Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Connect resources to the US proposal
Identify actual commitments, premises, staffing and operational support. L-1A requires primarily managerial or executive duties; first-line supervision of nonprofessional workers does not qualify through a title alone. The proposed role should be supported by real resources rather than a group-wide headline figure.
Meet the transfer and new-office conditions
Establish the qualifying relationship and continuous qualifying foreign employment year within the relevant three-year period, with continuing US and foreign business. A new office needs sufficient premises and support for the qualifying L-1A role within one year; initial approval is limited to one year. Explain what funding is committed and what remains proposed. The qualifying relationship must be a parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate, both entities must remain active, and L-1A status 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 cidery’s distribution manager and a parent balance sheet
Hypothetical example: a Metchosin farm cidery owned sixty–forty by two siblings forms a US company to import and distribute its products and proposes to transfer the manager who runs its Canadian sales and distribution. The business plan opens with the parent’s consolidated balance sheet, on which orchard land, equipment and inventory add up to a reassuring figure. The reviewer’s first question is different: what has actually been committed to the US operation? Land in Canada cannot pay a US warehouse lease. The record that answers the question is an intercompany funding agreement or a capital-contribution resolution, the bank transfer that moved the money into the US account, the lease for storage and an office, and a first-year budget for at least one US employee under the transferee. Her role must be primarily managerial there: negotiating distributor contracts, setting pricing and directing a sales representative, rather than driving deliveries and stocking shelves herself while the US company finds its feet.
Which corporate structure decides the qualifying relationship
If the Canadian cidery itself owns the US company, the US entity is a subsidiary and the relationship is straightforward. If the siblings instead own the US company personally, it is an affiliate only when the same individuals own both companies in approximately the same proportions, with the same control; a sixty–forty Canadian company beside a fifty–fifty US company invites a request for evidence about whether the group is genuinely one. Decide the ownership before incorporating, and record it in share registers and articles rather than in a later explanation. The transferee also needs one continuous qualifying year with the Canadian company within the three years before filing, and both entities must keep doing business throughout the L-1 period.
Sequence the funding before the petition
Move the committed funds, sign the lease and appoint the first US hire before filing, because a new office is approved for one year and the extension turns on what was actually built. A spouse admitted in L-2 status may work incident to that status. Total L-1A time is capped at seven years, counting earlier L or H periods. A common sequencing error is filing while the transfer is still a line in the budget: the officer sees an approved allocation but no executed movement of money, and the first-year capacity of the office rests on a promise. Keep the consolidated statement in the file as context, but lead with the transfers, the lease and the hire, each dated, so the chronology reads as commitments made rather than resources available.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.