Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Explain actual executive direction
Identify direction of management of the organization or a major component or function, establishment of goals and policies, wide discretionary authority and the general oversight received. Executive status does not require freedom from all higher direction. Show what decisions the applicant actually makes rather than equating access to reports with control over the business.
Account for the operating work
Describe the managers and other resources responsible for daily activities at the units. Identify any routine work the applicant personally performs and assess the role as a whole. A schedule of branch visits can show where the executive travels without establishing the primarily executive nature of the work.
Document the qualifying organization and foreign year
Show the parent, subsidiary, affiliate or branch relationship and the required continuing business in the United States and another country. For an ordinary L-1A case, the required continuous full-time foreign-employment year within the relevant three-year period can be managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge work; the proposed U.S. role must satisfy the managerial or executive standard. Customer relationships are not automatically qualifying corporate relationships.
Distinguish a new location from the applicable new-office analysis
The new-office rule concerns a qualifying U.S. organization doing business for less than one year, not simply the date a particular lease was signed. Where L-1A new-office rules apply, show sufficient premises, qualifying foreign managerial/executive employment and support for the role within one year of approval. Initial new-office approval is limited to one year; ordinary individual initial approval may be up to three years, with a general seven-year L-1A maximum and applicable counting or exceptions. Owner or major-stockholder cases also need temporary U.S. services and subsequent foreign-assignment evidence.
Separate managing the function from performing it
A manager in the L-1A sense primarily manages the organisation, a department or an essential function, supervises other supervisory or professional employees or manages a function, and has authority over hiring and discipline or recommends it. The disputed point is almost never whether a foreign company exists; it is whether that company still provides goods or services on a regular, systematic and continuous basis. The strongest evidence that a role is primarily managerial or executive is documentary delegation: resolutions or written authorities granting hiring, spending and decision-making powers, organisational charts showing the functions and staff supervised, and records of decisions the beneficiary actually made. The petitioning entity and the foreign employer must stand as parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate, and affiliation through common ownership must be shown with the registers, shareholder agreements and any trust or holding arrangements that establish it. Managing people means directing subordinate supervisors or professional staff, with authority over hiring, firing and their day-to-day direction. A service-delivery director who sets staffing levels, approves client contracts, hires and disciplines engineers and controls the operating budget is managing an organization or function at a senior level. US days do not count toward the foreign year, although brief trips do not automatically interrupt continuity. 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.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.