[profsummergig]

I realize this is complicated,

I didn't say you needed to be a US resident to register a company.

I said that most pre-GC work-permits (e.g. H1B) don't allow you to own a US-based business. If you're here on a work-permit, they (the govt.) expect you to be an employee of your sponsor, they don't want you to start a business.

To your point,

one can be an investor in a US company without having a US visa/residence/work-permit. Although, to open a business without living in the US, only a handful of states allow this (e.g., Delaware, Wyoming, Nevada).

However, once again, if you are in the US on a work-permit, you need to follow the rules of the work-permit. The rules applicable to non-citizens who are not living in the US on a work-permit may be different.

[ivewonyoung]

>I said that most pre-GC work-permits (e.g. H1B) don't allow you to own a US-based business

You can absolutely own a US-based business on a H1B, like you can buy shares in companies, it's just a 100% share. You just cannot work for your company without having an approved H1B from that business or having some other generalized work permit like an EAD.

[profsummergig]

I think that this might be the accurate take:

That you are not allowed to work for a business (even if you own it) without a work-permit to work for it.

[ylow]

Most tech startups will be Delaware. And a lot comes down to the definition of "own" which is ambiguous especially as a C-Corp. One may not be CEO, but can be a H1B Co-founder with a non-trivial (for some amount of non-trivial) number of shares. The O-1 far as I can tell allows for startups, and there may be other visa types which I am unaware of.

Really, I am just saying that the statement "you need a GC to own a business" is far too broad a claim to be true.