Filing your E-2 visa at the U.S. Consulate General Melbourne

At most posts, booking an appointment is the action that starts things moving, so applicants reach for it early. Here it is the last step before the interview, and taking it out of turn is not possible rather than merely unhelpful.

The practical consequence is that there is no appointment date to work towards while you finish assembling evidence. The package has to be complete when it goes in.

After paying the visa fee you have three days to complete the "Applying for an E1/E2 Visa in Australia" form. The consulate then emails you instructions for submitting your supporting documents.

This is the one short deadline in the Australian process, and it runs from the payment date. Pay the fee when you are ready to complete the form, not when you first decide to apply.

The appointment scheduling request page will let you attach files. It is not where E-2 evidence belongs — the consulate emails separate submission instructions and expects the documents to follow those.

Australia publishes three separate requirement lists: E-1 new cases, E-2 new cases, and E-1 or E-2 applications from companies that already hold a registration. Check which one applies to you before assembling anything.

A company that applies and qualifies is registered automatically for five years. Applicants from a registered company work from the shorter requirement list rather than proving the enterprise again.

If your company already holds a registration, establishing that first is the single most useful thing you can do — it changes which list you are working from.

The published process is identical at both consulates general, and we score both a 2 for third-country nationals. That score describes willingness to schedule an appointment rather than any view on the merits of a case.

Choose on travel and on appointment availability. Nothing about how the case is read changes between them.

There is no single total. The MRV fee is fixed and published, and paying it starts the three-day form deadline. Preparation costs vary with the complexity of the enterprise; submission is electronic, so there is no printing or courier expense.

Check the current published MRV fee before you pay.

The document review comes before scheduling, so the published appointment wait describes only the middle of your timeline. The mission gives ten business days after the interview as normal processing.

Check the Department of State’s current published wait for this post rather than relying on a fixed estimate. Administrative processing, where it applies, sits outside all of it.

The E-2 is a nonimmigrant treaty investor visa open to nationals of countries holding a qualifying treaty of commerce with the United States, and Australia is one of those treaty countries. You must have invested, or be actively investing, a substantial amount of your own at-risk capital in a real and operating U.S. business that you will direct and develop.

The enterprise must be at least 50 percent owned by persons holding the treaty nationality, or controlled by a qualifying national. This turns on the ownership table rather than on the applicant.

Australian nationals also have access to the E-3 visa for specialty occupations. If you are taking up employment rather than investing your own capital, that is usually the more relevant route.