IN THIS GUIDE · Explain managerial authority over a distributed team
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Identify the real team and decision structure
Hypothetical example: the applicant directs work through several location-based supervisors. Explain what the applicant controls, what supervisors decide and who performs routine operations. A map of team locations does not itself establish the role.
Describe managerial or executive duties
Assess actual principal duties, senior-level authority and organizational support. For a function manager, explain the essential function and who performs its operating work. There is no universal headcount or fixed task-percentage shortcut.
Connect the assignment to qualifying organizations
Document the actual parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate relationship and continuing qualifying business in the United States and abroad. Generally establish one continuous qualifying foreign year within the relevant preceding three years; distributed teamwork alone does not prove that history.
Explain planned support at a new office
New-office L-1A requires sufficient premises, qualifying foreign managerial or executive employment and support for the U.S. role within one year of approval. Identify resources genuinely available and future support accurately. Initial approval is limited to 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.
Show the qualifying entities and foreign service
Executive capacity means directing the management of the organization or a major component, setting goals and policies, exercising wide latitude in discretionary decision-making, and receiving only general supervision from higher executives, the board or shareholders. Identify the applicant’s decisions and the personnel or function managed, then show who handles the underlying operational work. Running the hay-export operation must be primarily managerial or executive work. The qualifying relationship for an intracompany transfer may be parent and subsidiary, a branch, or an affiliate, and affiliation includes two entities owned and controlled by the same group of individuals in approximately the same proportion. A managerial claim looks at whether the person manages an organisation, department, subdivision, function or component; supervises and controls professional or supervisory staff, or manages an essential function; and exercises discretion over day-to-day operations. Owner or major-stockholder cases also require applicable temporary-service and subsequent foreign-assignment evidence. Brief U.S. visits need not interrupt continuity, but their days are excluded from the foreign year. Create a duty calendar for the foreign year and a U.S. organization chart that names subordinate managers, professionals or an essential function.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.