Have the actual activities and existing immigration permission assessed. Do not assume all procurement-related travel has the same treatment or that a planned L transfer already authorizes employment.
Describe the activity before choosing the process
Identify whether the proposed trip involves discussions, ongoing operational duties or other work, and obtain review of the applicable requirements. A supplier deadline does not itself establish permission for the planned U.S. activity.
Recapture is arithmetic: days genuinely spent outside the United States during the L period do not consume the seven years, so careful travel records can return real months to an executive who has been crossing the border regularly. Premises have to be occupied rather than merely leased, the hiring plan has to produce actual employees, payroll has to run, and the operation has to trade. The person must have completed one continuous year with the related foreign organization during the preceding three years; L-1A stay is generally capped at seven years. The continuous year abroad and the qualifying relationship must already exist before the petition, and neither can be arranged retroactively. Companies that sign customer commitments for a facility opening on a date chosen before filing usually end up renegotiating them; a director with a cross-dock waiting cannot begin managing it until the status exists.