IN THIS GUIDE · Review continuing foreign business when a group changes from selling goods to providing services
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Describe the services actually being provided
Identify the work, recipient and records of real activity. The L definition of doing business concerns regular, systematic and continuous provision of goods or services, not simply having an agent or office. Distinguish a signed future proposal from services already being delivered. Ask, for each service named, who received it, on what date, and which document a third party outside the company would recognise. A proposal signed by both parties records an intention; a delivery note initialled by the recipient records performance, and only the second answers the question a reviewer is actually asking.
Map the organization after the transition
Document the qualifying relationship and which entity will carry on the foreign business. The requirement can be met through the qualifying organization’s relevant parent, branch, affiliate or subsidiary; it is not enough that an unrelated contractor remains abroad. Explain actual ownership and control rather than relying on a shared trading name. Ownership is settled by the share register, the constating documents and any shareholders' agreement that shifts voting rights, not by an organisational chart drawn for the filing. Where an entity was reorganised, obtain the instrument that effected the change and read it beside the chart; charts are prepared to explain, and instruments are what took effect.
Reassess the applicant’s own role
The proposed U.S. duties must primarily involve qualifying managerial or executive work. Generally establish a continuous year of qualifying full-time foreign employment in the relevant preceding three years. Explain how the business transition affects staff, authority and operations; continuing company registration does not prove either the employment history or the qualifying U.S. role. Two separate records carry this: one covering the qualifying year abroad, and one describing the proposed duties in the United States. Job titles migrate between them and prove nothing on their own, so ask instead for the document showing who reported to the applicant, which budgets or functions sat under their authority, and who signed off on decisions in their absence.
Which record settles whether the foreign side is still doing business
The disputed point is almost never whether a foreign company exists; it is whether that company still provides goods or services on a regular, systematic and continuous basis. Corporate registry printouts and tax registrations answer the first question and stay silent on the second, which is why a file built on them stalls. What settles it is the operating record produced while the work was being done: dated invoices matched to delivery notes, a client's acknowledgement of receipt, payroll or contractor payment runs covering the people who performed the service, and a bank statement showing the money arriving. Ask for those four in one request, and ask for the period straddling the change in activity rather than only the months that look strongest. A weak version of this record is a summary spreadsheet prepared afterwards by the company itself: it carries no independent confirmation and invites the question of what it was compiled from. Hypothetical example: a tooling and metal-fabrication workshop closes one product line and supports the remainder with signed delivery notes rather than a letter asserting that operations continue.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.