E2 visa symbol meaning.

What E2 means in 22 CFR 41.12

Section 41.12 of Title 22 of the Code of Federal Regulations is titled “Classification symbols”. It opens: “A nonimmigrant visa issued to an applicant within one of the classes described in this section shall bear an appropriate visa symbol to show its classification. The symbol shall be inserted in the space provided on the visa.” Table 1 to that section then lists each symbol with its class and the section of law. The row for E2 is:

The statute behind the symbol

The “section of law” column points to the Immigration and Nationality Act as codified at 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15), the definition of “immigrant”, which lists the classes of nonimmigrant aliens by letter. The definition begins: “The term “immigrant” means every alien except an alien who is within one of the following classes of nonimmigrant aliens”. E2 is in the group below.

The opening words of subparagraph (E), which apply to all three of its clauses, read:

“an alien entitled to enter the United States under and in pursuance of the provisions of a treaty of commerce and navigation between the United States and the foreign state of which the alien is a national (or, in the case of an alien who acquired the relevant nationality through a financial investment and who has not previously been granted status under this subparagraph, the foreign state of which the alien is a national and in which the alien has been domiciled for a continuous period of not less than 3 years at any point before applying for a nonimmigrant visa under this subparagraph), and the spouse and children of any such alien if accompanying or following to join such alien;”

Source: 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15), INA 101(a)(15)(E)

Clause (ii), the one the E2 row cites, continues:

“solely to develop and direct the operations of an enterprise in which the alien has invested, or of an enterprise in which the alien is actively in the process of investing, a substantial amount of capital;”

Source: 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15), INA 101(a)(15)(E)(ii)

Reading the E2 row against its neighbours

E2 sits in a family of six rows in Table 1. E1 is Treaty Trader and E3 is the Australian specialty-occupation class; each cites its own clause of the same subparagraph, (E)(i) and (E)(iii). The E2C row, “Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Investor, Spouse or Child”, does not cite the INA at all. It cites “Section 6(c) of Public Law 94-241, as added by Section 702(a) of Public Law 110-229; 48 U.S.C. 1806(d)”.

The E2 class name ends with “Spouse or Child”. That wording follows the opening of the statute subparagraph, which extends the whole of (E) to “the spouse and children of any such alien if accompanying or following to join such alien”. The table does not use a separate symbol for E2 family members; the one class name covers the principal and the family.

The statute also contains a limit on how nationality is established for a person who acquired it through a financial investment. That limit is in the parenthesis in the opening text quoted above, and this page quotes it without interpreting it. How much capital counts as “substantial”, and what an application needs, are not in the table or the quoted clauses.

What this page does not tell you

A visa symbol is a label. Table 1 says what each class is called and where the classification comes from in law. It says nothing about who qualifies, what evidence is needed, how long anyone may stay, whether work is allowed or what an application costs. Those answers sit in other regulations and in agency guidance and they change, so use the lookup above to read the label and then take the question to the State Department’s visa pages (travel.state.gov, which blocked automated reading on November 2, 2026, so we have not cited its contents) or a licensed immigration attorney.

For other codes seen on immigration paperwork, see the EAD category code lookup, which covers a different code set, and the I-94 number format checker.

Sources

Sources opened and read November 2, 2026.

• eCFR: 22 CFR 41.12 Classification symbols, Table 1 (current text; last amended 2023-09-12 per the eCFR version history) (read November 2, 2026)
• eCFR renderer API, the same section as machine-readable text (read November 2, 2026)
• Cornell Legal Information Institute: 8 U.S.C. 1101, definitions, subsection (a)(15) (read November 2, 2026)