Amounts actually committed to acquiring and operating the enterprise generally count. Costs of preparing the immigration case, such as legal fees and government charges, are expenses of the application rather than capital placed at risk in the business.
Separate the deal from the filing
The purchase price, equipment bought for the business, lease deposits, inventory, insurance and working capital transferred into the operating account are all part of the investment picture. Due diligence costs directly attributable to the acquisition are usually treated as part of the deal, and a professional adviser should confirm how each item is characterised. What does not belong in the investment column is the cost of the visa application itself: filing or processing charges under the published schedule, immigration legal fees, translation, and travel to an interview. Those are real and should be budgeted, but adding them to the investment total to reach a more comfortable figure misstates the case. Keep a schedule with two columns from the start of the transaction, because reconstructing the split months later is unpleasant and error-prone.
Hypothetical example: A mobile-imaging entrepreneur compares buying a used unit with leasing new equipment, and the two choices change the enterprise's total cost materially. The first review should produce a cost ledger that separates the investment itself from filing charges, legal work, lease deposits, insurance, licensing, and working capital. The controlling record is the full cost of the actual business selected, not a general E-2 minimum because none is fixed. Do not count funds twice by listing the same cash both as personal reserves and as committed capital. A lower-cost business may require a higher proportion of its total cost to be committed, so the payment structure needs review before money moves.