IN THIS GUIDE · Managing a function rather than a headcount, and why the organization chart is read twice
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Decide which managerial claim you are making
There are two ways to be a manager for this purpose and they need different evidence. A personnel manager supervises other supervisors or professional employees and controls hiring, firing and performance. A function manager runs an essential function of the organization at a senior level, whether or not anyone reports to her. Supervising four drivers and one dispatcher will not carry a personnel claim, because drivers are not supervisory or professional staff. The stronger description is the function she actually owns: fuel procurement, carrier contracting, depot scheduling and margin management. Say which claim is being made and then evidence that claim, rather than gesturing at both and proving neither.
Both companies have to be alive on paper
The relationship between the New Brunswick company and the U.S. affiliate is proved with share registers, incorporation documents and, where ownership runs through a holding company, the whole chain drawn out. Common ownership is not enough on its own if one side has gone quiet: both entities must be actively doing business, which means real transactions, filings and staff rather than a registered address. For a distributor this is easy to show and easy to forget, so pull tax filings, bank activity and a customer list for both sides. If the U.S. affiliate has been dormant for a year while a licence was sorted out, say so and explain what changed instead of leaving an officer to notice the gap.
The qualifying year is a payroll question
One continuous year of qualifying employment abroad inside the three years before the petition is a record-keeping test, not a memory test. Payroll registers, T4 slips, records of employment and dated internal appointments carry it. Two details can weaken a petition even when the duties are well documented. First, the year must be with a qualifying entity, so time worked for a predecessor company or an unrelated employer does not count unless the relationship can be traced. Second, periods physically spent working in the United States are generally not counted toward the year abroad, so a manager who spent several months at the American depot should have those absences documented rather than discovered.
Time limits and the years already used
L-1A status is limited to seven years in total and L-1B to five, and time previously spent in L or H status counts toward the limit. Anyone who worked in the United States earlier in their career should reconstruct those periods before a petition is filed, because the ceiling is calculated from the record rather than from what is remembered. Brief trips abroad during an assignment can sometimes recapture time, but that argument requires travel evidence kept as it happens. It is also worth deciding early whether the assignment is genuinely fixed-term, since a manager who intends to stay permanently should be looking at the permanent-residence route long before the seventh year.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.