E-2 Visa Staffing Plan: What USCIS and Consular Officers Actually Want to See

The E-2 visa requires, among other things, that the enterprise not be marginal. Under 9 FAM 402.9-4(C), an enterprise is marginal if it generates, or has only a marginal capacity to generate, income providing more than a minimal living for the treaty investor and family. Job creation is the primary evidence that a business has real economic footprint beyond supporting the investor alone.

USCIS and DOS adjudicators are trained to look past aspirational language and directly at the numbers. If the financial model does not produce enough revenue to pay projected staff at market wages while also covering overhead and owner draw, the staffing plan will not be credible. The staffing section and the financial projections have to tell exactly the same story.

A defensible staffing plan has four components: a current headcount at the time of filing, a year-by-year hiring timeline tied to revenue milestones, job descriptions that list duties and required qualifications, and wage data sourced from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) or a comparable regional salary database.

Job descriptions matter more than most applicants expect. Each role should be distinct from the investor's own duties. If every employee listed would perform work the investor could do themselves, the plan looks like it is manufacturing headcount rather than documenting genuine operational need.

• Current employees (if any) with titles, wages, and hours
• Projected new hires per year for years 1-5, with start-month specificity
• Role titles, core duties, and whether positions are full-time or part-time
• Market wage benchmarks by role and geographic market
• Total payroll cost per year, reconciled to the financial projections

A common mistake is projecting aggressive hiring in year one before revenue supports it. Adjudicators read business plans regularly and are skeptical of a startup that claims it will employ ten people in month six. A conservative, milestone-linked approach is more credible: tie each new hire to a specific revenue threshold or contract event described elsewhere in the business plan.

For example, if the plan shows a restaurant reaching break-even at the end of month four, it is reasonable to show a second line cook hired in month five once cash flow stabilizes. That kind of sequencing shows the writer understands the business rather than filling a template.

Three-to-five year horizons are standard. USCIS does not expect certainty beyond that range, but the projections should be internally consistent. If revenue grows 40 percent in year three, the staffing model should reflect proportional labor demand, not a flat line.

Under 9 FAM 402.9-4(C)(2), a present inability to meet the non-marginality standard can be excused if the business plan provides clear and convincing evidence that the enterprise will generate significantly more income or jobs than needed to support the investor within five years. This is sometimes called the developmental enterprise exception.

To use this exception, the staffing plan must do real work. It needs to show not just that employees will be hired, but that those employees are U.S. workers, that their wages are at or above market rate, and that the jobs are not temporary or tied solely to the investor's presence. Seasonal or contractor-only workforces raise concerns that should be addressed directly in the narrative.

Franchise E-2 applications are a common context where staffing plans come under close review. A franchise business plan should reference the franchisor's standard unit economics, including typical employee counts and labor cost percentages for a unit of comparable size. This third-party benchmark makes the projections harder to dispute.

Service businesses that rely on independent contractors rather than W-2 employees face more scrutiny. 8 CFR 214.2(e) does not explicitly exclude contractor-based models, but adjudicators weigh direct employment more heavily when evaluating economic contribution. If the model is contractor-dependent, the plan should explain why, document contractor relationships with specificity, and supplement with other non-marginality evidence such as gross revenue projections and tax impact.

The staffing section is most effective when it includes both a narrative description and a table. The table should list each role, projected hire date, hours per week, hourly rate or annual salary, and BLS or comparable source citation. Narrative text then explains the operational rationale for each category of hire.

Avoid vague titles like "general staff" or "support personnel." Each position should have a specific title that maps to a Standard Occupational Classification code. This level of detail signals to the adjudicator that the projections are grounded in real labor market data rather than invented to satisfy a checklist.

• Use a table format with columns for role, start date, hours, wage, and wage source
• Cite BLS OEWS data with the specific SOC code and survey year
• Cross-reference each hire to the revenue model in the financials section
• Include an organizational chart if the business will have more than five employees
• If the investor is the sole operator initially, say so explicitly and explain the transition plan

After reviewing dozens of E-2 RFE notices, the most repeated staffing issues come down to a few patterns. Hiring projections that are not supported by the revenue model, wages listed below local minimum wage or well below BLS averages, and job descriptions that are one sentence long are the three most frequent triggers.

Another common issue is showing the investor performing all operational duties indefinitely. If the investor is listed as manager, chef, driver, and salesperson simultaneously in year three, adjudicators may question whether the business actually requires U.S. workers or whether the investor is simply self-employed in a marginally profitable role.