IN THIS GUIDE · Explain property-operations management through actual duties and authority
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Separate managing assets from managing the operation
Hypothetical example: an applicant oversees several properties but personally handles tenant requests and contractor scheduling. Identify these duties alongside any genuine management responsibilities. Do not assume the number or value of properties establishes the legal capacity of the position.
Describe who performs routine service work
Identify staff or providers who handle administration, maintenance coordination and ordinary service delivery. Explain the applicant’s actual authority over the operation and what remains personal execution. A list of outside contractors does not by itself show the work they perform or the support available. Decide, before the letter is written, whether the applicant manages people, manages a function, or simply holds contracts. Each is argued differently. A maintenance contract with an outside firm shows that someone else was paid to do the work, not that the applicant directed anything; the agreement’s scope and reporting obligations reveal which of the three descriptions the facts support.
Explain decisions and limits using the real structure
Describe the applicant’s responsibility for budgets, priorities or a defined function and any approvals retained by others. Ownership of a property and authority to manage the employing organization are different facts. Use actual records rather than combining them into an unsupported claim of executive control. A single figure settles more than a paragraph of description: the amount the applicant may commit without asking anyone. Find it in the signing-authority resolution or the delegation schedule in the minute book. Where every expenditure above a modest sum returns to an owner, say so and argue the case on the function actually directed.
Identify the actual employers and qualifying relationship
Explain which entities employ the applicant and operate the proposed U.S. business. Common property investments or a management contract do not automatically establish a qualifying intracompany relationship. The foreign employment and actual proposed managerial or executive duties also require review.
Decide whether this is a new office before choosing evidence
One question changes the whole evidentiary burden: has the United States entity been doing business, or would it start on the applicant’s arrival? A new-office petition receives a limited initial period, and the extension is assessed against what the office actually did. Hypothetical example: a Canadian boarding-stable company incorporates a United States affiliate and proposes to send its operations director as an L-1A manager. Where the affiliate has no premises, no staff and no signed boarding contracts, the file should be built as a new office, with a lease, a hiring schedule and a funding commitment, and the family should expect to prove at extension that those things happened.
Decide who the employer of record actually is
Payroll answers a question that job titles cannot. Establish which entity issues the applicant’s pay, deducts from it and reports it, because that entity is the one whose employment counts toward the year abroad. Where a management company pays the applicant while a separate holding company owns the buildings, the qualifying relationship must be traced through the corporate records of the payer.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.