E-2 Business Plan

What an adjudicator is actually reading an E-2 business plan for — a real, operating business that is more than marginal — and why generic plans generate requests for evidence.

What the officer is reading for

The business plan is the document that carries the two hardest elements of an E-2 case: that the enterprise is real and operating, and that it is not marginal. A plan written for investors or a bank is not the same document.

An adjudicator is not evaluating whether the business is a good investment. They are checking whether the projections are internally consistent, whether the hiring commitments are credible, and whether the numbers reconcile against the industry.

This is why plans copied from templates fail. Projections that do not match the stated investment, or hiring that all lands in year five, read as aspirational rather than operational.

What the plan must contain

A specific description of the business, its location and its market
Detailed use of the invested capital, reconciled to the amount claimed
Five-year financial projections with stated assumptions
A hiring schedule with roles, timing and wages
Evidence supporting the market assumptions — comparable businesses, industry data
The applicant's role and the experience qualifying them to direct the enterprise

Addressing marginality directly

The most effective plans confront marginality explicitly rather than leaving the officer to infer it. That means near-term hiring proportionate to the investment, and a revenue trajectory that clearly exceeds what a family needs to live on.

Hiring commitments deferred to years four and five are the single most common weakness we see.