IN THIS GUIDE · Test whether the promised management role can operate in practice
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Compare authority with the work left to the applicant
Hypothetical example: an agreement gives the transferee responsibility for a business unit while also requiring personal delivery of its recurring customer services. Identify the primary duties, decision authority and who performs routine work. A managerial label should not substitute for the role the applicant will actually perform.
Document delegation without inventing a staffing quota
Explain personnel responsibilities or a qualifying essential function and the operational support behind the role. A function manager primarily manages the function rather than personally performing it. There is no universal fixed employee count that resolves every case; assess the actual organization and level of responsibility.
Connect the promised role with qualifying history
Establish the qualifying corporate relationship, doing business and generally one continuous qualifying foreign employment year within the relevant preceding three years. Use genuine employment and ownership records. A newly signed U.S. contract cannot create missing qualifying foreign history.
Treat a new-office promise as a supported plan
A U.S. organization doing business for less than one year has distinct new-office requirements. L-1A requires sufficient premises, qualifying foreign managerial or executive employment and support for the intended U.S. managerial or executive role within one year of approval. Initial approval is limited to at most one year; later review concerns actual development.
Establish the qualifying foreign year and active organizations
The foreign employment generally must include one continuous full-time qualifying year within the relevant preceding three-year period, assessed on the individual facts. U.S. days do not count toward that foreign year; a trip should not automatically be treated as breaking continuity. The qualifying organization must do business in the United States and at least one other country during the relevant period, through regular, systematic and continuous provision of goods or services rather than registration alone. For an ordinary L petition, the qualifying foreign work may be managerial, executive or specialized knowledge; the U.S. duties must meet the requested classification. New-office L-1A specifically requires managerial or executive foreign employment.
Ask what the general manager will actually direct
Before any duty statement is drafted, confirm which entity employed the executive abroad, which entity will employ them in the United States, and how the two are connected as parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate. Managerial capacity means managing the organization, a department or a function, supervising professional or managerial staff or an essential function, having authority over hiring and firing, and exercising discretion over daily operations. Supervising professional employees supports a managerial showing, but a first-line supervisor of routine work does not qualify merely by holding a supervisory title. Provide an organization chart of the U.S. company from payroll, showing branch managers, an agronomist and an office manager reporting to the general manager. A president who sets the capital plan, approves grain contracts and hires the operations manager is describing executive work; the same person driving a truck in September and calling it executive is not. A managerial or executive position is a defined description rather than a level of seniority, so the redrawn chart should show what the person will actually direct: functions, subordinates or a component of the organisation. If an owner or major stockholder is involved, address the required temporary U.S. services and subsequent foreign assignment evidence. L-1A time is normally limited to a seven-year maximum, subject to applicable recapture rules, so a long-term staffing plan should not assume successive extensions solve every issue.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.