IN THIS GUIDE · Managerial is a description of duties, not a rank
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Describe a day, then decide whether it is managerial
Managerial duties involve managing the organisation, a department, a subdivision, a function or a component of it, directing other supervisors or professionals, or managing an essential function at a senior level. Executive duties involve directing management, setting goals and policies, and exercising wide latitude in discretionary decision-making. Both are measured against what the person will actually do. Break the proposed week into hours and sort them: hiring and firing decisions, budget authority, setting production policy, and directing supervisors go on one side; running the press, fixing tooling, and covering shifts go on the other. If the second column dominates, the classification is being argued rather than established. Use payroll, reporting lines and decision authorities rather than adjectives such as senior or lead. A reviewer can then see who performs production, who supervises it, and where the transferee sits. If a staffing change is essential to make the role managerial, make it a real, dated business step rather than a forecast without support.
Prove the qualifying relationship and one continuous year abroad
The petitioner and the foreign employer must stand in a qualifying relationship — parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate — and both must be doing business, not merely existing on paper. The employee must have been employed abroad for one continuous year within the three years before the petition, in a managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge capacity. Count that year honestly: a period of unpaid leave, a resignation and rehire, or a year spent with a related company that turns out not to be a qualifying entity all change the arithmetic. Share registers, financial statements and payroll records establish these facts better than an organisation chart drawn for the filing. Trace control on both sides from the current share register through the relevant incorporation records. The first review should produce a clean ownership chart, a chronology of the employee's qualifying employment, and an explanation for any interruption. A corporate relationship that cannot be reconciled from ordinary records creates a threshold problem.
Plan around the limits before the first year is spent
L-1A status is available for a maximum of seven years, and a new-office petition is normally approved for one year at first, with the extension assessed against what the office has actually become. That matters at the planning stage rather than at the end. If the U.S. operation will still need the transferee to run the press personally in month eleven, the extension will be argued on the same weak facts as the original petition. A spouse in L-2 status is employment-authorized incident to status, which is a genuine difference from other categories and is often the practical reason a family chooses this route. Set a month-eleven checkpoint now. Compare actual hires, revenue and the transferee's weekly duties against the submitted plan, then decide whether the office supports the claimed role. This avoids discovering at extension time that the individual remained the person doing operational work.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.