美国对外资的法律环境

娜塔莉·布热尼 00:01 

大家好。感谢各位参加本次关于美国外国直接投资的网络研讨会。我们将再等几秒钟，以便参会者完成连接。我知道许多人都已报名，这充分说明了大家对这一议题的高度关注。正如各位所知，美国一直是外国直接投资的最大接收国。过去二十年来，这一趋势愈发明显，而受疫情影响导致的美国劳动力短缺，更使这一趋势达到了前所未有的高度。 对于希望进入这一市场的企业和个人投资者而言，如今正面临着前所未有的机遇。值此激动人心的时刻，我将与我的两位杰出同事Akshat Divatia （Akshat Divatia ）Akshat Divatia 乔纳森·本奇（Jonathan Bench）——共同探讨外国企业和个人在建立美国业务时应考虑的一些关键问题。 具体而言，乔纳森作为本所经验最丰富的国际法律专家之一，同时也是公司业务组主席，将阐述在美国销售商品和服务的法律框架。此外，他还将讲解如何选择商业结构以及如何保护您的投资。随后，我们将请教阿克沙特——本所首席移民律师，他将概述美国移民体系，并重点介绍您应申请的各类签证。 我是娜塔莉·布热尼（Nathalie Bougenies）。 我是一名拥有国际背景的公司与监管事务律师，今天将担任本次讨论的主持人。同时，作为Harris Sliwoski公司业务部的负责人，我将随时解答各位关于该领域外商直接投资（FDI）的任何疑问。那么，让我们直入正题，开始本次对话。乔纳森，能否请您谈谈在协助客户建立美国业务据点时，您主要处理过哪些公司法律事务？ 

乔纳森·班奇 02:0202:02 

当然，我先简单介绍下最近合作过的客户背景。我称他们为最理想的客户，因为他们来找我们时对美国市场几乎毫无经验。因此他们视我们为真正值得信赖的顾问，帮助他们了解美国市场的运作模式。我常被问到的问题——部分内容会在幻灯片中展示——但最核心的问题始终是：我们该在哪里设立业务？ 

众所周知，作为企业主，这是一个极其复杂的问题。其答案同样错综复杂，因为美国拥有50个州，还有额外的属地或不同的法律体系。更重要的是，所有这些之上还叠加着联邦监管体系，因此整个体系可能令人望而生畏。许多国际人士都了解特拉华州，因为该州被称为商业友好型司法管辖区。 

在美国证券交易所上市的公众公司中，绝大多数都注册于特拉华州。而在美国境内寻求风险投资或私募股权融资的企业，最终也多会选择落户特拉华州。因为投资者清楚预期结果，董事会和管理层也明白 在治理层面的预期。这带来了极大的确定性。众所周知，商业环境——尤其是国际商业——需要建立在坚实的确定性基础上。当我们看到局势变化时，比如近期涌现的地缘政治问题，我们都清楚当前东欧乌克兰局势的发展。因此我们都在深入思考这些问题。 

我们并未亲历这些日常，因为我不在欧洲。但我清楚欧洲人身处欧洲，也知道他们正密切关注着那里的局势。中东有中东的问题，东南亚也有东南亚的困扰。因此这些地缘政治因素始终影响着美国——我们国内的情况相对稳定。 我注意到，有时国际友人希望从政治角度理解美国动态——正在发生什么、哪些法案将通过、美国立法进程如何推进——因为他们关注国际新闻中关于美国的报道。那么我们该如何定位？怀俄明州正取代特拉华州成为热门选择，因其免征州所得税。 该州极度亲商，人口规模极小（仅约50万），这种小规模催生了高效的政治决策力。若各位从事Web3业务、加密货币、NFT等领域，未来必将频繁听闻怀俄明州的名字。内华达州同样备受青睐——低税率政策与庞大人口基数形成双重优势。 它毗邻加州却不属于加州，形成独特混合体。曾有国际友人请我解释美国应对疫情的机制，我便以沿海州与内陆州、保守州与自由派州为框架进行说明。这需要有人能洞悉其中微妙差异，而这些差异又与您所从事的业务类型息息相关。 比如纳塔莉，我曾协助一位来自瑞士的客户进入美国市场，其业务涉及工业大麻。但即便在美国——2018年联邦层面已将工业大麻合法化——各州仍拥有自主实施权。因此从任何角度看，这都不是个简单明了的问题。 屏幕右下角我特意留白，因为企业主选择美国州份时需综合考量诸多因素：若来自西班牙或沙特阿拉伯，您可能需要拥有强大移民社群的地区——那里的人们能说您的语言，理解您的文化和价值观。 接下来这张幻灯片，我将展示美国的人口结构分布，因为这往往影响企业主决定在何处设立公司——既要招聘到合心意的员工，又要确保他们了解我们。 

那么，当我们试图在美国站稳脚跟时，该去哪里才能触达最理想的客户群体？通常，许多美国以外的公司 已经进入美国市场，因此拥有现成的客户群。这些客户群可能决定了他们在美国的落脚点。无论是寻求覆盖广阔消费市场、招募人才，还是靠近海运港口，这些因素都将影响决策。这张幻灯片是我本次演示中最喜欢的，因为我热爱地图，也痴迷人口统计学。 我尤其钟爱国际业务，正因如此才投身跨国商业。现在我们环顾地图，从左上角的加州开始：该州人口规模居全美之首，少数族裔语言使用群体同样庞大。如图所示，州内韩语、波斯语、亚美尼亚语、阿拉伯语等少数语言使用者均超过五万人。 西班牙裔群体庞大，华裔人口众多，菲律宾语使用者与越南语使用者数量可观。而那些我们视为同胞的群体虽属少数，但其规模足以被纳入统计——我特意将他们标注出来，正是希望无论身处世界何处的各位都能通过这张图确认：在美国五大主要人口群体中，哪些语言对应的社群可能与我们存在亲缘关系。 如图所示，西班牙语毫无疑问位居美国第二大语言。华裔群体及亚洲语言使用者众多，当然还有许多保留着母语、族群和文化的欧洲裔群体。根据你们所在地区能获取这些幻灯片的条件，现在不必强记这些内容。 但这确实为你们提供了契机，将商业需求与美国本土舒适的社群建立联系。 

现在，第二个问题是：我们该在哪里设立企业？在美国该设立什么类型的企业？左侧第一部分讨论的是直接进入模式。也就是说，要在美国开展业务，你可以从境外向美国销售产品，无需进行任何注册。 这并不意味着您无需申报美国税款——根据税收协定情况，您很可能仍需履行申报义务。稍后我会详细说明税收协定。但作为外国公司，我们确实存在"直接进入"模式：无需设立美国实体，即可直接注册开展美国业务。不过多数企业并不采用这种方式。 

Because you don’t get the US liability, you don’t get protection from the US liabilities. A lot of times when we set up a parent subsidiary structure, one, one company above the other. And we do that because we want to keep the risks, the risks from each of these companies separate from each other. That’s the same and especially true across international borders. So rather than doing a direct entry, most companies look at options two and three, which is do we form a corporation to form a limited liability company in the United States. Now this slide is a little bit busy, but I’ll try and break it down for you. Because there’s a lot of useful information here. As we go across the top, I talked about liability if you have a business, and really I have never met a foreigner who is not concerned about this. So every international company that is coming to the United States is concerned number one about US litigation. They know that the chances of getting sued is very strong, but they don’t want to expose their parent company at home and all of those assets to a US judge to the US legal system. So usually we do not advocate for direct entry. We’ll choose a C corporation or an LLC. Based on tax reasons, and I probably won’t go into the deep tax reasons here. But as a shortcut, if you’re a corporation, your corporation will pay the taxes in the US and then send the profits home. If you’re an LLC, then the parent company at home has to recognize all of those profits and deal with those. So it’s a, it’s very much a two edged sword, right, you have to decide which of those you’re more comfortable with. And I would say that 90%, maybe 95% of my international business clients choose to go with a C corporation rather than an LLC, because of the taxation liability. Now, the nice thing about United States are going down to minimum capital investment is that there is no minimum capital investment in the United States, you can set up a company for you don’t have to capitalize it, you can set it up. And other than paying your legal fees, and maybe your accounting fees initially, there, there is no other capital layout. So you can form a company in the United States for very, very cheap compared to other countries that have minimum capital requirements. On the third, the third row down for an ownership, whether you’re a C Corp or an LLC, you can have one 100% foreign ownership, there is no no requirement that you have any kind of domestic owners, or even domestic officers or domestic directors, so you can have all of your leadership, all your decision making back home, and just have employees in the United States. And that’s very appealing to a lot of companies, especially when they’re starting in the US. Now income tax is going to be paid no matter what, what I said, we’ll talk about tax treaty shortly. Because I have a nice amount though put together showing which countries have a tax treaty in place with the US. But as a shortcut, you will have to pay sales tax, which is the equivalent kind of a VAT tax in Europe, and other parts of the world. And you will have to pay income tax, you have to at least recognize the income tax. The next last item, the tax ID number, that is actually one of the hardest things is one of the longest pieces of this of this puzzle, one of the one of the law, this piece of the puzzle takes the longest to put in place, and they put it that way. And so if you’re a foreign company that has never come to the US before, and you need to get a tax ID number, which you will if you want to do banking in the United States, then the timeframe is stretched out. If someone comes to me and says I want to form an entity in the US, how long will it take, I can usually form it in a matter of days. But getting the tax ID number, it’s more complicated and often will take a matter of weeks, usually not months, but usually several weeks at least. I mentioned tax treaties. If you are watching this, and you see the name of your country on here, then then your nation has a tax treaty with the United States. There are not a lot of Middle Eastern countries here. A lot of Central Asia, I was surprised, I really am surprised every time I look at this list from the IRS, which countries we have treaties within which we don’t. And so as a workaround, you may want to think about forming an entity in an intermediary country. So if your country is not on this list, but your country is friendly with one of the countries that is on this list, then you may want to form a subsidiary in that country and then use that country as your springboard to get into the United States. Now, when we’re talking about investment, you may have heard about this in 2018, this group called CFIUS. That’s how this was pronounced CFI US. This is the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US. Cepheus became much more important. It had existed before there were laws in place to monitor foreign investment in the United States. But many people attribute this to China’s increasing role on the world stage. And so this Committee on Foreign Investment in the US was enhanced by the budget was increased the number of people on the committee and working for the committee in the Department of Treasury was increased. And the purpose of this is to monitor foreign investment into the United States. There are and it’s not just China focus. So I know that a lot of you who may be watching say, Well, you know, this is because of the US China trade war to see because the US doesn’t agree with the way that China is doing business around the world. And because of China’s increasingly belligerent standpoint with the US. But I mean, I would say that’s absolutely true. Right? There’s certainly no question about that. But at the same time, the US is generally concerned about making sure that foreign investments that come to the United States are not are not causing us companies to deliver intellectual property, any other trade secrets when they shouldn’t, too and not just to China to other countries too. So you’ll be a little shocked when I show you the safe harbor country list, but that’ll be coming up so if you are in really, when you’re coming to the United States, you’re going to do this one of two ways, you’re either going to acquire a target or invest in a target company that already exists in the United States, I’m actually working on one of these right now with a company from Europe that is looking to acquire a certain type of manufacturer in the US. So you can do that by direct acquisition investment, or you can do a greenfield investment. And so I want to focus first on and buy greenfields investment, if you’re not familiar with that. That is where you bring your own capital, your own intellectual property, your everything into the United States, and you’re not relying on any competitors in the United States as a step up to get into the US market. So if you are a foreign company in the United looking to invest in the United States, this can include real estate, and then this can include any kind of controlling or non controlling interest, so any monetary investment into any kind of company in the US, it may need to be reported to this committee for review. Now, these by way of controlling interest we’re talking about could be a stock purchase, or an asset purchase or a merger, if it’s a non controlling interest that you’re purchasing that it’s, you know, even something as small as 1% interest may still need to be disclosed. Real estate matters when it’s nearby sensitive US real estate, so you can picture US government installations, military, anything like that. And, there are certainly, you know, airfields, their whole counties in the United States, where foreign investors cannot purchase real estate. And there’s a map, a very user friendly map that you can look at. And I can point you to that if you want to email me afterward, if you’re curious about where these locations are in the United States. Last thing is, even if your investment doesn’t result in you buying a controlling interest, but you get some extra perk in the investment, say that you’re a private equity or venture capital group, and you’re a limited partner. But as a limited partner, you’re able to put someone on the board of directors of a US company, or maybe you are able to enter into a management contract so that you can provide services to this company, that may also need to be disclosed. So the rule of thumb is, if you are looking to invest in the United States, talk to a lawyer who is familiar with these CFIUS requirements. And then we can decide whether or not you need to do that. And just in the last year and a half, I have helped an Indian company and a Chinese company go through this analysis. One of them we had to submit to the CFIUS and one we did not. So industries matter when the committee is looking at the type of investment you want to make if your business is in critical US critical technology, critical infrastructure, and sensitive personal data. And I’ve given some examples here. So under critical technology, and there are lists for all of these, okay, so you don’t have to worry about memorizing it. But the list is quite extensive, as far as what the US government considers its critical technology, critical infrastructure, and sensitive personal data. So under critical technology, it could be something like wireless communications. And these are all actual examples, by the way. So I wanted to include this because this is not just China focus. This first example was a Singapore company. So wireless communications. Semiconductors, of course, we know are very hot right now, especially since COVID, has impacted the semiconductor supply chain quite a bit. Under critical infrastructure, think of this as the underlying communications infrastructure in the United States. So phone, internet, satellite, anything else that gets developed beyond that. And then personal data is things like health care information, sexual preference. So this is Grindr was a social networking app, and also a hotel software because the US government did not want this was a Chinese company that was looking to acquire company in the US did not want the this Chinese company that access to all the data about where people were coming and going, when they were staying in various hotels. So the ultimate question is, if we’re looking to come to the US, I know what I want to do I want to acquire a target of event identified a good company, do I need to declare this investment ahead of time, and the way this law is set up? Either you figure out the best case scenario is before when you’re in the LOI stage, when you’re just sending NDAs back and forth. You’re just having initial conversations, that’s the best time to call your lawyer to find out if this is the type of transaction that needs to be declared as my investment in a US company need to be declared because that will push the timeframe for the investment now, and I know business owners want to move quickly. And so this is not optimal. But but it is entirely possible that when you decide when you find a company that you want to hire, or you want to buy, or want to invest in, that you will be able to call your lawyer get an answer in a week and then you will know either yes, we have to extend the closing by 30 or 45 days or maybe longer. Or no, we think we’re in a safe space, we should need to declare this. And so that’s the analysis you need to do initially. Then once you’ve decided whether or not you need to declare, if you’re going to declare, you can decide whether you want to do it on a declaration or a notice filing. And these are based on how important the businesses and really the size of the transaction as well. So the risks of not going through with this is that there is no limit to what CFIUS can do. So even if a transaction happens now, or happened five years ago, if it was not declared, If it was not approved by CFIUS and and CFIUS has a problem with it later, it can force the parties to unwind, it can inject itself into the process and say, well, now we need a separate management company to deal with this. So that the foreign company does not have access to certain technology or to certain management decisions. And the only safe company only safe harbor only safe countries from CFIUS perspective are Canada, UK, and Australia. And if you’re thinking about perhaps send your company in Spain, and you want to set up a UK subsidiary and UK subsidiary will do the investment. So you’ll be a safe harbor country, CFIUS is still going to look all the way back through all of the chain of companies until it gets to individuals, right. And so it will not approve the transaction until you get from through all of the company structure to the underlying beneficial owners. So as I mentioned, this last bullet point, the only safe harbor investments are Greenfield investments. So like I said earlier, where you take your money, your infrastructure, your intellectual property, and come to the United States, rent real estate, buy real estate, and set it up. That’s the safe harbor. So if you’re trying to decide between acquiring a company and doing a greenfield investment in the US this should factor into your analysis. I think I’ve got a couple minutes left to discuss this. And I think there are questions that are coming in too. So I’m happy to field questions at the end of this right after Akshat, let’s turn to speed because I want to make sure I give him enough time to speak. So final things to consider. There are always government incentives, when you’re trying to decide which US state to set up in. There are a lot of states in the central corridor, we call them the Midwest or the Upper Midwest or the West. Before you get to the coast, there are a lot of these states that are willing to offer pretty healthy government incentives, tax breaks, the kinds of things that US companies, when they’re looking abroad to try to decide where to do business, and the kinds of things that matter to them too. Right? Do you get tax breaks? Do you get tax breaks for employee costs? Do you get subsidized real estate? Can you situate in a place where the real estate will be very, very cheap or free for a little while there are all of these options. And so if you are a sizable company, if you have a pretty good brand already in your home country and you want to come to the United States, it’s very good to get connected to each state will have an economic development office and often an office focused on international trade, you will want to connect with with the people in the state. And they will be able to tell you all about all the government settings that are available to you as a foreign company coming to the United States. Second point down here, your employees, your employees matter if you and I run into this quite a bit with companies that are in the US and outside. Many companies before they hire employees, we’ll hire independent contractors and independent contractors are okay in the United States. But there are a lot of criteria that you need to fit for someone to be considered an independent contractor versus an employee. And so if you misclassify someone who should be an employee as an independent contractor, that can be very problematic for the employee, but especially for you as the employer. So it’s often something that you can fix. It’s not something that you need to stress about, but it is something that you need to pay attention to. If you have people and especially if it’s a single individual and not a company that you’re contracting with, to provide services in the US, then often you will need to treat these people as employees and and do your filing set up the right way. 

在美国雇佣员工时，将涉及代扣税款、缴纳雇佣保险等一系列义务。 美国基础设施是第三个关键点。若您是依赖互联网的服务型企业，可能需要选择拥有超高速网络的州或城市。若是商品生产型企业或制造企业，则需根据生产类型关注是否具备充足的员工基础和高素质劳动力。 同时，完善的基础设施能确保产品从生产基地顺利送达客户手中。因此基础设施考量至关重要。美国多数货物通过卡车运输，覆盖范围广但成本效益不高；铁路运输则更为高效，美国持续扩建铁路网络，包括连接沿海港口的铁路线。 此外还有众多自由贸易区。在港口附近，甚至内陆港口也设有自由贸易区，比如我所在的犹他州就设有此类区域。至于知识产权问题——这个话题足以展开一小时讨论——但您必须将知识产权保护置于首要位置，尤其当您计划将本土成功品牌引入美国市场时。目前我们正协助一家首次进军的俄罗斯企业推进此事。 将你们成功的本土品牌引入美国。目前我正协助一家首次进军美国的俄罗斯公司处理此事。我不确定他们在俄罗斯及其他地区使用的品牌能否在美国奏效。 所以请务必谨记：无论是处理商标事务，还是涉及专利等科技类知识产权，都需明确在美国市场将使用哪些资产？哪些资产需要转移至美国子公司持有？这些决策至关重要。 我常询问客户：贵公司未来五到十年的发展规划是什么？是否计划将进军美国作为更大战略的一部分，以便未来在美国公开市场上市并出售全部股权？是否打算公开上市？是否需要我们提供投资？这些问题都至关重要。对您而言是否都重要？是否应该... 咨询初期就该讨论的内容？当然，这可以是美国。 

娜塔莉·布吉尼 26:35 

太好了，乔纳森。是的，我觉得我们应该转到下一部分，重点讨论外国直接投资中的移民问题。不过在把发言权交给阿克沙特之前，我想提醒各位参会者：在演讲过程中，大家可以通过聊天框提交问题。 另外，大家可以访问幻灯片资料——侧边栏提供PDF版本供下载。那么阿克沙特，您能否先概述美国主要签证类型？并说明疫情是否影响签证处理流程？我之前提到过疫情，这个话题今天讨论应该很有意义。 

Akshat Divatia :26 

Yes, thank you very much, Natalie. It’s my pleasure to be here. Thanks, everybody, for joining. Let me start off by just mentioning who I am and what I do. I lead the immigration section here at Harris Sliwoski. I call myself a business attorney who helps employees and their families in their immigration and mobility needs. And, you know, what I’d like to do is, essentially, I’d like to kind of provide you with an overview of the, you know, what this presentation will be about? And I’ll get to your question, Nathalie, because I think it’s an excellent question. In some ways, I’ll mention, I’ll respond to it partially during my presentation. And then once I’m done with all of my slides, at that point, I think I can kind of give an overarching view of what the pandemic has meant. As far as, you know, the visa visa categories in the immigration system, we call it an alphabet soup of visas there from A to T. And you can think of them as being in two big buckets. The two biggest buckets are the family bucket and the business bucket in the family bucket, you have visas for fiance’s for immediate relatives, and these are parents, spouses and children under the age of 21. Of US citizens, you have victims of trafficking in crime. And then you also have visas for individuals from those countries that do not have a large history of immigration to the US. So those are diversity visas. Our focus today is going to be on the business visa. And I’ve lumped in the students and exchange visitors in the business category as well, because the way that they’re regulated by the immigration agencies is very similar to how a business would be regulated. So if a university is issuing I 20s to students to study in the US well, that university is going to be treated like a business entity and it will have regulatory criteria that it will need to comply with. From a structure perspective, I would say that, you know, this presentation rather than kind of list everything at you, I prefer to do it in the form of case study. And you know, the goal is that if you can see a real scenario, or real individual and his background and his family, and then look at different scenarios as to what he may be contemplating. I think it gives you a little bit more substance than just throwing the laws at you. Before I get started on that, I do want to talk about the visitor visa B-1, esta visits for business. And I get this question a lot, you know, can I come to the US as a visitor and start working? And the answer to that question is, is a categorical No. In the criteria for admission into the US, as it says here on the slide the residents in employment outside the US, so you have to have ties outside the US, the visit has to be specific, it has to be short term, while in the US, the visitor may not engage in any productive work. And certainly the fear there is that individuals will come in as visitors and supplant the jobs from US workers. And then lastly, you know, the foreign national, the B-1 visitor cannot get compensated from any entity in the United States Well, in the US as a visitor. So what is permitted? Well, essentially, you know, it involves negotiating contracts, meeting with business associates, you can participate in conferences and conventions, in meetings. And you can also invest, sorry, evaluate the potential investment opportunities, scope out office space for new investment, the idea being that you are, you know, here on a limited mission, doing things in furtherance of something in the future, where you will have visa status to be able to engage in activities. And I’ll just mention, you know, the, the, the mindset with which immigration authorities, whether it’s the US Consulate, or the port of entry, where the Customs and Border Protection determines whether a person can or cannot be admitted, the mindset that they use is that of a tailor from Hong Kong. And this is from a case in the 1950s, where the tailor was sent by a company in Hong Kong to take the measurements of its customers. The visit was appropriate for B-1 purposes, because this individual, this tailor was employed in Hong Kong, he was there for a very limited purpose, he was there to take measurements of the customers, once he got the measurements, he would fax that information over to the company in Hong Kong, the suits would be made in Hong Kong. So the productive work would not take place in the US it would take place in Hong Kong. And then the payment for those services would be made directly by the customers in the US to the company in Hong Kong. So even though that’s an old case, it’s often cited by the immigration authorities to say this is what is appropriate under B-1 rules. Okay, so now, let’s jump in and meet our case study. And this is an individual that that is made up is not real. But the profile very much fits many of the clients that I counseled and that I have worked on cases for. So I have tried to make this as real as possible. Let’s learn a little bit about Paolo. He’s 37 years old. He’s a citizen of Italy. He lives in Milan, he is married. His wife is a professional, she’s a microbiologist by training. And a couple has two children 10 And seven. His educational profile shows that he has both an undergraduate and a graduate degree. He has a technical undergraduate bachelor’s degree, and he has a master’s in management. Essentially, you know, making him both well versed in technical things and in management. And on the professional side, he’s been a software engineer for various companies in Europe over the last six years. And then specifically in the last five years. So a total of 11 years of experience in the last five years. He’s been a senior manager at a software company in Milan, and he has experience in you know, onshore and offshore projects and managing those projects. So what I’d like to do is kind of propose some scenarios. And I’ll talk about you know, what that would mean for Paolo and his family. So the first particular scenario is, let’s say that Paulo’s Italian company wants to open up a subsidiary in Austin, Texas. The company knows that the tech scene in Austin is a really good opportunity to enter and establish itself in the US market. It was followed by a transfer to the new office and then to help it grow by hiring local staff, engineers, sales staff, administrative staff to grow the company’s footprint in the US. And Paulo, of course, when he goes he’s open To the idea, but he’d also like his wife and children to accompany him. So in a situation like this, you know, it requires planning, and it requires some foresight. But the appropriate option here is an L-1, a intercompany transfer visa. This is a visa for essentially executives and multinational managers, the companies have to have a relationship. So the US company can be either the parent company, or the subsidiary, or it can be an affiliate where they have a common ownership. And I see the structure quite often, where you have a holding company in the Netherlands that owns both the European entity and the US entity. So that would make the Italian entity and the US entity affiliates for the purposes of L-1, the visa allows for the individual to stay in the US for up to seven years. And that’s broken down by initially one year if it’s a new office, which it will be in the case of Paolo, initially, the visa is granted for one year. 

签证可每两年延期一次，最长可延至七年。这种签证的一大优势在于，与访客签证、学生签证或交流访问者签证不同，它认可双重意图——即 申请人无需声明"我必定返回原籍国"、"不会长期居留美国"、"无意移民美国"等表态。通过承认双重意向，申请人实质上表明：目前以非移民身份在美国，但未来可能改变主意。 届时可申请永久居留权。其配偶子女同样享有此权利，通过L-1签证转换为绿卡的途径使他们也能获得绿卡。 作为非移民身份，配偶子女既可合法就学，亦可选择在美国工作。因此这是极具弹性且宽松的签证。现在假设另一种情况：保罗确实决定明年离开公司，但他尚未确定是留在欧洲还是赴美发展——他已收到西雅图某顶尖企业的录用通知。 该公司愿意等到明年他做出决定，而他的妻子和孩子不会立即随行，但待孩子完成学业后终将赴美。在这种特殊情况下，我认为最常见的选择是H1-B专业职业签证，这需要美国公司向美国公民及移民服务局为该专业职业工作者提交申请。 请注意，这并非保罗的公司，而是由一家大型成熟的美国企业向美国公民及移民服务局提交专业职业工作者申请。所谓专业职业，是指岗位本身要求拥有学士学位或更高学历，且申请人必须在提交申请时已持有该学位。 举例来说，假设某位博士学位持有者想来美国当汽车修理工。这种职位不符合H1-B要求，因为虽然申请人持有学士学位，但该职位无法证明全美所有机械师都具备学士学位或同等学历。这一点至关重要。 另一关键点是该签证设有抽签机制。作为极受欢迎的签证类别，每年仅能签发65,000份新签证。此外还有20,000个额外名额。 这些额外名额面向美国院校毕业且至少拥有硕士及以上学位的申请人，但比洛不符合条件——他的学士和硕士学位均来自欧洲（意大利）。因此他将与其他65,000名申请人共同参与抽签。事实上，该签证需求量通常是供应量的三到四倍，完全是抽签决定。 具体流程是：雇主通过电子系统提交申请，所有申请将进入抽签池。若申请者中签，雇主需在三个月内提交正式申请。一旦获得H1-B身份，持有人最多可累计持有六年，每次有效期为三年。 。首次H1-B有效期为三年，后续可续签三年。获得H1-B身份后，个人在美国可无限次更换雇主。理论上可持有100份H1-B签证，但实际使用通常以六年为限。 在六年有效期内，保罗可能多次更换雇主，且每次更换都不会重新计入抽签名额——他仅需计入一次，此后便不受该名额限制。 

与旧政策类似，H1-B签证承认双重意图——即雇主最常使用的手段是测试劳动力市场并进行劳工认证，这实质上为个人获取绿卡铺平了道路。因此双重意图是被允许的。但不同于L1签证，H1签证持有者的配偶和子女可获得H4签证。 通常像保罗这样的人，在美国无法获得任何工作许可。 存在一个极其有限的例外：出生于印度和中国的申请人。由于移民配额限制导致这些国家的积压申请数量庞大，印度和中国籍H1-B签证持有者的配偶及子女未来可获得工作许可，具体取决于其绿卡申请流程的推进进度。关于这部分内容还有很多可探讨，但暂且到此为止。 若各位有疑问，欢迎会后交流，或待本次演讲结束尚有时间时提出。好，现在转换话题。让我们谈谈帕布洛斯追随创业精神的经历。 假设他想离开现有公司，不愿为他人效力，而渴望投身硅谷创新核心——他计划创办自己的公司。他将与一位美国公民合作，该伙伴常驻美国且能承担初创成本。 在此架构下，保罗担任首席技术官，其友人担任首席执行官。即便友人不愿担任CEO，只要保罗保持至少50%的公司控制权，他就有资格申请我将在下一张幻灯片中介绍的签证。 简而言之，保罗希望来美投资创业并实现业务增长，同时他的家人也可随行。 好的，考虑到时间安排，我将快速说明E2签证的依据——这是基于美国与意大利之间的友好、通商及航海条约。许多国家都签署了此类条约，该签证要求外国投资者进行实质性投资，必须持有至少50%的股权。保罗需持有公司50%的股权，并负责公司的发展与管理。 这意味着他不能被动投资资金，必须积极参与企业运营，投资必须具有实际风险性。此外，配偶和子女有资格获得工作许可并在美国就读。 

因此这属于允许的类别。从这个意义上说。最后，请允许我补充，E2签证允许个人无限期延长其E2身份。但需满足E2签证的标准，即公司必须真实存在，且持有人必须持有至少50%的股权。 只要公司持续盈利，E2签证即可续签，但并无将E2身份自动转换为移民签证的机制。好，现在跳到国际企业家规则，我不会详细讲解，仅在此列出要点以便各位对照讲义。这是个相对较新的项目。 该计划最初于2017年提出，原定当时实施，但因诉讼和政治因素延迟至2021年5月才生效。该计划允许个人以较小金额投资或通过政府拨款/奖励在美国投资，从而获得签证。 但由于该计划不允许配偶和子女作为受抚养人自动获得资格，对保罗而言并非理想选择——他的妻子和子女都需独立申请获得资格。因此该方案虽适用于单身投资者，却无法满足保罗的需求。 现在快速分析第四种情况：假设保罗夫妇决定追随梦想投资酒庄，他们拿出毕生积蓄，在索诺玛谷找到一家潜力股酒庄。 他们计划全面参与经营管理，但日常运营将聘请专业团队负责。对他们而言，EB-5移民投资者签证是可行选项——或许有人听说过这个颇具争议的签证项目。幻灯片中提到的90万美元投资门槛 但后来由于诉讼，实际门槛金额已下调。目前门槛为50万美元，相当于五折优惠。他们可以投资于农村地区，就像乔纳森提到的，资金来源必须合法且可追溯至原始出处。 若资金源于他人赠予，则必须证明赠予者的身份及其资金来源渠道，这些信息对EB-5签证的签发至关重要。此外，投资后将获得有条件绿卡。 两年内若要解除条件，必须证明投资实体至少创造了10个全职美国就业岗位。以上就是对EB-5和E-2签证的简要说明。若有时间，欢迎继续提问，也期待线下交流。 

娜塔莉·布吉尼 47:28 

是的，我觉得这其实是个很好的过渡。我们收到了不少与会者的提问。既然我们正在讨论移民话题，让我问你一个移民相关的问题：从移民角度来看，哪些州对投资者或企业家更为公平、更有利？ 

Akshat Divatia :48 

是的，所以我的回答是，这个问题简短的答案是否定的。与乔纳森分享的情况不同，某些州在设立机制上确实为新公司提供了便利。但从移民角度来看，唯一的要求就是你的企业必须盈利。 因此在美国创办公司时，你必须确保企业具备成长空间、能吸纳人才、并能实现盈利。毕竟签证续签的最终决定权在于企业合法性——即便你提交了商业计划书， 虽然可能基于商业计划书获签，但续签时美国政府会对照计划核查实际运营情况，检验预设指标是否达成。这恰恰是探讨疫情影响的绝佳切入点。 在移民政策方面，那些原本规划成功盈利的企业，不得不推迟其美国扩张计划——疫情无疑削弱了他们招募人才、留住人才以及销售产品的能力。 因此在疫情彻底结束前，企业必须审慎评估选项、梳理需求，既要强化进军美国市场的能力，也要保持灵活应变。对吧？ 

娜塔莉·布热尼 49:28 

我认为距离本次网络研讨会结束还有10分钟，我们应该专注于回答问题。我提议采取企业问题与移民问题交替回答的方式。Jonathan，接下来请您回答这个问题：能否告诉我们在美国开设银行账户的难度如何？ 

乔纳森·班奇 49:48乔纳森长凳 49:48 

银行账户简直是我的噩梦。每当我试图向公司解释美国银行体系的运作方式——当然，您也知道，美国对银行设定了极其严格的反洗钱和合规门槛——这简直难如登天。所以我的意思是... 

我们发现，大型银行——比如摩根大通、美国银行这类国际巨头——只有在你与他们已有业务往来时才会关注你。而且他们必须确认，与你公司合作的合规门槛值得他们跨越。 因此，若你拥有可观存款、大额现金流，不妨尝试接触美国本土银行。另一选择是转向我称之为精品国际银行的小型机构——这类银行规模精悍（部分仅提供线上服务），却具备强大的调研能力，拥有海外合作伙伴网络，能高效完成反洗钱及了解客户合规调查。 我的经验是：大型银行除非你是金融巨头否则不会接纳；而美国多数地区性小型银行则因不了解你的业务而拒绝开户。 

他们不知道你的来历，在你的祖国也没有资源来了解你是谁。因此你必须找到那极少数愿意与海外公司合作的银行——这个范围极其有限。 另一关键在于银行流程耗时较长。记得我曾提到，国际公司获取美国税务识别号往往需要相当长时间，而新实体必须先取得税务识别号才能开设美国银行账户。这常成为公司注册中最耗时的环节，因此绝不应拖到最后一刻才处理。 

当然，如果你以为来美国一两周就能开展业务，那基本不可能实现。而银行业务将成为你面临的最大障碍。 

娜塔莉·布吉尼 51:53 

谢谢你的分享。其实我们收到一个问题，就是是否明智的做法是先以访客身份入境，然后再申请工作签证或投资签证？你对此有何看法？ 

Akshat Divatia :06 

是的，这也是个好问题。答案通常是否定的，虽然法律上或许可行，但实际操作中会遇到诸多障碍。 主要原因在于：当访客入境时未透露后续变更身份的意图，那么在当事人申请身份变更时，官员会审查其入境后不久的行为是否存在迹象——比如是否存在与入境口岸所示意图相悖的举动。 因此实际操作中，这导致官员会对案件进行严格审查，寻找 拒绝申请的依据。最关键的是，通过ESTA入境（即多数欧洲人适用的旅行许可）最多可停留90天。 若从需B-1签证的国家入境，则获准停留六个月。但前90天内，任何注册入学、创办公司、将子女送入幼儿园或托儿所等行为，都将被视作长期居留意图的证据。 这些行为即使未在90天内正式申请签证，仍能体现您的意图。移民官员可据此拒绝签证申请。因此更稳妥的做法是：短期赴美后按规程操作，在领事馆正式申请签证，再以允许工作的合法身份入境。嘿，谢谢你的分享，阿克沙特。 

娜塔莉·布热尼 53:49 

我们还有几分钟时间回答问题。乔纳森，下一个问题涉及其他服务提供商。除了律师之外，您能否列出外国客户为进入该市场应联系的服务提供商名单？ 

乔纳森·班奇 54:08乔纳森·班奇 54:08 

是的，每当我与国际公司合作时，我总会先询问他们是否拥有合作会计师事务所（CPA），即是否与具备国际业务经验、在美国设有办事处或熟悉美国法律的本土会计师事务所合作，或者他们是否理解母国与美国之间税收协定的影响。 随后我会要求他们立即安排我与该注册会计师对接，确保我们在美国搭建的架构既符合公司运营模式，又能满足实际需求。正如先前所言，我们可能需要在某个国家设立公司或通过中间国设立实体，再以此为跳板进入美国市场。因此会计师堪称企业主的最佳伙伴。 我认为企业主最需要的是会计师，律师则位居次席。此外，若涉及房地产收购或租赁，银行家总能提供帮助，但关键是要找到可靠的房地产中介机构。至于业务拓展—— 我的意思是，若贵公司拥有网络平台（如今多数企业都具备），就该联系精通美国商业运作的本土营销公司。若您从事...  电子商务业务，这将额外增加负担。即便您在本土经营得当，美国市场仍需采用不同模式——主要因50个州各自的税收政策，您需根据产品或服务销售地缴纳相应税款。最后，您可能需要 我们已涵盖营销、房地产领域，若尚未物色到合适员工，可能需要借助猎头公司寻找人才。 或者你可能只想确保首聘人员绝对合适，既能协助完成美国业务的技术布局，又能参与新员工的招聘与培训。因此需要整套专业团队。我还提到政府机构——若你明确目标地区，且有充分理由。 我曾接触过一家户外用品公司。他们将蒙大拿州视为理想落脚点，因为蒙大拿是西部地貌险峻的州，而州长也极力支持企业进驻。因此建议尽早对接各州国际贸易中心资源，或至少通过律师、会计师等专业人士建立联系——这些渠道都值得尝试，具体取决于您的商业模式定位。 

Akshat Divatia :42 

如果时间允许，我想补充乔纳森的观点：从移民角度看，公司资本化方式确实至关重要。从实体结构和设立角度，资本化要求可能非常低。但若要将员工调往美国，关键取决于你的经营诚意—— 若你没有餐厅，没有配套员工——比如副厨师长、洗碗工等——却想派大批行政总厨赴美，这显然不合逻辑。你需要先在美国建立实体运营，开展业务，再考虑调派人员。 所以那些打算长期经营的企业，都明白这才是真正的投资——必须投入这些资源。否则移民局很难相信贵公司有能力承担风险，批准为期一年的签证。 但关键在于承诺——你们必须证明：会投入资金、发展实体业务，最终能支付相应薪资，并展现出长期经营的决心。 

娜塔莉·布吉尼 57:56 

说到投资，我们还有时间回答最后一个问题。有位参会者想知道：是否可以先申请贷款再申请投资签证？ 

Akshat Divatia :05 

是的，这确实不是一个常见的问题。但在EB-5投资移民的语境下，这个问题经常被提及。从广义上讲，无论是E-2投资签证还是EB-5投资移民，原则上对可申请的贷款金额并无限制。 贷款本身并无限制。实际情况是，无论是领事馆还是美国公民及移民服务局的官员，都需确保贷款由投资者的个人资产担保，不能以企业资产担保——例如，不能以美国新公司名义申请贷款。 此外，资金必须与个人资产挂钩，若出现问题，个人需承担法律责任。 这正是多数个人选择贷款结构的原因——我们参与其中，就是要确保银行或任何贷款机构都认可必须以投资者个人资产作担保。因此贷款虽可行，但必须与个人资产挂钩。 

娜塔莉·布热尼 59:14 

好的，现在已经到预定时间，这意味着我们必须结束本次网络研讨会，但感谢各位的参与。在此提醒大家，本次研讨会的录播将在数日内发布于HBCanna Law Blog。若您想重温内容，或有兴趣观看却未能出席本次活动的朋友，请告知他们数日后即可观看。 好的，那么我们下次见。再见。 

乔纳森·班奇 59:41乔纳森·班奇 59:41 

再见，各位。 

Akshat Divatia :42 

再见。