Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Describe the managed function and delivery
The applicant’s duties must be primarily managerial or executive. Identify the decisions, level of authority and who performs operations, including the provider’s actual role. First-line supervision of nonprofessional workers does not qualify merely through a title.
Complete the qualifying business evidence
Document one continuous year of qualifying employment abroad within the three years before the petition and a parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate relationship. Both the U.S. and foreign entities must be actively doing business; a vendor promise does not establish that condition. A new office needs sufficient premises and capacity to support primarily managerial or executive duties within one year, and initial approval is limited to one year. L-1A stay is capped at seven years.
Employment days and actual business activity
US days do not count toward the qualifying foreign employment year; a trip does not automatically break continuity. The qualifying organization must provide goods or services regularly, systematically and continuously in the United States and at least one other country. New-office treatment concerns actual US doing business for less than one year, rather than incorporation alone.
Hypothetical example: a quality manager over an agency-staffed packing line
Hypothetical example: a Central Saanich produce packer that grades and cold-stores berries for wholesale wants to run a packing line in the United States and proposes its quality-assurance manager for L-1A. The US plan sources fourteen line workers from a temporary staffing agency, and the first draft states that she will manage them. On its face that is first-line supervision of nonprofessional workers, which does not qualify by title alone, and the workers are the agency’s employees besides. The company changes what the role is, not only how it is described. The US entity will hire a line lead and a shift supervisor as its own employees; the agency workers report to those two; the quality manager sets grading standards and food-safety procedures, approves the agency contract and its weekly labour spend, decides shift patterns and volumes with the sales side, and holds authority to suspend shipments that fail inspection. Her days are spent on audits, supplier approvals and hiring decisions rather than on the line. The petition presents the agency agreement, the supervisors’ offer letters and her delegation of authority so that the chart and the contract say the same thing.
Which documents establish the managerial classification
The classification is decided by the staffing agreement, the offer letters for the two supervisors, the delegation of authority and the quality procedures that carry her signature. Together they show a tier between her and the line, and a function she controls at a senior level. The continuous qualifying year on the Canadian payroll within the three years before filing, the qualifying relationship between the two entities, continuing operations in both countries, and, for a new office, premises and the funded capacity to support a managerial role within one year remain required. Initial new-office approval is one year; total L-1A time is capped at seven years.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.