roles. USCIS adjudicators and consular officers both apply the marginality test at the time of application and prospectively, so the plan must show that the marginal nature of the business at inception is temporary and tied to a credible growth plan.

The E-2 qualifying investment must be 'at risk in the commercial sense'—committed to the enterprise and subject to loss if the business fails—under 8 CFR 214.2(e)(12). For a software business, the qualifying investment typically consists of amounts already spent or irrevocably committed, not anticipated future expenditures.

Qualifying pre-opening and startup investments for a mobile app or SaaS company include: software development costs (vendor invoices, contractor payments, platform licensing), cloud infrastructure deposits and prepaid subscriptions (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), UI/UX design and branding, legal fees for entity formation and IP protection, app store developer account fees, security audits, and marketing launch costs. Each item must be documented with invoices, bank transfer records, or contractor agreements.

The investment must come from the investor's personal funds or funds whose legitimate source the investor can document. Sweat equity—the value of the investor's own programming time—does not qualify as a monetary investment. See 9 FAM 402.9-4(B)(1). If the app was built by the investor personally over time, only out-of-pocket expenditures count toward the qualifying investment amount.

The financial projections section of a mobile app or SaaS business plan should include a monthly income statement for year one and annual statements for years two through five, a cash flow projection, and a balance sheet. For subscription businesses, the projection should break out monthly recurring revenue (MRR), annual recurring revenue (ARR), churn rate, and customer lifetime value—these are the metrics actual investors and lenders use to assess SaaS health, and their inclusion signals that the plan reflects genuine business thinking.

Revenue assumptions must be conservative and grounded in market data. If the plan projects 10,000 paying subscribers by year two, it should walk through the customer acquisition funnel: total addressable market, conversion rate from trial to paid, monthly churn, and the marketing spend required to sustain acquisition. Arbitrary hockey-stick projections without underlying assumptions are a common RFE trigger.

Cost projections should include cloud infrastructure scaling costs, payment processing fees, app store revenue shares (Apple and Google typically take 15–30 percent), customer acquisition costs by channel, and expected headcount costs as the business grows. The break-even analysis should identify the subscriber or revenue level at which the business covers its fixed and variable costs without further capital injection.

Many app and SaaS companies operate initially without traditional office-based employees. The staffing plan must address this honestly and frame it correctly. During the initial E-2 period, it is permissible for the company to rely on independent contractors, offshore development teams, or the investor's direct labor—provided the business plan explains why this is a startup-phase arrangement and identifies a credible path to U.S. hires.

For the marginality test at renewal (the initial E-2 is typically granted for two years at consulates), the staffing plan should identify specific roles expected to be filled by U.S. workers—customer success, sales, product management, marketing—and project hiring timelines tied to revenue milestones. Officers will assess whether the plan reflects genuine intent to build a U.S. workforce or is designed to maintain a one-person operation indefinitely.

If the business model inherently requires few employees—as many bootstrapped SaaS businesses do—the marginality test must be met primarily through income. The plan should show that projected income substantially exceeds the investor's reasonable living expenses, citing the economic activity generated through vendor payments, infrastructure spend, and tax contributions.

Describing the business model in technical terms without explaining the investor's operational role is the most common error. Officers are not software engineers; a plan that explains algorithms and APIs without explaining who manages the customer relationships, the marketing budget, and the product roadmap will not satisfy develop-and-direct.

Counting future planned development costs as qualifying investment is another frequent error. Only funds already spent or irrevocably committed—where the investor cannot recover the money if the visa is denied—count toward the investment. A plan that includes a $200,000 'budget' for app development to be spent later does not demonstrate that $200,000 is at risk today.

Using app store revenue figures from comparable apps as a revenue basis without adjusting for the specific product, market position, and customer acquisition budget of the applicant's business produces projections that officers immediately recognize as speculative. Market comparables belong in the market analysis; the financial model must derive revenue from the applicant's own customer acquisition mechanics.

Finally, failing to disclose that the app generates any passive or automated revenue creates credibility problems if the officer researches the product. Transparency about the revenue model—followed by a clear explanation of why that model requires active management—is more persuasive than a plan that strategically avoids discussing how the product makes money.