Read the general pathway comparison overview
Being wanted by a group company and wanting to build something of your own are two different immigration questions, and each is answered by its own set of facts. The danger in running them together is bookkeeping: the employer’s trading history gets used to make the private start-up look established, or the start-up’s ambition gets written into the transfer petition. Keep two files. This worksheet says what belongs in each, and what may never cross between them.
Identify the qualifying transfer
Hypothetical example: a production supervisor at a Fort Erie plastics moulder is offered a role at the group’s Ohio subsidiary while separately collecting quotes for a trailer-repair shop she intends to own outright. The transfer file contains only the group. It needs proof that the Canadian employer and the U.S. entity stand in a parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate relationship, evidence that both are actively doing business, her one continuous full-time year of qualifying employment abroad within the three years before the petition, and a U.S. role that is genuinely managerial or executive for L-1A, or that turns on specialized knowledge of the group’s own product, process or procedures rather than general industry skill for L-1B. The trailer shop she is founding sits outside that group and contributes nothing to it.
Identify the qualifying investment
The second file starts from scratch and shares no evidence with the first. It asks whether she is a national of a treaty country, whether nationals of that same country own at least half of the enterprise, whether her funds are lawfully sourced, substantial for this business and irrevocably at risk, whether she will develop and direct it through ownership of at least half of the enterprise or a real controlling role, and whether the shop will be a genuine operating business rather than a marginal one. A job offer from the moulder’s group answers none of those questions, and the group’s revenue is not her capital. If she pursues both routes, the investor case has to stand on the trailer shop’s own money, its own ownership and its own trading plan, with nothing borrowed from the employer to fill a gap.
Keep the proposal internally consistent
Two practical traps remain. The first is the foreign year. It must be one continuous full-time year inside the three years before the petition is filed, and it counts only in a capacity the L rule recognises, managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge employment abroad, while the proposed U.S. assignment is tested separately against its own category. Short business trips into the United States do not necessarily break the continuity of that year, but days spent in the United States are not added to it either, so a supervisor who spent months at the Ohio plant may hold less foreign time than her calendar suggests. The second trap is marginality on the investment side: the shop must promise more than a minimal living for her household, or a significant economic contribution such as jobs, and where that capacity is still ahead of her it should be reachable within roughly five years of ordinary trading. Neither file may borrow from the other. If the transfer stalls, the shop’s plan does not inherit the group’s balance sheet; if the shop stalls, the petition does not inherit its projections.
What else is on your mind?
Does being a business owner or director qualify me for L-1A?What employment history should an L-1 transfer review cover?What makes a new-office L-1A case different?How should an owner compare L-1 and E-2?Editorial source review: 2026-09-07. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.