IN THIS GUIDE · Ask whether the manager will actually be managing
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
The working foreman problem
Ask what the transferred person will do in an average week during the first six months. If the honest answer involves running production, fixing equipment and covering shifts, that is an operating role however it is titled. The requirement asks whether duties are primarily managerial or executive, which is a question about decisions, authority and supervised functions rather than about seniority or hours worked. Where the commercial reality requires hands-on work initially, the plan should say who will be hired to take it over and when, and the evidence should record that transition as it happens.
The year abroad nobody counted
Ask when the qualifying employment actually began, and check it against payroll records rather than memory. The requirement is one continuous year with the qualifying organisation abroad, within the three years preceding the petition. People promoted internally, engaged through a personal corporation for a period, or seconded between related businesses often have a history that does not read as cleanly as they assume. Filing before the year is complete guarantees a shortfall, and the discovery usually happens at the point when a filing date has already been promised to a landlord or a customer.
The entity that exists on paper only
Ask whether both entities are doing business, not merely registered. The requirement contemplates the regular, systematic and continuous provision of goods or services, so a U.S. company incorporated last month with no premises, no capital and no activity does not satisfy it merely by existing. The parallel question, less often asked, concerns the Canadian side: it must also be operating, and evidence of that has to be current. A company that has wound down its domestic activity while planning the expansion can create a problem it never anticipated.
The first year spent proving the wrong thing
Where the U.S. entity is new, approval runs one year and the petition must show secured premises and capacity to support a managerial or executive role within that year. The extension then asks what happened. Companies commonly spend the year building the business and keeping no record of who directed what, then find the extension difficult despite obvious commercial success. Ask at the outset what the extension will need to see, and set up record-keeping accordingly. L-1A time is capped at seven years in total, and the new-office year is one of them.
Describe managerial or executive capacity by function
A manager may qualify by supervising and controlling the work of other supervisory, professional or managerial employees, or by managing an essential function of the organization at a senior level without direct supervision of staff. Executive capacity means directing the management of the organization or a major component or function, setting goals and policies, exercising wide latitude in discretionary decision-making, and receiving only general supervision from higher-level executives, a board or shareholders.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.