The sale is a funding event; conditional residence begins through the applicable immigration process.
Keep the investment and residence dates distinct
Track actual visa admission or adjustment and the I-829 window before the second anniversary. Neither liquidation nor petition filing alone begins residence, authorizes work or guarantees repayment after two years.
Anchor the residence calendar to immigration events, not the portfolio transaction. First trace the securities’ lawful acquisition, sale and transfers, then determine whether the investment is regional-center based, requiring Form I-526E, or direct, requiring Form I-526. For an infrastructure project or a project in a targeted employment area, capital is US$800,000; otherwise the standard is US$1,050,000. Job creation must still cover ten qualifying U.S. workers in full-time positions. Selling assets, wiring capital or petition filing does not begin conditional residence. That two-year period starts through immigrant-visa admission or adjustment, and Form I-829 must be filed within the 90-day period immediately preceding the second anniversary. Derivatives may include a spouse and unmarried children under 21.
Hypothetical example: A food photographer in Sainte-Catherine-de-Hatley sells a long-held securities portfolio in March and funds a regional-center subscription in April. She labels those as source-and-path dates, not residence milestones, and files I-526E when the record is ready. Her family keeps later admission or adjustment records because those govern conditional residence and I-829 planning. They also review the project’s ten-job method and her policy-participation rights before committing funds. Booking a two-year exit from the March sale would confuse liquidity planning with immigration status and could place the removal filing on the wrong calendar.