A shared franchise brand is not the same as a qualifying corporate relationship

Two businesses using the same brand may have unrelated owners. A Carignan operator comparing L and E-2 should trace the actual companies and investment rather than treating a common franchise name as a ready-made intracompany transfer. Make the route decision in a fixed order. For an L case, verify the qualifying company relationship and the employee’s uninterrupted qualifying year abroad during the three-year lookback before assessing the proposed managerial, executive, or specialized-knowledge role. L-1A time is ordinarily limited to seven years and L-1B time to five years. For E-2, test treaty nationality, qualifying control, capital committed beyond the investor’s unilateral reach and exposed to loss, and a real enterprise that is not marginal. Hypothetical example: a designer of earthquake early-warning sensor housings owns a Canadian company and considers buying an unrelated U.S. franchise. The decision is whether a transfer relationship actually exists or whether an investment analysis is needed; share records, the franchise agreement, and the funding commitments answer different parts of that question. The first review should produce two evidence maps instead of one combined business story. One map tests the corporate link, the worker’s twelve continuous months with the qualifying foreign company during the relevant thirty-six-month period, and the proposed L role; the other tests treaty nationality, control, committed funds exposed to loss, and a business that cannot be marginal for E-2. Hypothetical example: a founder of a cold-spray metal-deposition robotics business owns 60 percent of a Canadian company and plans to acquire 60 percent of a U.S. plant. The concrete decision is whether the ownership and foreign payroll support an L transfer, or whether the signed purchase and committed capital should be assessed as E-2 facts. The cap table, payroll, escrow agreement, and operating forecast serve different tests.