Skip to content
STONEHAM-ET-TEWKESBURY · E-2 FIELD GUIDE

Can a Stoneham-et-Tewkesbury couple qualify for E-2 by buying a rental-management company that owns no property?

Sources checked:

THE DIRECT ANSWER

Yes in principle. The enterprise is the management business itself, with its contracts, staff and systems; ownership of real estate is not required. The investment must still be substantial relative to that business, and the business must be real and non-marginal.

The contracts are the enterprise, so their strength is the case

A reviewer looks for a real, operating business, and a management company with fifteen owner contracts, a booking platform, three employees and a five-year track record is one. What the reviewer then asks is whether the couple's investment is substantial in proportion to the cost of acquiring and running it, and whether the business can support more than their own household. Because the assets are contracts, the durability of those contracts determines both answers.

If the owners are bound for multi-year terms with assignment permitted on sale, the purchase price is buying something that survives the change of hands. If the contracts are month to month, the couple is buying a relationship that could evaporate, and the file will need evidence of owner commitment, such as consent letters to the assignment. Treaty nationality is straightforward for two Canadian citizens, but a Canadian permanent resident with another passport would be assessed on that other nationality, not on Canadian residence.