Read the general business expansion overview
Hypothetical example: Léandre's company in Saint-Alphonse-de-Granby manufactures stainless washdown and sanitation stations for food plants, clinics and care residences. The group is thirty years old, which everyone finds reassuring, but the American subsidiary was incorporated four months ago and so far consists of a bank account, a registered address and a website. He wants to transfer his production manager. The age of the group is not the question. The age and activity of the entity that will employ the transferee is.
Doing business means trading, not existing
The rules ask whether each entity is doing business, and that phrase carries a meaning narrower than incorporation. It means the regular, systematic and continuous provision of goods or services, and it is not satisfied by the mere presence of an agent, an office or a registered address. A bank account and a website are the outward signs of a company that intends to trade. Until the American entity is actually selling and delivering, it is a qualifying employer only under the rules written for new offices. Léandre's group being decades old is relevant to the relationship between the two companies and to the transferee's employment abroad, not to this question.
What a first-year approval buys, and what it will ask for later
Where the American entity has been doing business for less than one year, the petition is decided under the new-office rules and an approval runs for one year rather than the longer periods available afterwards. It must be supported by evidence that physical premises have been secured, that the entity can support a managerial or executive position within a year, and, for a specialized-knowledge transferee, that the entity has the capacity to commence doing business. The extension is where the promises are audited. The plan filed at the outset should therefore describe hiring and activity the group actually intends, because a projection nobody meant is worse than a modest one that is met.
Do not let the first year turn the manager into the workforce
The predictable failure of a young subsidiary is that the transferee does everything, because there is nobody else. If Léandre's production manager spends the year assembling units, driving deliveries and answering the telephone, the extension request will describe a person who is not acting primarily in a managerial or executive capacity, whatever the title says. Two defences work. Hire early, even modestly, so that a real reporting line exists on paper and in fact. And keep a contemporaneous record of how the manager's time is actually spent, month by month, so the extension is supported by evidence rather than by recollection twelve months later.
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.