Starting business on B1?

ingetje

New Member
Hello,

I have been reading this forum for a while now and this is my first post.

We want to start up a business in the USVI.
First we tought about getting our E2 visa here in Belgium and then open the business, wich would take a long time and a lot of money and frustration.

Now we heard that you can actually start up the business and everything on a B1 and do change of status to E2 (premium) in the US once the business is up and running with us employees already at work.

Can we apply for a B1 to search for a business or to set up a business? What do we tell the embassy?
We were also told that you can actually run your business but not really work in it, and get no income from it. This would be no problem for us for the first year. Are there certain things we can do as the owner of the business on B1? Hire people, watch the business...and what about training your personel?

Can you do the same with the VWP or do we really need a B1?
If one person gets the B1 can the partner go with him or would it be no problem to get a B1 for husband and wife?

Any info on this one is welcome, we would like to go as soon as we can and start up our business.

thanks again,
Inge
 
anyone can answer us?

since the post from Joef has been deleted no-one else has responded to our post...

I have read some more info on the web this week and from what I understand is that if you do a change of status in the US from B1 to E2 that you can not leave the country with a US- E2, if you do leave you still have to go trough the same thing and apply again for a E2 visa in your home country to be able to go back?? :confused:
Is this true, anyone more experience with this who can give us some good info?
Hope someone who done this before will be able to clear this up for us.
Thanks,
Inge
 
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