<story><title>Visas for entrepreneurs</title><url>http://www.economist.com/node/21556636</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ahsanhilal</author><text>So I have gone through this problem personally and it is a HUGE pain. There are only two specified categories of business visas in which enterpreneurs could apply. One is E-2 Investment visa and the other is the EB-5. So as such there is no Entrepreneurship visa is the USA. For the visas above you need to show substantial investment in the US economy which could be anywhere between 50k to 100k for E-2, and over 500k for EB-5, depending on the business.&lt;p&gt;I got the E-2 visa based on my first company I started and by the time I applied we already had paying customers and orders. I expedited my application and the approval for E-2 came in exactly 15 days.&lt;p&gt;So its not undoable if you can muster up some money from outside the US. However, if you can only raise from inside the US you are hugely disadvantaged. The other hack to this would be to form a company and apply for an H-1 based on the company, which is hard to get. Once you are on H-1 you can apply for a green card after a certain time period (I think it is 5 years or so but not sure)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>btbuilder</author><text>You can apply for a green card at any time while on an H1B as it is a dual intent visa (i.e. they don&apos;t think its a problem if you tell them you want to stay permanently unlike E2). A shell company is highly unlikely to get an H1B petition approved&lt;p&gt;How quickly/successful you are with your GC application depends on whether you can qualify for EB2 or have to go through EB3. EB3 is backed up for years. EB2 is current (therefore around 12 months wait) if you are not from india and china but you need to have a masters or 5 years of provable experience (letters from previous employers) in an area that the petitioning company cannot find an American will the same skills.&lt;p&gt;The E-2 can be a bit of a trap IMHO. If your business fails or you sell it, you have to leave the US. This might seem reasonable until you consider someone might run a small company for years, build a family, settle, and then have to leave because of economic downturn or because they sell their company. I don&apos;t know how easy it would be for someone to move from owning/running a company under E-2 to H1B employee of a new owner.&lt;p&gt;tl;dr? There is no clear path from E-2 to green card.</text></comment>
<story><title>Visas for entrepreneurs</title><url>http://www.economist.com/node/21556636</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ahsanhilal</author><text>So I have gone through this problem personally and it is a HUGE pain. There are only two specified categories of business visas in which enterpreneurs could apply. One is E-2 Investment visa and the other is the EB-5. So as such there is no Entrepreneurship visa is the USA. For the visas above you need to show substantial investment in the US economy which could be anywhere between 50k to 100k for E-2, and over 500k for EB-5, depending on the business.&lt;p&gt;I got the E-2 visa based on my first company I started and by the time I applied we already had paying customers and orders. I expedited my application and the approval for E-2 came in exactly 15 days.&lt;p&gt;So its not undoable if you can muster up some money from outside the US. However, if you can only raise from inside the US you are hugely disadvantaged. The other hack to this would be to form a company and apply for an H-1 based on the company, which is hard to get. Once you are on H-1 you can apply for a green card after a certain time period (I think it is 5 years or so but not sure)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dm8</author><text>Could you please elaborate on how did you expedite your application and got your visa in 15 days (if you dont mind). I know couple of my friends who&apos;ll be looking for visa sometime soon hence asking.</text></comment>