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Check your readiness before you move.

Every item below is a statement about your launch. Mark it Ready (true today, with a named owner), In progress (someone owns it and is building it), or No owner (nobody is responsible for making it true). The goal is not to score all Ready; the goal is to know exactly which items are not, before movement turns them into expensive local problems.

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Founder Relocation Readiness Checklist.

0 of 27 answered.

1. Decision rights and authority

1a. A named person can make US decisions when you are unavailable or asleep in another time zone.
1b. The decisions that require your written approval before money, people, or customer promises move are defined in writing.
1c. The questions reserved for licensed professionals are listed, and your team knows what they are.
1d. An escalation path exists for anything urgent that happens during US business hours.

2. Entity, banking, and money

2a. The US entity question (type, state, ownership structure) is settled with professional input, not assumed.
2b. The US banking setup has an owner, and a fallback plan exists if account opening stalls.
2c. Who can sign, pay, and approve spending in the US is defined, with written limits.
2d. A US budget for the first year exists, and someone actively maintains it.

3. Employment and people

3a. The engagement model for the first US hires (direct payroll, contractors, or an employer of record, a service that employs staff on your behalf) is chosen, with professional advice behind the choice.
3b. Offer terms, benefits expectations, and employment policies are prepared for US norms rather than home-country norms.
3c. The first US employee's onboarding has an owner and prepared materials.
3d. For each key person who relocates, someone is named to take over the function they leave behind at headquarters.

4. Customers and promises

4a. Every US customer commitment that exists today, in writing or implied, is listed.
4b. Each commitment can be supported from the US, in US business hours: support, response times, escalation.
4c. Each US customer relationship has a named owner for when you are no longer in every conversation.
4d. A plan protects service quality during the transition months.

5. Providers and licensed professionals

5a. Named providers are in place for legal, tax, accounting, and immigration work, not just intentions to find them.
5b. Each provider knows the others exist and what the others are doing.
5c. One person prepares the questions for providers and tracks their open items week to week.
5d. The provider deliverables that block other work are identified and first in line.

6. Security, compliance, and information

6a. A US customer's security or compliance questionnaire could be answered today, and the answers have an owner.
6b. The data, contracts, or systems that must not move across borders, or must move only with professional guidance, are identified.
6c. Where trade-sanctions or export rules could apply to your business, licensed professionals have checked them.

7. The founder's own move (if relocation is planned)

7a. The immigration path is professionally advised, with realistic timing, before other commitments depend on it.
7b. What breaks at headquarters when you leave is known, and someone owns it from day one.
7c. Your personal decision deadline is set, and what must be true by that date is written down.
7d. If your relocation slips by six months, the US launch continues without you on the ground rather than stalling.

This is an operating checklist, not legal, tax, immigration, accounting, or investment advice; those questions belong to licensed professionals, and several items exist to make sure you have asked them.

Prefer a file? Download the checklist as markdown.