Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Reconstruct the qualifying year from payroll, not memory
The year abroad must be continuous, full-time, and with the foreign entity or another qualifying organization. Pull the payroll register, records of employment, tax slips and the internal assignment letter covering the secondment, then establish who actually employed and paid the manager in each month. A posting to a customer's site under the same employer generally does not interrupt the year; a period on the payroll of an unrelated company does. Settle this from records before the petition is drafted, because it is checked, and an optimistic account is worse than a gap that has been explained. Map the corporate relationship from registry evidence, not brand names. The ownership record and proof of ongoing business answer a different question from the manager's résumé.
Prove the relationship as it exists on the filing date
A newly formed subsidiary has to actually be a subsidiary: incorporated, with shares issued to the Canadian company and entered in the register, and with that ownership documented rather than merely intended. Articles, the share register, the subscription payment and the resolution authorizing it all belong in the file. Where the parent is itself held through a family holding company, include that layer too. An organizational chart drawn for the petition is a summary rather than evidence, and it cannot cure a share issuance that has not yet happened. Use a before-and-after organization chart. It should identify the people or functions that will absorb operational work, rather than assuming a senior title alone establishes managerial capacity.
Describe managerial work in hours, not adjectives
The U.S. role must be primarily managerial or executive. Hypothetical example: the manager will supervise two shift supervisors and roughly eighteen production staff, but for the first months he will also be running the line himself while people are hired. Set out the proposed allocation of his time honestly, name the subordinate positions, and say who takes over the work he will stop doing. A description claiming a purely managerial week in a plant that has not yet been staffed is exactly the kind of claim that produces a request for further evidence. For a new operation, separate launch tasks from the future management job. Premises, payroll capacity, and the hiring timetable should agree with the claimed role.
Plan for the first-year limit and the outer cap
Where the U.S. entity is a new office, the petition is approved for one year, and the extension is decided on what the office has actually become: premises, payroll, output, and a role that has grown into the description filed. Keep that evidence from the first week rather than assembling it in month eleven. Separately, L-1A status is limited to seven years in total, so if permanent residence is the eventual aim, that conversation belongs at the beginning of the transfer rather than near the end of it. Calculate the remaining L time from actual admission history before offering a multiyear assignment. An optimistic project schedule does not extend the statutory ceiling.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.