Your Irish Company is Expanding to the U.S. Here Is Where to Start with Visas

As CEO or managing director of an Irish company, you are preparing for a major move: entering the U.S. market. The commercial decision is made. The launch plan is moving. And now the visa question has become urgent.

You may be the person expected to relocate to the United States to establish the new subsidiary, open banking relationships, hire staff, and oversee the launch. Ireland has its own bilateral treaty relationship with the United States, separate from the UK’s arrangement, but that does not answer the practical question: which visa route is likely to fit your situation?

The challenge is working out how to get the right person, and often the family too, on the ground in the United States on a timeline that matches the business plan.

At a glance: If your Irish company is entering the U.S. market, the main visa routes usually considered are the E-2 Treaty Investor visa, the L-1A Intracompany Transferee visa, the L-1B Intracompany Transferee visa, and, in some cases, the H-1B Specialty Occupation visa. The right route depends on the ownership structure of the Irish and U.S. entities, the corporate relationship between them, the role of the person being moved, and the timeline.

The three situations where Irish companies need U.S. visas

1) You are setting up a U.S. entity for the first time

Your Irish company has no U.S. presence yet. This is one of the most common situations for Irish SMEs entering the U.S. market. Irish nationals apply for the E-2 under Ireland’s own bilateral investment treaty with the United States, concluded in 1992. This is separate from the UK’s arrangement.

Visa implication:

• The E-2 Treaty Investor visa is typically the primary route if the director is an Irish national who is investing in and will direct the U.S. enterprise.
• The L-1A Intracompany Transferee visa may also apply if the Irish parent company meets the qualifying relationship requirements with the new U.S. entity, but there are specific conditions around how long the U.S. office has been operating.

2) You are acquiring or investing in a U.S. business

Your Irish company is buying a U.S. business, taking a controlling stake, or making a substantial investment that requires the managing director or key executive to relocate.

Visa implication:

• The E-2 is the primary route for the investor-director. The key eligibility tests are Irish nationality of the investor, at least 50% ownership, or equivalent operational control, of the U.S. enterprise by Irish nationals, a substantial investment that is irrevocably committed and genuinely at risk, and a real, active, non-marginal business.
• For Irish companies structured as a designated activity company (DAC) or a company limited by shares (LTD), the ownership structure analysis for E-2 eligibility must trace through the Irish corporate structure to establish treaty-country nationality of the enterprise. This is not a standard exercise. It requires a lawyer who understands both Irish company structures and U.S. immigration law.

3) You are sending a specialist or senior employee to a U.S. project or office

Your Irish company already has a U.S. entity or a U.S. client, and you need to deploy a specific person, a technical engineer, a project manager, or a senior executive, to the United States for a defined assignment. This is common in Irish clean energy, packaging, pharmaceutical, and technology companies.

Visa implication:

• The L-1A (manager or executive) or L-1B (specialised knowledge) Intracompany Transferee visa applies where the Irish parent and U.S. entity have a qualifying corporate relationship and the employee has worked for the Irish company for at least one continuous year within the preceding three years.
• The H-1B Specialty Occupation visa may apply for professional roles requiring a specific degree, but it is subject to an annual cap and lottery.
• The O-1 Extraordinary Ability visa applies in narrower cases where the employee has demonstrated distinction in the field.

Irish companies often lack in-house immigration infrastructure and rely entirely on outside counsel for U.S. visa matters. That is normal, and it is one reason the first conversation with a U.S. immigration lawyer matters.

The five structural questions that determine your visa route:

1. Do you have a U.S. entity, and if so, what is its relationship to the Irish company?

If you have a U.S. subsidiary, branch, or affiliate, the corporate relationship between the Irish parent and the U.S. entity is the first thing a lawyer will assess. For L-1 intracompany transfers, the Irish and U.S. entities must have a qualifying relationship: parent-subsidiary, branch, or affiliate. For E-2, the U.S. enterprise must have treaty-country nationality, generally meaning at least 50% ownership by Irish nationals.

If you do not have a U.S. entity yet, that does not close the door, but it changes which routes are available and what needs to happen first. Some visa categories, particularly the E-2, can be used to send the founding director to the U.S. to establish the entity. The sequencing matters.

2. Who owns the Irish company and the U.S. entity?

Ownership structure is one of the most consequential facts in a U.S. visa assessment. For E-2 Treaty Investor visas, the U.S. enterprise must have treaty-country nationality, meaning at least 50% ownership by nationals of the treaty country, Ireland in this case. For L-1 transfers, the ownership relationship between the Irish and U.S. entities must meet specific qualifying tests.

This is not information most Irish CEOs have at their fingertips in the format a U.S. immigration lawyer will need. It is worth requesting a copy of the company’s share register, articles of association, and any shareholders’ agreement before the first consultation. If private equity or venture capital investors hold shares, their nationalities and ownership percentages will matter.

3. What will the person actually do in the U.S., and for how long?

U.S. immigration law classifies visas by the activities the person will perform, not by job title alone. A managing director setting up a new office is treated differently from a managing director attending quarterly board meetings. An engineer running a project on-site is treated differently from an engineer providing remote technical support.

The planned duration also matters. A six-month assignment and a permanent relocation involve different visa categories, different processing timelines, and different long-term considerations, including U.S. tax exposure, which is beyond immigration law but should be planned for at the same time.

4. What are the employee’s qualifications, work history, and nationality?

For H-1B petitions, the employee’s role must qualify as a specialty occupation, a role that typically requires at least a bachelor’s degree in a relevant field.

For O-1 petitions, the employee must demonstrate extraordinary ability or achievement in the specific field.

For L-1 petitions, the employee must have worked for the Irish entity for at least one continuous year within the preceding three years in a qualifying managerial, executive, or specialised knowledge role.

Nationality is also relevant. Irish nationals are eligible for the E-2 under Ireland’s treaty with the United States. But if the person you want to send is not an Irish national, for example, an EU national working for your Irish company, the person’s own nationality determines which visa routes are available.

5. What is your required U.S. start date?

Processing timelines vary significantly. E-2 visa applications for Irish nationals processed through the Dublin consulate or the London specialist E-visa unit can take several months. L-1 petitions filed with USCIS can be accelerated through premium processing, currently a 15-business-day adjudication for an additional government fee. H-1B cap-subject petitions have a fixed annual registration window, typically in March, followed by a lottery, with the earliest possible start date of 1 October.

If your business plan assumes someone will be on the ground in the United States by a specific date, the first thing a lawyer needs to tell you is whether that date is achievable under the available visa routes. If it is not, you need to know that before you commit resources.

What Irish CEOs get wrong about U.S. visas, and what that costs

Mistake 1: Assuming the visa is a formality

Many Irish CEOs treat the visa as an administrative step that will sort itself out once the commercial decision is made. It will not. U.S. immigration law is a regulatory process with specific eligibility requirements, evidentiary standards, and government adjudication timelines. A visa application can be denied. It can be delayed.

Mistake 2: Starting the visa process after setting the start date

An Irish company commits to a U.S. launch date, signs a lease, hires local staff, and then discovers that the visa timeline does not fit. This is the most common and most expensive timing mistake. Premium processing can accelerate some routes, but others, including H-1B cap-subject petitions, operate on fixed government calendars that cannot be moved. Check the visa timeline before you commit to a business timeline.

Mistake 3: Not understanding which treaty applies

Ireland’s E-2 eligibility is grounded in its own 1992 bilateral investment treaty with the United States. The UK’s E-1 and E-2 eligibility is grounded in a separate and much older instrument, the 1815 Convention between the United States and the United Kingdom, which applies only to nationals of the United Kingdom, not the wider Commonwealth, who are residing in the UK at the time of application. Irish nationals apply under the Irish treaty, and the Irish treaty has no equivalent UK-residence requirement. If the person you are sending holds dual Irish-UK nationality, there is a strategic decision about which nationality to apply under. If the person holds neither Irish nor UK nationality, different visa routes apply entirely.

Mistake 4: Ignoring the ownership structure analysis

For E-2 applications, the U.S. enterprise must have treaty-country nationality. That test looks at who owns the company. For Irish companies with multiple shareholders, private equity investors, or complex corporate structures such as holding companies or group structures, the ownership analysis is the part of the application that requires the most careful preparation. A lawyer cannot assess E-2 eligibility without understanding the full ownership chain.

Mistake 5: Treating immigration and U.S. entity setup as separate workstreams

Irish companies entering the U.S. frequently need U.S. immigration advice and U.S. entity formation guidance at the same time. The corporate structure you choose for your U.S. entity affects which visa routes are available. The visa route you pursue affects how the U.S. entity should be structured. These are not separate tracks. They are interdependent.

The 2026 policy landscape: what Irish companies need to know now

U.S. immigration policy in 2026 is in a period of significant change under the current administration. Processing times, fee structures, and enforcement priorities are all shifting.

For H-1B cases, employers should not assume older cost models still apply. USCIS now requires an additional $100,000 payment for certain new H-1B petitions filed on or after 21 September 2025, subject to exceptions, and cap-subject H-1B cases still operate on a fixed annual registration cycle.

The EB-5 Immigrant Investor programme is authorised through 30 September 2027 under the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022, which also introduced a separate grandfathering deadline of 30 September 2026 for investors who want their petitions guaranteed adjudication under RIA rules. There is no country-of-birth backlog for Irish nationals, making EB-5 a materially relevant option for Irish investors seeking U.S. permanent residency.

The bottom line for Irish companies is that the cost of getting it wrong on U.S. immigration has increased, and the value of getting it right has increased too.

What the first conversation with a U.S. immigration lawyer should cover

In the first consultation, the facts of the case are assessed against the available visa routes: which are open, which is most likely to succeed, what the timeline looks like, what the likely total cost is, and what next steps are indicated.

The more of the five structural questions listed earlier in this piece that the CEO can answer before the call, the more specific and useful the advice will be.

Not every case is straightforward. Sometimes the honest answer is that the preferred route carries more risk than the CEO had assumed. Sometimes a route they had not considered is the stronger option. Not every case can proceed. If the facts do not support a viable visa application, that is better to know before committing commercial resources to a plan built on the assumption that someone can be in the U.S. when they cannot.

Flynn Hodkinson provides regulated legal advice under U.S. state bar supervision. That distinction matters. The firm gives specific legal advice that can be relied upon, not general immigration consultancy.

Flynn Hodkinson can also connect clients with complementary professionals, including international tax advisers, U.S. entity formation specialists, and financial planners. That is directly relevant to the Irish CEO who needs answers across multiple workstreams at once.

What to do next

U.S. immigration for an Irish company entering the American market involves no single decision, but a series of steps. The answers to several structural questions about your company, your people, and your timeline will determine which visa route is available, how long that route will take, and what it will cost.

You do not need to understand U.S. immigration law in order to begin the process. You need to know your company’s facts and your employee’s facts. A U.S. immigration lawyer who understands Irish company structures and Irish treaty eligibility can do the rest.

This post is for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice. If you require further assistance or advice relating to the above, please contact janice@flynnhodkinson.com.