Read the general business expansion overview
A Stony Plain group’s new U.S. reporting operation may involve shared-service staff and work performed from several locations. Explain the actual physical premises and operating model instead of assuming that a remote-work policy removes the premises requirement.
Identify the organization and its history
Two things need establishing at the outset: how long the U.S. entity has been trading, and whether the structure behind it qualifies. New-office treatment applies where a qualifying U.S. organization has been doing business for under a year, and a recent lease or a recent registration is evidence about paperwork rather than about business activity. On structure, a qualifying corporate link is required — parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate — with business genuinely carried on in the United States and in at least one country outside it. The employee needs a continuous full-time qualifying year abroad with the group, within the three-year window before the petition is filed. Any of managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge work qualifies for that year; the American role is the one that must fit the classification sought. American days are excluded from the count, although short business visits nonetheless leave continuity intact.
Show how the proposed premises support the work
Then describe the premises that actually exist and the work that will happen in them. Identify the space secured, the term and the rent, the equipment installed, the people who will be based there, and the functions that will genuinely be performed elsewhere — by affiliated teams, by contractors, or from employees’ homes. No minimum floor area is prescribed anywhere, and inventing one is as unhelpful as offering a mail-forwarding address and calling it an office; the question is whether the space is sufficient for the operation proposed. Where staff work remotely, say so and explain what the premises are for, rather than leaving a reviewer to reconcile a lease against an operating model that appears not to use it. Hypothetical example: a Stony Plain firm opens a U.S. reporting operation in which two analysts work from home in different states while the applicant uses a small leased office for client meetings and secure document handling. That is a model that can be described and evidenced; what defeats it is a file presenting the lease as though the whole team sat inside it.
Apply the appropriate category-specific showing
Finally, make the showing that matches the classification requested. For L-1A the beneficiary must be coming primarily to manage or to act as an executive, and in a new office that adds three things: the qualifying year abroad must itself have been managerial or executive, the premises must be sufficient, and the petitioner must show the U.S. operation will be able to support that role within one year of approval. Initial new-office approval is granted for one year. Where the beneficiary owns or controls the petitioner, the file must also address the temporary nature of the U.S. services and the assignment abroad that follows. For L-1B the case rests on knowledge specific to this company’s product, process or procedures rather than general ability, again with sufficient premises and evidence that the petitioner can pay the beneficiary and commence operations. If any work will be performed at a client’s site, show that the beneficiary stays under the petitioner’s control and is not placed as labour for hire. Paying a lease establishes neither the role nor an entitlement to a longer initial period, and the overall limits — seven years in L-1A, five in L-1B — run from the beginning.
What else is on your mind?
Does being a business owner or director qualify me for L-1A?What employment history should an L-1 transfer review cover?What makes a new-office L-1A case different?Why does an L-2 spouse’s admission record matter for work?Editorial source review: 2026-09-08. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.
- USCIS — L classification documentation and evidence
- Department of State — 9 FAM 402.12
- USCIS — employment authorization for certain spouses
- ICE — nonimmigrant classes that may study
- USCIS — fee schedule
- L definitions, foreign employment and new-office evidence
- 8 USC 1184 — specialized knowledge definition
- L1B specialized knowledge and offsite placement statute