Read the general business expansion overview
Outside providers are a normal part of a launch, and naming them is not the problem. The problem is a plan that reads as though the provider is the U.S. operation. Say what each executed contract actually buys, who inside the company decides, and which of the transferee’s own duties are managerial or executive rather than hands-on delivery.
Identify the work covered by genuine agreements
Take each signed agreement and write beside it the tasks it actually buys. Hypothetical example: a Canadian tooling company’s launch plan describes a full U.S. operating team, but the only executed contract is a monthly bookkeeping engagement covering payroll filings and reconciliations, while warehousing, sales and quality control remain at the proposal stage. Both facts belong in the petition, separately labelled. A contractor roster evidences available support; it does not evidence work performed, and it does not make those people the company’s employees. Where a provider’s staff will do work the transferee is said to supervise, explain who directs them day to day and under whose instructions they operate. Quotations, term sheets and draft statements of work should be described as what they are, because an adjudicator who finds one unsigned document presented as an arrangement will read everything else in the file with the same suspicion.
Assess the qualifying capacity and new-office stage
The new-office framework applies while the U.S. entity has been doing business for less than one year, and a first approval on that basis runs for one year only, so the petition is really a plan the company must deliver against before it can extend. For L-1A the transferee needs the qualifying year abroad in a managerial or executive capacity and must primarily manage or direct in the United States — a long supplier list does not make a role managerial where the person is personally performing the delivery work. The evidence needs premises sufficient for the activity actually proposed and an operation capable of supporting the qualifying role within that first year. Set out what the transferee will decide, what budget and personnel authority accompanies it, and who else, employee or contractor, carries out routine tasks, so the duties can be tested rather than inferred from a job title.
Preserve group and individual requirements
A vendor is not a corporate relative. The petition still has to show a real parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate link between the foreign employer and the U.S. entity, and that both remain active, with the group doing business in the United States and in at least one other country throughout. The transferee’s own history is a separate matter again: generally one continuous full-time year of qualifying employment with the group within the three years before the petition, in a managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge capacity, while the proposed U.S. role is measured against its own category test. Short business trips into the United States need not break continuity, but U.S. days do not count toward that foreign year. An L-1B new office requires sufficient premises and the financial ability to pay the employee and begin doing business, alongside knowledge specific to this company’s product, process or procedures rather than skill common across the industry. Where the transferee is an owner or major stockholder, add evidence that the U.S. service is temporary and that a foreign assignment follows it.
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?Why does an L-2 spouse’s admission record matter for work?Editorial source review: 2026-09-07. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.