Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Show how the foreign responsibilities will pass to the replacement
List the decisions and tasks now carried by the transferee, who will take each one and when the arrangement becomes effective. Keep an accepted appointment separate from a proposed name. Tie the handoff to actual contracts and activity: the qualifying group must continue regular, systematic and continuous business in the US and another country, not retain a foreign registration alone.
Establish employment and the corporate link before using the handoff plan
The transfer needs a qualifying organizational relationship and a continuous full-time foreign year within the relevant three years. Record US travel separately because those days do not count, although qualifying brief trips do not themselves break continuity. Ordinary L-1A can rely on foreign managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge service; new-office L-1A specifically requires managerial or executive foreign capacity for that year.
Describe the US job independently of the replacement abroad
The proposed US duties must be primarily managerial or executive, with real support for the underlying work. Identify authority, the team or essential function managed and who performs operations. Merely supervising nonprofessional workers at the first line does not establish qualifying management. A capable replacement abroad does not prove that the transferee’s different US job meets the test.
Identify launch dependencies that remain open
For US doing business of less than one year, sufficient premises and evidence that the operation will support the qualifying role within one year are required; the initial new-office period is capped at one year. Connect each staffing or premises dependency to a real arrangement. If the replacement declines, update the foreign handoff and its consequences rather than leaving the original announcement in use as current evidence.
Explain what the title means in that organization
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. A manager supervises and controls an organization, department, function, or component at a qualifying level; an executive directs major goals and policies with broad discretion. For a function-manager proposal, explain the essential function, senior-level responsibility and how others perform its routine work. Managing an essential function without staff reporting to you is recognized in principle, but the evidence must distinguish managing the function from personally performing its underlying work. A function-manager theory does not require inventing direct reports, but a person primarily doing the function’s operational work is not established as its manager by a strategic title. Doing business means the regular, systematic and continuous provision of goods or services, so a dormant American shell that has been holding land since the purchase will not satisfy it. 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. Owner or major-stockholder cases also need appropriate temporary-services and subsequent foreign-assignment evidence.
Ownership charts have to match the share registers
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. 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. L-1A status is generally subject to a seven-year maximum, so the review also needs the applicant’s prior L time and any recapture question; a senior title cannot answer either issue. Organization charts should identify subordinate supervisors or professionals, while job descriptions, calendars and examples of decisions should show how the applicant allocates resources and directs functions.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.