When you are applying for a business-related visa, you’ll need a business plan that will serve as proof that the startup you wish to launch or acquire is realistic and sustainable.
The business plan should be able to prove that your business would create jobs while making capital investments to improve the US economy.
You might have a hard time securing a business or even an employment visa if you don’t have a comprehensive business plan and a good U.S immigration lawyer would inform you of this fact on time.
Getting a business and employment-related visa on its own can be challenging, especially when you don’t have the help of an immigration application attorney.
Having a well-filled application with the perfect business plan and an immigration lawyer are the three most essential elements in getting a business visa into the U.S.
You can get more information about the U.S immigrant visas on the American Immigration Lawyers Association, immihelp.com, and USCIS websites.
Why you need business plans when applying for a visa
The simple truth is that most US visa programs require a presentation of your business plans. The following are types of visa programs that need you to provide a business plan:
L-1 Visa
This visa document is for people who wish to enter the United States for the sole purpose of work. However, it is a non-immigrant visa as it is valid for only a short time- a maximum of three years.
The L-1 status is for employees whose companies have offices in the U.S and other countries. For employees to apply for a visa through this medium, they must have worked with the company for at least a year.
Also, the US office must be a parent, child, or sister company to the international company before the employee can apply for a relocation visa.
E-2 Investor Visa
This type of visa is only available to treaty nations such as Argentina, Austria, Australia, Armenia, and so on.
To be able to apply for the investor visa, you’ll need to have a substantial amount of funds or facility you hope to invest. And it must contribute significantly to the US economy.
The renewal period for the investor visa is once every year, and there is no limit to the renewal, which means you can keep renewing for 20 years if you wish.
B-1 Visa
This visa is for individuals hoping to enter the United States for temporary business purposes such as negotiating a business contract, attending a seminar, conference, convention, or business meetings.
E-1 Treaty Trader Visa
This visa is for individuals whose country maintain a bilateral trade agreement or a treaty of commerce and navigation with the United States. The treaty visa permits individuals to come into the US for trading purposes.
The EB-5 Visa
This visa is for the United States visa for immigrant investors. It was created by the immigration act in 1990 to help foreign investors in the US get a green card.
Individuals going for the visa must be willing to invest $500,000-$1,000,000 depending on the area they are targeting for relocation.
They must also prove that they would be able to create ten jobs for people leaving in the United States, and they are not inclusive in this number neither is their family member.
The visa program in itself is for job creation and to promote the growth of the U.S economy.
The business plan requirements for visa applicants
- The business plan should contain facts and figures that show the entrepreneur has made in-depth research of the industry and market he or she hopes to enter the United States.
- The plan must clearly show that the entrepreneur has the required experience, background, and skills needed to run a business.
- It must be professional and of top quality as those presented to top investors or banks.
- It should be comprehensive enough to explain everything about the business. You should be looking at 15-20 pages.
Features of your visa application business plan
As a standard business plan, the visa application business plan should feature the executive summary, business description, product/services description, market analysis, competitive analysis, organization structure, and a marketing strategy.
Executive summary
The executive summary discusses the motive behind starting a business and the long term plan of operating it.
The executive summary needs to be well articulated because it will prompt the banks and investors to read the full business plan and give you an affirmative reply.
Business description
The business description discusses the vision and goals of the company, along with the other aspects involved in making the business successful.
It introduces individuals and aspects of the business necessary for the smooth running such as team members, suppliers, and critical partners, products and services, uniqueness of your business, resources, target market, problems the company would solve, SWOT analysis, etc.
The description of the products and services includes its value proposition, which translates to the benefits it has over that of its competitors as well as room for improvements.
It also includes a SWOT analysis which takes into consideration the strengths and weakness as well as the business milestones-what it intends to achieve within a specific time frame.
Organization structure
Here you need to include your management structure such as the operational requirements for production, staffing, training plans, the channel of distribution for the products and services, and so on.
Market and competitive analysis
Every relevant information you’ve gathered about the industry and target market needs to be in this section.
It includes statistics and data about your key players in the market, target market, market trends, recent changes, future predictions, the rise or decline of the market, competing products and services, and your competitive advantage.
Your Franchisor and investors would be able to deduce from this section if you’ve carried out the necessary research about the industry you intend entering and its challenges.
Marketing strategy
You’ll need to articulate your marketing goals and strategy under this section. It involves reaching your target market through marketing, advertisement, and distribution channels.
Financial forecasting
The business plan should have a section for financial discussions and projections which should be able to predict the outcome of the business in terms of revenue generation and reduction of operational costs and other cash outflows.
Contact us for your immigration business plan
We will write a professional business plan in “Business English” while citing the rest of your application to ensure the information filled are consistent with those contained in the business plan.