IN THIS GUIDE · Use an earlier colleague’s transfer as context without assuming the new applicant qualifies
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Check which organizational facts remain current
Review the actual company relationship, operations and staffing. A prior chart may describe an organization that has changed since the colleague’s application. Reuse accurate corporate records where appropriate, but update facts rather than preserving them solely because they appeared in a successful case. The useful next decision is whether the written record supports this point now or identifies a specific document to obtain.
Establish this applicant’s qualifying work
Generally document a continuous year of qualifying full-time foreign employment in the relevant preceding three years. Explain the person’s own managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge foreign capacity under the applicable rules. A predecessor’s qualifications cannot replace evidence about the current applicant. Keep the source document beside the conclusion so a later reader can see why the point was accepted or deferred.
Describe the position the replacement will actually hold
The U.S. role must primarily involve qualifying managerial or executive work. Identify authority, staff or an essential function and operational support. If the assignment differs from the predecessor’s, explain it; if a new-office case applies, assess its distinct foreign managerial/executive-year, premises and one-year support requirements instead of assuming the earlier case determines the standard. Initial new-office approval is limited to one year. Do not let a label decide the issue when the contemporaneous facts point elsewhere.
Prove the qualifying relationship and one continuous year abroad
The case requires a qualifying parent, branch, affiliate or subsidiary relationship and continuing qualifying business in the United States and abroad. Approval for a new office runs one year, after which the extension petition has to show that the subsidiary reached a size and structure that genuinely supports a manager. L-1A time is limited to a seven-year maximum, subject to the rules governing recapture and interruptions. If the U.S. operation will still need the transferee to run the press personally in month eleven, the extension will be argued on the same weak facts as the original petition. The evidence is registration in the state where the branch operates, tax registrations, a lease or premises documentation, bank accounts opened in the branch's name and the internal accounting that treats it as a distinct operating unit. Promising future hires without budgets, recruiting steps, or outside-service contracts may leave the proposed manager looking like the principal worker.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.