IN THIS GUIDE · Reconstruct the qualifying service around an employment leave
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Establish what happened during each period
Obtain the employer’s accurate account of active service, leave and return, together with appropriate contemporaneous records. Do not count an unresolved absence automatically as qualifying work or assume every leave necessarily destroys continuity. Apply the foreign-year rules to the established facts; U.S. days do not count toward the foreign year, although brief visits do not automatically break it.
Connect service to the proposed managerial assignment
L-1 requires a qualifying parent, subsidiary, affiliate or branch relationship, regular, systematic and continuous business in the United States and abroad, and a continuous full-time qualifying foreign year within the relevant three years. For ordinary L-1A, foreign work may be managerial, executive or specialized knowledge. The U.S. work must be primarily managerial or executive, supported by real authority and an explanation of who performs operational tasks.
Check whether the new-office conditions change the analysis
A U.S. organization doing business for less than one year is a new office. New-office L-1A specifically requires qualifying foreign managerial or executive employment, sufficient premises and support for the U.S. managerial or executive role within one year of approval. Initial approval is at most one year. An owner or major stockholder must also address temporary U.S. services and the subsequent assignment abroad.
Describe managerial or executive capacity by function
A manager may qualify by supervising and controlling the work of other supervisory, professional or managerial employees, or by managing an essential function of the organization at a senior level without direct supervision of staff. Explain whether the applicant directs people or a function, sets priorities and exercises relevant discretion, or mainly coordinates work decided by others. L-1A status is subject to a seven-year maximum, and a new office is normally approved initially for one year with evidence of secured premises and the capacity to support the role, after which continuation depends on what the branch has actually become. Describe the proposed role the same way: which functions it directs, which decisions it makes without approval, which budgets and personnel it controls, and how it sits within the organization. Exclude time spent in the US, while recognizing that qualifying brief trips do not themselves interrupt continuity. Executive duties involve directing management, establishing goals and policies and exercising wide latitude in decision-making. 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. Explain who performs operations and how the role will actually function; a planned promotion or senior title is not the entire test.
Link authority to the qualifying transfer
The qualifying relationship for an intracompany transfer may be parent and subsidiary, a branch, or an affiliate, and affiliation includes two entities owned and controlled by the same group of individuals in approximately the same proportion. A petition listing strategic responsibilities while the same person quotes jobs, supervises no one and personally performs the service invites the conclusion that the proposed role is not primarily managerial or executive. The definition also reaches someone who manages an essential function of the organisation, operates at a senior level within it, and has authority over that function rather than merely performing it.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-08. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.