Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Assess the role’s primary duties
L-1A requires primarily managerial or executive work. Identify authority, staff or a managed function and who normally performs operations. A first-line supervisor of nonprofessional workers does not qualify by title alone. Temporary demands should be described accurately without assuming they decide the whole classification.
Support the transfer and launch
Prove the qualifying corporate relationship and continuous qualifying foreign employment year within the relevant three-year period. The qualifying group must continue US and foreign business. A new office needs sufficient premises and support for the qualifying managerial or executive role within one year; initial approval is limited to one year. A launch forecast needs credible operational support.
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 projects director who pulls the permits herself
Hypothetical example: a Saanich commercial-electrical contractor wins two US institutional projects and transfers its projects director to open a branch there. For the first four months she will personally pull permits, attend inspections and negotiate with the general contractor because nobody else has been hired. The petition describes this openly and pairs it with a dated plan: a site superintendent recruited by month three, an estimator by month five, two journeyman electricians through a local hiring hall by month six, and an administrator by month eight, each with a budget line already funded by the parent. Her primary duties over the year are set out as approving bids, hiring and releasing staff, signing subcontracts and setting margin targets. At the extension, the file will show offer letters, the state payroll register, the subcontracts she signed and an organization chart with names, so that the launch work reads as a temporary phase rather than the substance of the job. The parent company keeps operating in Canada throughout, which the group must show on both sides.
Read authority, payroll and subcontracts together
The classification is decided by three records read together: the delegation of authority showing what she can commit the company to, the payroll register showing who works under her and from when, and the subcontracts showing the operational work she directs rather than performs. A title on a business card decides nothing. A first-line supervisor of nonprofessional workers does not qualify by title alone, so the chart must show supervisors or professionals below her, or a function she manages at a senior level. L-1A time is capped at seven years in total; the launch year counts toward it.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.