IN THIS GUIDE · Connect the new-office premises to the actual operating plan
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Explain what the premises will support
Hypothetical example: the company has selected space before finalizing who will work there and what activities it will house. Explain the actual intended use and the documents securing the premises. Do not assume that any address or lease automatically satisfies the relevant requirement. Hypothetical example: A maker of mold-remediation equipment reserves a small assembly unit, but the overseas director has not decided whether local contractors or employees will perform installation. The lease answers where work could occur; the staffing decision helps show whether the role can become managerial.
Describe authority over the new operation
Identify the applicant’s actual managerial or executive responsibilities, discretion and plans for support. Initial involvement in day-to-day work should be explained accurately. The operation must be intended to support the qualifying role within one year; no universal headcount or rent amount replaces that analysis. Draw a first-year responsibility chart showing which tasks remain with the transferee and which are assigned to employees, contractors, or service providers. The decisive choice is whether the documented structure supports managing a function or personnel rather than permanent hands-on production.
Prepare the foreign managerial or executive history
For an L-1A new office, the relevant foreign-employment evidence must address managerial or executive capacity as well as the applicable continuous-year period. Provide genuine duties, dates and entity records. Do not infer the requirement from ownership or a planned future title. Reconcile payroll, contemporaneous duty descriptions, reporting lines, and corporate records for the overseas year. A title used in marketing material is weak where those underlying records describe a different day-to-day capacity.
Plan for actual operations after approval
Initial new-office approval is generally limited to one year. Identify the records that would show the business operating and the role being supported. A completed premises transaction does not guarantee approval or a later extension; review changes in the operating plan before relying on earlier evidence. Preserve invoices, engagement records, staffing changes, and revised forecasts in dated order. At extension time, the question is not whether the original forecast sounded plausible, but whether the operation actually developed enough to support the claimed position.
Managing people and managing a function are different claims
A qualifying relationship means the two organizations stand as parent and subsidiary, as branch, or as affiliates, and both must be doing business — actively and regularly providing goods or services, not merely existing on a registry. 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. Managing people means directing subordinate supervisors or professional staff, with authority over hiring, firing and their day-to-day direction. An executive directs the management of the organisation or a major component of it, sets the goals and policies for that component, and answers only to broad supervision.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.