IN THIS GUIDE · Show who takes over the work when authority moves
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Build a responsibility handover
Hypothetical example: a company director proposes a US management assignment but still prepares estimates and resolves every service issue in Canada. Map those recurring activities to the people who will actually assume them. An organization chart with names is incomplete if the proposed manager continues to perform the underlying production work.
Document the qualifying management role
Explain whether the US assignment is primarily managerial or executive, including a qualifying function-manager theory where relevant. Identify decision authority, the function’s importance and the operational support. There is no universal headcount shortcut. First-line supervision of nonprofessional workers alone does not establish managerial capacity, and ownership by itself does not establish either qualifying role.
Keep the transfer foundations visible
Show the qualifying parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate relationship and regular, systematic and continuous business in the United States and another country through the qualifying organization. Establish one continuous full-time qualifying year abroad within the relevant three years; US days do not count, although qualifying brief visits need not interrupt continuity. For an owner or major stockholder, explain the temporary US services and subsequent assignment abroad. For an ordinary L-1A case, the qualifying foreign year may have been managerial, executive or specialized knowledge; the proposed US role must meet the managerial or executive standard. The new-office foreign-capacity rule below is narrower.
Test the first-year plan against the handover
For a US organization doing business for less than one year, new-office requirements apply. An L-1A new-office case needs sufficient secured premises, a foreign year in managerial or executive capacity and an operation able to support the US managerial or executive role within one year. Initial new-office approval cannot exceed one year. Connect the staffing and finances to the actual delegation sequence, not an unsupported promise that the director will eventually stop doing delivery work.
Managerial or executive duties, not general operational involvement
The executive definition looks at whether the person directs the management of the organisation or a major component of it, establishes goals and policies, exercises wide latitude in discretionary decision-making, and receives only general supervision from higher-level executives, the board or shareholders. A first-line supervisor of employees who are not professional, managerial or supervisory themselves is generally not treated as a manager for this purpose unless the employees supervised are professionals. A general manager who directs installation supervisors, approves bids, hires and disciplines staff, and sets the subsidiary's operating budget meets the definition. A function manager manages the essential function rather than principally executing it; a résumé summary cannot replace the real duties. 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. The petition should describe a role that manages other managers or an essential function of the enterprise, sets budgets and hiring, and has authority over policy. Counting heads is not the test, but a manager with no subordinate professionals or supervisors and a day spent doing installations personally is a technician with a title. Personnel management rests on supervising and controlling professional or supervisory staff; function management rests on managing an essential function at a senior level without necessarily supervising anyone.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-08. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.