IN THIS GUIDE · Prove authority from the corporate record, not the job title
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
The qualifying year lives in payroll and personnel files
The year is established by records showing continuous employment with the qualifying organisation abroad: payroll registers, employment agreements, personnel files, tax slips and any documents recording a change of role. A candidate who moved between related entities, took a leave, or was engaged as a contractor for part of the period has a history that needs to be shown accurately rather than summarised. The safest approach is to reconstruct the period as dated segments from primary records first, and only then to consider whether the requirement is satisfied at the intended filing date.
The relationship lives in registers and resolutions
A qualifying relationship is proved by ownership and control documents: share registers, articles, shareholder agreements and the resolutions that created the structure. Where a Cavan Monaghan business was reorganised informally over the years, the register may not reflect the arrangement everyone describes. Bringing it current is legitimate and often necessary, but it should be done properly and dated honestly rather than backfilled. Alongside ownership, both entities must be shown to be actively doing business, which is proved by contracts, invoices, payroll and financial statements rather than by registration alone.
Managerial duties are proved by delegation, not description
The strongest evidence that a role is primarily managerial or executive is documentary delegation: resolutions or written authorities granting hiring, spending and decision-making powers, organisational charts showing the functions and staff supervised, and records of decisions the beneficiary actually made. A description asserting responsibility for a facility, unsupported by any document conferring that responsibility, tends to read as aspiration. Where the manager personally performs core production work, the file should say who else does what, and should show the structure that makes the beneficiary's role supervisory in substance.
A new facility is judged on what it will and then did produce
Where the U.S. entity is new, approval runs for one year and the petition must establish secured premises and the capacity to support a managerial or executive role within that year. The evidence at that stage is prospective: a lease, capitalisation, a staffing plan with dates. At the extension the same questions are asked retrospectively and answered from records created during the year. A Cavan Monaghan company should therefore set up its U.S. record-keeping on day one. The seven-year L-1A ceiling includes that first year.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.