IN THIS GUIDE · Explain contractor support without converting it into an employee headcount
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Describe the real service arrangements
Hypothetical example: an outside firm handles routine accounting while the transferee directs a broader business function. Identify the provider’s scope and actual work. A contract alone does not prove every projected task is being performed. A function manager must act at a senior level over an essential function and primarily manage it. First-line supervision of nonprofessional workers alone is insufficient. Read the provider’s actual deliverables and exclusions beside the transferee’s duty description. If bookkeeping is outsourced but customer service remains with the applicant, the contract should not be described as covering both. Identify who verifies that the provider performs the promised work, and distinguish an executed agreement from negotiations. The analysis should show how the real operating arrangement supports the applicant’s primary capacity; spending more on a supplier or enlarging the organizational chart does not answer that question.
Test the applicant’s primary capacity
The role must be principally managerial or executive. A function manager manages an essential function rather than primarily performing it. Explain actual authority and operational support without inventing a universal staff count or equating all outsourcing with qualification.
Preserve the transfer history and group
The qualifying corporate relationship, continuing U.S. and foreign business and continuous qualifying foreign employment remain necessary. An unrelated service provider is not made a qualifying affiliate merely because it supports operations. Under the general L rule, the qualifying foreign position may be managerial, executive or involve specialized knowledge; the proposed U.S. L-1A role must still be managerial or executive.
Address launch and ownership evidence
New-office L-1A needs sufficient premises and an operation supporting the qualifying role within one year of approval. Initial approval is limited to one year. Owners or major stockholders require the additional applicable temporary-service and subsequent foreign-assignment evidence. New-office L-1A specifically requires the qualifying foreign year in a managerial or executive capacity. A new office means less than one year of U.S. doing business.
Establish the qualifying foreign year and active organizations
The qualifying foreign employment generally must be one continuous full-time year within the relevant preceding three years. Its capacity may be managerial, executive or specialized knowledge under the ordinary L rule; the proposed U.S. role has its own category test. Brief U.S. trips do not necessarily interrupt continuity, but U.S. days do not count toward the foreign year. The qualifying group must provide goods or services regularly, systematically and continuously in the United States and at least one other country throughout the relevant stay; registration alone is insufficient.
Understand what executive capacity means
The subsidiary must be a parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate of the Canadian employer, with ownership and control traced through share registers. An L-1A transferee to an established operation may receive up to three years initially, and can extend to a maximum of seven years in total. The qualifying relationship for an L case runs on parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate connections, so the reviewer needs to see which entity employed the person abroad, which will employ them, and how the two are linked after the reorganisation. Executive capacity means directing the management of the organization and exercising wide latitude in discretionary decision-making. The record should show who owns or controls the entities, what discretion the transferee exercises, and who performs the operational work.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.