IN THIS GUIDE · Explain the managerial handover without assuming the predecessor’s case applies
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Show the incoming employee’s actual U.S. duties
L-1A requires primarily managerial or executive work. A function manager acts at a senior level over an essential function and manages rather than principally performs its work. First-line supervision of nonprofessionals alone is insufficient. Explain any operating responsibilities the incoming person will assume instead of copying the predecessor’s role description.
Establish this person’s foreign employment
Generally one continuous full-time foreign year in the relevant preceding three years is required. The ordinary rule allows foreign managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge work; the U.S. role is assessed separately. U.S. days do not count even where brief trips do not break continuity. Another employee’s qualifying year cannot satisfy the incoming person’s requirement.
Confirm the qualifying group and real support
Actual ownership and control must establish a parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate relationship. The group must regularly, systematically and continuously do business in the United States and at least one other country during the stay. Identify the real resources supporting the role after the handover, not only those available when the earlier case was prepared.
Assess any new-office and owner conditions directly
A U.S. organization doing business less than one year is a new office. L-1A requires the foreign year specifically managerial or executive, sufficient premises and support for the qualifying role within one year of approval; initial approval is limited to one year. An owner or major stockholder also needs temporary U.S. service and subsequent foreign-assignment evidence. A succession plan does not waive those conditions.
Describe managerial duties that survive a small plant
Describe the proposed role the same way: which functions it directs, which decisions it makes without approval, which budgets and personnel it controls, and how it sits within the organization. Executive duties involve directing management, setting goals and policies, and exercising wide latitude in discretionary decision-making. A production manager who supervises two shift leads, sets schedules, approves purchasing and hires and disciplines staff is doing managerial work. A first-line supervisor of employees who are not professional, managerial or supervisory themselves is generally not treated as a manager for this purpose unless the employees supervised are professionals. Managing a practice means supervising professional staff or managing an essential function with discretion over its daily operations, setting budgets and having hiring authority. If nobody does, that is an honest finding and it changes the analysis: a transferee who will personally perform the function is not managing it, however senior the title on the door. Where the subsidiary is small, an essential-function theory may fit better than a personnel-management one, but it has to be described honestly and supported by what the operation actually looks like. The question is not whether the operation is busy; it is whether the transferee will direct an essential function or supervise professionals and managers.
The managerial-capacity analysis still has to be done properly
The disputed point is almost never whether a foreign company exists; it is whether that company still provides goods or services on a regular, systematic and continuous basis. The managerial classification carries a seven-year maximum, a newly established operation is normally approved for a first year with evidence of premises and capacity, and continuation depends on what the operation actually becomes. Before deciding to file, map every claimed supervisory responsibility to a dated delegation, organization chart, and the name of the person who carried out the underlying task.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-08. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.