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WATERLOO · L-1A FIELD GUIDE

Can the value of the team’s output establish executive capacity?

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THE DIRECT ANSWER

Business output can be context but is not a financial eligibility threshold for the individual role. Explain actual duties and authority.

Keep enterprise results and personal work distinct

Do not attribute the whole team’s delivery to the applicant personally while also claiming the applicant only manages. Use an accurate account of responsibilities.

The business schedule should identify premises, insurance, systems, staffing, inventory or service delivery, professional advisers, and working capital, together with the assumptions behind each figure. Separate from those, the business must fund a salary appropriate to an executive, which affects the subsidiary’s cash-flow evidence, and may incur legal fees, translation costs and relocation expenses. Cost allocation does not change L-1A eligibility: the entities need a parent, branch, subsidiary, or affiliate relationship; the beneficiary needs the generally required continuous year of full-time foreign employment inside the relevant preceding three-year period; and the American role must be managerial or executive. Employer administration covers the mechanics of a move — payroll set-up, travel, the physical relocation — while the immigration scope covers reading records, resolving the chronology and preparing the account of duties.