IN THIS GUIDE · Show the applicant’s authority when operating work is outsourced
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Describe the division of work
Hypothetical example: a company contracts out fulfilment and bookkeeping while the applicant handles customers and operations. Identify the actual duties left with the applicant. Outsourcing some tasks does not automatically make the remaining role primarily managerial or executive.
Explain real managerial authority
Show decision scope, reporting relationships and the resources supporting the role. For a function manager, identify the essential function and who performs its operational work. There is no universal headcount or fixed task-percentage shortcut that substitutes for the actual assessment.
Establish the qualifying transfer
Document a qualifying parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate relationship, continuing qualifying operations in the United States and abroad, and generally one continuous qualifying foreign employment year within the relevant preceding three years. A provider contract alone does not establish those conditions.
Distinguish launch plans from current support
For new-office L-1A, show sufficient premises, a qualifying foreign managerial or executive year and an operation able to support the U.S. role within one year of approval. Describe proposed contracts as proposed; initial approval cannot exceed one year. New-office treatment applies when the U.S. organization has been doing business for less than one year; initial approval is at most one year.
Establish the qualifying foreign year and active organizations
The foreign employment generally must include one continuous qualifying year within the relevant preceding three-year period, assessed on the individual facts. U.S. days do not count toward that foreign year; a trip should not automatically be treated as breaking continuity. The qualifying organization must do business in the United States and at least one other country during the relevant period, through regular, systematic and continuous provision of goods or services rather than registration alone. The qualifying foreign employment must be full-time and may be managerial, executive or specialized knowledge in an ordinary petition; the proposed U.S. role must meet the requested L-1 classification.
Prepare the foreign managerial or executive history
The executive definition concerns primarily directing management of the organization or a major component or function, establishing goals and policies, exercising wide discretionary latitude and receiving only general supervision or direction from higher executives, the board or owners. L-1A requires that the position be primarily managerial or executive, and a plant is where that test is hardest, because good plant managers are hands-on. Managing a practice means supervising professional staff or managing an essential function with discretion over its daily operations, setting budgets and having hiring authority. Managing an essential function of the organization at a senior level counts, provided the function is genuinely essential, the applicant operates at a senior level within the hierarchy, and the routine work of the function is performed by others. Record US travel separately because those days do not count, although qualifying brief trips do not themselves break continuity. Sequence the review from the foreign payroll and leave history to corporate ownership records, then to US premises, budgets, and the organizational chart. Look at the subsidiary's staff list: if there are installers and a service coordinator to supervise, and the transferee will plan work, hire, set pricing and manage the customer relationships, the role is managerial. Owner or major-stockholder cases need the appropriate temporary-services and subsequent foreign-assignment evidence.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.