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by jacobwal 2954 days ago
As others have said, there aren't any clear cut answers. Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, and you should ask a lawyer to be sure. At any rate, a few suggestions (assuming you're EU):

- You could enter on an ESTA, which gives you 90 days. If you leave the US (Can+Mex doesn't count) and come back, the counter re-sets. Note that you're not allowed to work on ESTA, which means that drawing a salary is a no no. But if you desperately wanted to, you could probably figure out how to get paid in your home country or whatever would work for you.

- E-2 visa. A lot of EU countries have a treaty with US which says that: if a company is A) majority (>50%) owned by people/groups from your home country and B) someone from the country (doesn't have to be you) has invested ~$50K-250K (equity, not debt) in the company, then the company can apply for an E-2 visa for their key employees. It takes 1-3 months to process from what I hear, and the investment is substantial, but it's at least one more route that is available.

If anyone has more info on the two above, please feel free to correct me - I feel like I learn new things about the E-2 every time I speak to a new lawyer.

1 comments

Approach 1 doesn't seem legal and I'm not sure if Yellow Incubator would agree to it.

Approach 2 doesn't make sense. It seems to be more work (time and money) than the likely benefit from joining this incubator.

Approach 1 doesn't give you a work permit. It's merely an explanation of how you can spend 90 days in the US as a EU citizen. But I don't think Yellow Incubator would dive that deep to see if you have the proper immigration papers.

Approach 2 makes sense for some. If you're just setting up a company to be in this incubator, then I 100% agree with you. But if you're working on something, and you think it'll have a better chance at succeeding if you're in the US, then it might very well make sense for you to get that kind of a visa. Many people (not involved with this incubator) do : )