IN THIS GUIDE · Explain managerial authority independently of employee share ownership
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Identify the source of the applicant’s actual authority
Hypothetical example: a salaried executive receives delegated authority from the company without owning it. Explain the actual decisions, responsibilities and oversight. Do not assume absence of shares prevents a qualifying role, or that an incentive award itself establishes managerial capacity. Hypothetical example: the operations director of a groundwater monitoring firm approves well-installation budgets to a stated limit, hires and releases field crew leads, and sets the sampling protocols the technical staff follow, while owning nothing. Record each of those powers with the document that grants it and the date it took effect. The opposite pattern deserves the same honesty: an owner who personally runs sampling routes and writes the reports exercises little managerial authority, and the share register does not change that.
Keep the corporate relationship separate from personal compensation
Identify the actual relationship between the foreign and U.S. employers using relevant entity, ownership and control records. The applicant’s compensation package does not establish that relationship by itself. A personal share award and the group’s qualifying structure answer different questions. The relationship is proved with entity records: articles, share registers naming the holding entities, subsidiary or branch registrations, consolidated financial statements and board minutes recording control. Assemble them for both the foreign employer and the proposed U.S. employer, and show the line between them in one diagram rather than in prose. A qualifying relationship can also change during the process through a reorganization, a sale or a new intermediate holding company, so record the position as of the date the transfer is proposed and flag any transaction under discussion.
Describe present rights and future awards accurately
If equity-related documents are relevant, identify what they actually provide and their effective dates. Distinguish current holdings from possible future interests without assuming an anticipated award creates present control. Have any effect on the company relationship assessed from the actual legal arrangements. For each equity-related document, extract four facts: what it grants, when it grants it, which conditions must be satisfied first, and what happens if employment ends. A grant notice, a vesting schedule and a shareholders' agreement often answer those differently, and the operative terms may sit in a plan document referred to but not attached. Where an award would, once exercised, alter who controls either entity, that is a corporate-relationship question and belongs with the entity records rather than the compensation file.
Support the role with duties and operational evidence
Explain who performs execution work, what the applicant manages or directs and the authority actually exercised. Neither ownership nor its absence substitutes for this analysis. Qualifying foreign employment and the actual proposed U.S. assignment remain central parts of the review. Ask the employer to describe one ordinary month: the decisions that reached the applicant, those settled below, and those escalated above. That produces evidence a reviewer can weigh. Support it with the payroll or contractor list showing who performs the execution work, since a managerial claim with no staff or contractors to direct invites the reading that the applicant performs the function personally. Then set the proposed U.S. role beside the foreign role and note honestly where they differ, because the U.S. position must meet its own standard on its own facts.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.