IN THIS GUIDE · Review a new-office year using actual operations and current management duties
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Compare the original staffing plan with actual support
Hypothetical example: the business hired a different mix of employees than originally planned. Explain the actual positions, responsibilities and work arrangements. Do not repeat unfilled projected positions as though they existed, or assume a change from the forecast automatically decides the extension outcome. Hypothetical example: A circular-textile sorting firm opened with warehouse staff rather than the planned sales team. Its transferee must decide whether the actual reporting structure leaves a qualifying managerial role, not whether a revised chart can simply reproduce the original forecast. Payroll, contracts, and supervisors’ duties settle that practical question.
Show the duties the applicant now performs
Describe current managerial or executive authority and the operational work still performed personally. The new-office L-1A framework requires the intended operation to support the qualifying position within one year of petition approval. A continuing startup label does not replace assessment of the actual role at the later stage. A first review should produce a role map: direct reports, outsourced functions, authority over staffing and budget, and the work done personally. The decisive record is often the current operating calendar paired with payroll and organizational evidence. A title or a chart without proof of the underlying work carries limited weight when day-to-day duties point elsewhere.
Document business activity rather than intentions
Identify actual goods or services provided and appropriate operating records. Mere registration or office presence does not establish doing business. Explain genuine differences between the plan and results without replacing current evidence with another unsupported forecast. Sequence commercial evidence by activity: customer agreement, delivery record, invoice, payment, and recurring performance. This makes it possible to distinguish preparation from operating business. If revenue is delayed, identify the reason with dated records and avoid using a projected pipeline as though it were completed business.
Coordinate the review with the actual expiry dates
Initial new-office petition approval is limited to no more than one year. Review petition, admission and status records and the applicable extension process well before relying on continued work or stay. Do not assume the lease, fiscal year or business anniversary sets the immigration deadline. Review the expiration on the controlling immigration record rather than relying on a calendar maintained for corporate planning. An extension filing has its own timing and evidence requirements. The company must decide early whether its actual structure can support the claimed capacity, because late hiring plans do not establish what existed during the initial period.
Managerial and executive describe duties, and the clock runs
L-1A can fit a transfer from a qualifying foreign organization to a related U.S. organization when the person worked abroad in qualifying employment for one uninterrupted year during the relevant three-year lookback and will chiefly perform managerial or executive duties in the United States.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.