Russia is not on the E-2 treaty table, and neither are St Kitts, Malta or Cyprus. Which passports qualify, and the routes open without one.
Reviewed by Ekaterina Fitenko, Esq. — Florida Bar #1064536. With 20+ years of experience in the legal field, she advises Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking founders and investors in South Florida on business and investor immigration, in English and Russian.
The E-2 treaty investor visa requires nationality of a country that has a qualifying treaty of commerce and navigation with the United States, and Russia is not on that list. The Department of State publishes the list at Treaty Countries, and as of 3 September 2026 the Russian Federation does not appear in it.
The same answer shows up in a second, independent place, and it is worth knowing about because it settles arguments. Every nationality has a reciprocity schedule on travel.state.gov giving the fee, number of entries and validity period for each visa class. On the schedule for the Russian Federation, the rows for E-1 and E-2 read "No Treaty," with N/A for entries and N/A for validity. There is no fee to pay and no visa to issue, because the class does not exist for that nationality.
This is the part that decides whether the rest of the conversation is worth having, and it comes before any discussion of money. A Russian passport alone does not open E-2 at any investment level. The statute is INA 101(a)(15)(E)(ii), and the treaty is a condition of entering the category rather than one factor weighed against others — there is no waiver for it and no strength of business plan that substitutes for it.
The rest of the region is a different matter, and that is why this page exists. Ten post-Soviet states do hold E-2 treaty rights, several passports common in Russian-speaking families qualify, and the practical question for most of our clients is not how much to invest but which documents already exist in the household. That is where the work starts.
Ten post-Soviet countries appear on the Department of State treaty list with E-2 rights, and the list below was read off that page on 3 September 2026, with the dates the treaties entered into force. Do not act on this list from a blog, including ours: treaty relationships are added and suspended by governments, and the government table is the only version that is current on the day you file.
Absent from the table, alongside Russia, are Belarus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Their nationals have no E-2 route on that passport, and neither does a stateless applicant.
Three further passports come up constantly in Russian-speaking families and are on the table: Israel, whose E-2 treaty entered into force on 1 May 2019; Turkey, E-2 since 18 May 1990; and Germany, E-1 and E-2 since 14 July 1956. Poland has held both classes since 6 August 1994, Bulgaria E-2 since 2 June 1954, Romania E-2 since 15 January 1994, and Portugal E-1 and E-2 since 15 March 2024. A family that emigrated twice frequently holds one of these already and has never thought about what it does for a U.S. filing.
One caution about the old dates. A treaty entered into force in 1926 or 1954 sits on the list because it is still in force today; the date describes the treaty, not the strength of your case, and the category rules apply identically regardless of it.
A second passport helps only if that specific country is on the Department of State treaty table, and several of the passports sold most aggressively to Russian speakers are not on it. This is the single most expensive misunderstanding in this area, because the money is spent in a different country, years before the U.S. filing, on the strength of a brochure.
Read on 3 September 2026, the table shows E-2 rights for Grenada (in force 3 March 1989), Turkey (18 May 1990), Montenegro (listed with E-1 and E-2 under the former Yugoslavia treaty footnote) and Portugal (E-1 and E-2 from 15 March 2024). Those four are the ones that recur in investment-migration marketing and actually appear.
The following do not appear on the table at all, and therefore support no E-2 application: Saint Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Vanuatu, Malta, Cyprus and Hungary. Cyprus and Malta are worth naming twice, because Cypriot and Maltese documents are widespread among post-Soviet business families and are routinely assumed to carry EU-wide treaty rights. They do not — the treaty is between the United States and a single named state, and EU membership does not transfer another member's treaty.
One more trap sits inside the table itself. Some countries appear for E-1 only, not E-2. Greece is the example that matters here: it is on the list as a treaty trader country, with no E-2 row. Reading a country name on the page is not enough — read the classification column next to it.
The practical instruction is short. Before anyone pays a citizenship-by-investment program, a relocation consultant or a law firm, open the Department of State table, find the country by name, and confirm that the row next to it says E-2. That check takes a minute and it is the only version of this fact that is current.
If the applicant already holds a treaty-country passport, that is enough on the nationality point, and the Russian passport drops out of the E-2 analysis entirely. Under 8 CFR 214.2(e)(7), the nationality of an individual treaty investor is determined by the authorities of the foreign state of which the person is a national — so the question is answered by that country's citizenship law and its documents, not by where the applicant lives, where the business will be, or where the money originated.
Dual nationals then face a choice that is easy to get wrong. Under 9 FAM 402.9-4(B), a business seeking E status may have only one qualifying nationality, the sole exception being a business owned and controlled equally by nationals of two treaty countries. A dual national owner must choose which nationality the company will use, and that owner and every E visa employee of the company must hold themselves out as nationals of that single country for all E purposes involving that enterprise. One passport in the file and a different one at the border is how a straightforward case becomes a difficult one.
The choice is not always obvious, because the passport you choose also sets the visa validity you will live with, and it fixes the nationality that any E-2 employee you later send must share. A family holding both Israeli and Ukrainian documents has a real decision to make, and it is cheaper to make it before the ownership documents are signed than after.
There is one exclusion worth naming here. Under the same 9 FAM section, an investor who holds a treaty-country nationality but is also a U.S. lawful permanent resident does not qualify to bring in employees under INA 101(a)(15)(E), and shares owned by U.S. permanent residents cannot be counted in determining the nationality of the business. A green card holder in the cap table lowers the treaty-country percentage rather than raising it.
The U.S. enterprise itself must carry the nationality of the treaty country, and that is proved through ownership: at least 50 percent of the business must be owned by nationals of the treaty country who hold or would qualify for E status. The rule is at 8 CFR 214.2(e)(3)(ii) and is repeated in 9 FAM 402.9-6(F). Ownership is traced, in the words of 8 CFR 214.2(e)(7), as best as is practicable to the individuals who are ultimately its owners.
The country of incorporation is irrelevant. A Florida LLC is not American for E purposes and a Cyprus holding company is not Cypriot for E purposes; both are read through to the human beings behind them. This is where a structure built for tax or privacy reasons collides with immigration — a chain of holdings can be entirely lawful and still make the 50 percent showing impossible to document to a consular officer.
For a mixed-passport family this is the part to plan before the operating agreement is signed. If one spouse holds a Ukrainian or Kazakh passport and the other holds only a Russian one, the ownership share carrying the treaty nationality has to be at least half, and it has to be at least half on paper: the operating agreement, the membership ledger, the capitalization table. Intentions and family arrangements are not evidence of ownership.
The same percentage governs who else can be sent later. An employee of a treaty investor qualifies for E-2 only if the employee holds the same nationality as the principal alien employer, and only for executive or supervisory duties or duties requiring special qualifications essential to the enterprise — 8 CFR 214.2(e)(3). USCIS states plainly that knowledge of a foreign language and culture does not by itself amount to special qualifications, which disposes of the common plan to bring over a Russian-speaking manager on that basis alone.
Naturalizing in a treaty country is lawful, and it is slow. Residence requirements, language testing and physical-presence rules belong to that country's law rather than to U.S. immigration law, and the ordinary timelines run in years. For a family already living in Georgia, Kazakhstan, Israel or the European Union, this is a plan with a real end date. For someone who wants to open a business in Florida next spring, it is not a plan at all.
Descent is the version people overlook. A parent or grandparent born in what is now Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria or Germany may support a claim to that citizenship under the relevant country's law, and those are all treaty countries. That route runs through archives and a foreign consulate rather than through an investment, and it is worth checking before any money is committed anywhere.
Buying a citizenship is a separate decision with its own timeline and its own risks, and it is not our advice. Programs open, change price and close on political timetables, some passports attract additional scrutiny during visa processing, and a consular officer may ask how and when a nationality was acquired. If a client is weighing that route, it belongs with counsel qualified in that country's law — and the U.S. immigration question, meaning what the passport actually does for a filing, should be answered before the money moves rather than after.
The honest answer is that E-2 is closed, and the useful answer is that it was never the only investor route. Three alternatives come up most often, and none of them has a nationality requirement.
EB-5. The immigrant investor category leads to a green card rather than to a temporary status, and it has no treaty condition — a Russian passport is not an obstacle to it. For petitions filed on or after 15 March 2022 the minimum investment is $1,050,000, or $800,000 in a targeted employment area or infrastructure project, and the investment must create or preserve at least 10 full-time jobs for qualified U.S. workers. Those amounts adjust for inflation, with the first adjustment effective for petitions filed on or after 1 January 2027. The petition is Form I-526 for a standalone investor or Form I-526E through a regional center. Our EB-5 guide covers the mechanics.
L-1. An owner or executive of a real operating company abroad may be transferred to a related U.S. entity. There is no nationality requirement and no minimum investment; what is required is a genuine qualifying relationship between the two companies and a genuine job. It suits a founder with an existing business far better than a new-money investor, and it is filed on Form I-129.
Merit-based categories. For a founder or specialist whose record carries the case, O-1 and EB-2 with a national interest waiver ask about achievements rather than about capital or citizenship. They are a different kind of file entirely, and for many Russian-speaking professionals a more realistic one than any investor category. Our guide to U.S. immigration for Russian speakers sets the options side by side.
What none of these is: a workaround for E-2. They are different categories with different proof, and choosing between them starts from your facts rather than from the visa you first heard about.
Nationality keeps working after the case is approved, because the visa in the passport runs on reciprocity rather than on the merits of your business. Validity and the number of entries come from the Department of State reciprocity schedule for the applicant's nationality, and the spread is wide: read on 3 September 2026, an E-2 visa is issued to a national of Ukraine for multiple entries and 27 months, to a national of Kazakhstan for multiple entries and 12 months, and to a national of Israel for multiple entries and 24 months, in each case with no issuance fee.
Status and visa are two different clocks and people conflate them constantly. A treaty investor is admitted for an initial period of not more than two years under 8 CFR 214.2(e)(19)(i), extensions may be granted in increments of not more than two years under 8 CFR 214.2(e)(20), and there is no limit on the number of extensions. An expired visa does not end your status inside the country; it ends your ability to re-enter on it, which is why a 12-month visa and a two-year admission produce a very different travel life from a 27-month one.
For the family, nationality stops mattering entirely, and this is the answer many mixed families are looking for. Spouses and unmarried children under 21 may accompany or follow the principal, and 8 CFR 214.2(e)(4) says directly that their nationality is not material to their classification. A spouse holding only a Russian passport is a derivative of a Ukrainian- or Kazakh-passport investor without difficulty, and dependants are generally granted the same period of stay as the principal.
The spouse may also work. USCIS treats spouses of E-2 workers in valid E-2 or E-2S status as employment authorized incident to status, and since 30 January 2022 USCIS and CBP issue Forms I-94 with the E-2S admission code. An unexpired Form I-94 bearing that code is acceptable evidence of employment authorization under List C of Form I-9, so the spouse need not file Form I-765 and wait for a card before starting a job, though Form I-765 may still be filed with fee to obtain a physical card. Children in E-2 dependent status may study and are not work authorized.
Everything after nationality is about the business, and it is the same analysis for every treaty passport. There is no minimum dollar figure anywhere in the E-2 rules: under 8 CFR 214.2(e)(14) an investment is substantial when it is proportionate to the total cost of buying or creating that particular enterprise, sufficient to show financial commitment, and large enough to support the likelihood of successfully developing and directing it. Any number quoted as "the E-2 minimum" is marketing rather than law.
Two more requirements decide most refusals. Capital must be at risk in the commercial sense under 8 CFR 214.2(e)(12) — subject to partial or total loss, in the investor's possession and control, and irrevocably committed rather than sitting in an account. And the enterprise may not be marginal under 8 CFR 214.2(e)(15), meaning it may not be one whose only capacity is to provide a minimal living for the investor and the family; where the capacity is not there yet, it should generally be realizable within five years from the date normal business activity begins.
We have written those requirements up in full, with the proportionality test and the evidence each one takes, in our E-2 investor guide for Florida, and the route comparison — a consular application on Form DS-160 abroad against a change of status on Form I-129 inside the United States, which grants status but not a visa — is set out on our E-2 visa page. One detail there is stated backwards on a great many websites and is worth carrying away: under 9 FAM 402.9-6(A), E-2 investor applicants and their derivatives do not file Form DS-156E, while all E-2 essential employees and managers must file it together with the DS-160.
One thing E-2 is not, on any passport: a green card. It is a nonimmigrant status, and 8 CFR 214.2(e)(5) requires the holder to maintain an intention to depart when the status expires or terminates. There is no priority date and no number of years in E-2 that converts into permanent residence, although the same regulation says an E application may not be denied solely because a labor certification has been approved or an immigrant petition filed or approved for that person.
Our initial consultation is $200 for 30 minutes, paid before the meeting, and it is credited toward your fee if you retain the firm. It is conducted in English or Russian, by phone, by video, or at our office at 11555 Heron Bay Blvd, Suite 277, Coral Springs, FL 33076.
On an E-2 inquiry those 30 minutes run in a fixed order, and the order is the point. We establish which passports exist across the family, including expired ones and ones held by a spouse or a parent; we check each against the Department of State table rather than against memory; we look at the intended ownership structure against the 50 percent rule; and only then do we talk about the business and the money. If no treaty passport exists anywhere in the family, we say so in the first few minutes rather than building a package around it, and we spend the rest of the time on what your facts do support.
We quote a flat fee per stage for E-2 work, and the fee agreement states the scope in writing before any money is due. Government costs are separate and are not ours: the visa application fee at a consulate, or the USCIS fees on Form I-129 and Form I-539, plus translations and document retrieval. Confirm USCIS amounts on Form G-1055 on the day you file. We do not promise outcomes, and an office that promises you an E-2 approval before it has seen your passports is telling you something about itself.
To start, fill out the intake questionnaire at fitenkolaw.com/intake, call (305) 315-3425, or email fitenkolaw@gmail.com. Our second office at 600 Three Islands Boulevard, Hallandale Beach, FL 33009 receives clients by prior appointment only. If you would rather work in Russian from the first message, start from our Russian-language practice page; for the wider set of investor and business options, see our investor and business visa services.
No. The E-2 treaty investor category under INA 101(a)(15)(E)(ii) requires nationality of a country with a qualifying treaty of commerce and navigation with the United States, and as of 3 September 2026 the Russian Federation is not on the Department of State list of treaty countries. Its reciprocity schedule confirms the same thing from the other direction: the E-1 and E-2 rows read "No Treaty," with no fee, no number of entries and no validity period. The size of the investment does not change this, and there is no waiver of the treaty requirement.
Read on 3 September 2026, the Department of State table shows E-2 rights for Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine. Belarus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are not on it, and neither is Russia. Israel has held E-2 treaty rights since 1 May 2019 and Turkey since 18 May 1990, which matters for families holding those documents. Check the table on travel.state.gov before acting, because governments add and suspend treaty relationships.
Only Grenada, among the Caribbean investment programs, appears on the Department of State treaty table, with E-2 rights in force since 3 March 1989. Saint Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica and Saint Lucia are not on the table at all and support no E-2 application. Neither are Vanuatu, Malta or Cyprus — an EU passport does not carry another member state's treaty. Turkey (E-2 since 18 May 1990), Montenegro and Portugal (E-1 and E-2 since 15 March 2024) do appear. Verify the country and the classification column yourself before paying any program.
The treaty-country one, and you have to commit to it. Under 8 CFR 214.2(e)(7) an individual's nationality is determined by the authorities of the foreign state of which they are a national, and under 9 FAM 402.9-4(B) a business seeking E status may have only one qualifying nationality unless it is owned equally by nationals of two treaty countries. The owner and every E visa employee of that company must hold themselves out as nationals of that single country for all E purposes involving the enterprise, so the choice also fixes the visa validity you receive and the nationality any future E-2 employee must share.
EB-5 has no nationality requirement and leads to a green card rather than to a temporary status: for petitions filed on or after 15 March 2022 the minimum is $1,050,000, or $800,000 in a targeted employment area or infrastructure project, with at least 10 full-time jobs created or preserved, on Form I-526 or Form I-526E. L-1 suits an owner or executive of a real operating company abroad transferring to a related U.S. entity, with no nationality condition and no minimum investment. O-1 and EB-2 with a national interest waiver turn on a professional record rather than on capital. Which of these fits is decided by your facts, not by which visa you heard about first.
Yes. Under 8 CFR 214.2(e)(4) the nationality of a spouse or child of a treaty investor is not material to their classification, so a Russian-passport spouse of a Ukrainian- or Kazakh-passport investor is a derivative without difficulty. Spouses and unmarried children under 21 are generally granted the same period of stay as the principal. The spouse is employment authorized incident to status, evidenced by a Form I-94 with the E-2S admission code issued since 30 January 2022 and accepted under List C of Form I-9; children in dependent status may study but are not work authorized.
$200 for 30 minutes, in English or Russian, paid before the meeting and credited toward your fee if you retain the firm. Call (305) 315-3425 or email fitenkolaw@gmail.com to schedule.
This article is informational only and is not legal advice. Treaty country lists, reciprocity schedules, government fees and form editions change; confirm current information with the U.S. Department of State and USCIS before acting. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Fitenko Law PLLC, 11555 Heron Bay Blvd, Suite 277, Coral Springs, FL 33076 (main office); 600 Three Islands Boulevard, Hallandale Beach, FL 33009 (by appointment only). Phone: (305) 315-3425. Email: fitenkolaw@gmail.com