IN THIS GUIDE · Identify each manager’s genuine authority in a shared leadership proposal
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Distinguish the primary duties of the proposed managers
L-1A requires primarily managerial or executive U.S. duties. A function manager works at a senior level over an essential function and manages rather than principally performs its work. First-line supervision of nonprofessionals alone is insufficient. Explain real allocations of authority and operating support, not identical descriptions claiming every manager directs everything.
Establish each person’s foreign year
Generally a continuous full-time foreign year within the relevant preceding three years is required. Under the ordinary L rule, that capacity may be managerial, executive or specialized knowledge; the U.S. role is independently assessed. U.S. days do not count, although brief visits need not interrupt continuity. One employee’s history cannot supply the other’s required year.
Show the actual qualifying companies and operations
Ownership and control must establish a parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate relationship. The group must regularly, systematically and continuously do business in the United States and at least one other country during the stay. A joint leadership plan cannot replace genuine entity and business evidence.
Apply new-office and owner conditions individually
A U.S. organization doing business less than one year is a new office. L-1A specifically requires the foreign year managerial or executive, sufficient premises and support for the qualifying role within one year of approval; initial approval is capped at one year. An owner or major stockholder also needs temporary U.S. service and a subsequent foreign assignment. Explain the actual resources supporting each role.
Managerial or executive duties, not general operational involvement
Executive duties involve directing management, setting goals and policies, and exercising wide latitude in discretionary decision-making. The requirement contemplates the regular, systematic and continuous provision of goods or services, so a U.S. company incorporated last month with no premises, no capital and no activity does not satisfy it merely by existing. A director of golf operations who will direct a general manager, a superintendent and a food and beverage manager fits the first branch comfortably, and the organizational chart makes the argument. The first review should separate a governance title from the evidence of day-to-day authority: reporting lines, delegated approval limits, budgets, meeting records and the personnel performing operational tasks. Provide the organisation chart with the subordinates' own roles described, since a manager who supervises other professionals or supervisors is in a very different position from one whose team performs routine work. If nobody does, that is an honest finding and it changes the analysis: a transferee who will personally perform the function is not managing it, however senior the title on the door. The decisive choice is whether the documented structure supports managing a function or personnel rather than permanent hands-on production. Supervising professional employees supports a managerial showing, while a first-line supervisor of routine work does not qualify merely by holding a supervisory title, so the level of discretion genuinely exercised is the point rather than the position on a chart.
Ownership charts have to match the share registers
An L-1A transferee to an established US operation may be granted up to three years initially, with extensions to a maximum of seven years in that classification. The Canadian company and the U.S. subsidiary must be parent and subsidiary, branch, or affiliates under common ownership, shown by share registers and incorporation documents, and both must continue active operations for the whole period.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-08. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.