IN THIS GUIDE · Counting the year abroad when the transferee has already spent months at the U.S. subsidiary
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Time in the United States neither counts nor breaks
The one continuous year of qualifying employment must be spent outside the United States within the three years before the petition. Periods the employee spends in the United States working for the same organization, or on business trips for it, do not count toward the year, but they do not interrupt it either; the clock pauses and resumes. For the transportation manager that means her twenty months on the Canadian payroll contain roughly fifteen months abroad, which clears the threshold, but the petition should show the arithmetic with entry and exit records rather than leave the officer to infer it. The most useful first review produces a duty allocation, not a list of impressive titles. Put the manager's decisions in one column and the dispatchers' routine loading, tracking and data-entry work in another. Then match each decision to a record: carrier agreement, routing policy, freight budget, escalation log or performance review. The exercise identifies whether the proposed U.S. job is truly function management or a senior-sounding operational role with no subordinate support.
Managing a function without managing managers
L-1A managerial capacity can be shown in two ways: managing the organization or a department through subordinate supervisors or professionals, or managing an essential function at a senior level with discretion over its day-to-day operations. A transportation manager who directs carrier selection, negotiates freight contracts, sets cold-chain protocols and controls the freight budget may qualify as a function manager even though her direct reports are dispatchers rather than managers. The file should show what she decides alone, what she recommends to the owners, and who performs the routine dispatching so that she is not doing it herself. For the organization, use documents that existed before the petition where possible. Share registers, annual filings, payroll, invoices and bank records can establish that both related businesses are operating. A new title letter created for immigration has limited value when the payroll records call the employee something else. If the employee moved between related Canadian entities, explain the dates and relationship with an organization chart rather than leaving an apparent payroll gap.
The U.S. role must be described as it will be, not as it sounds
The subsidiary's organization chart is the document that decides this. If the U.S. entity has eleven employees including drivers, warehouse staff and one dispatcher, the petition must explain what the transportation manager will supervise and what she will do herself. A role that is sixty percent dispatching is a dispatcher's job. A role that sets the U.S. carrier program, approves freight spend, manages the customs broker relationship and directs the dispatcher and a compliance clerk is a managerial one. Job descriptions, the subsidiary's budget authority matrix and the manager's own performance objectives are the evidence. The family plan should distinguish immigration permission from professional readiness. An L-2 spouse may be able to work based on the admission classification, but an accounting practice can still involve provincial membership, state tax registration, insurance and client-confidentiality issues. The practical output of a first review is a start-date checklist: valid admission record, business-registration decision, regulator inquiry and tax advice. That lets the household avoid treating one immigration result as an answer to every business question.
Both entities must be active and related
The qualifying relationship here is parent and subsidiary, and it should be proven with the share register, the subsidiary's formation documents and the consolidated financial statements, not with a letter that asserts it. Both companies must be doing business, which means providing goods or services on a regular and continuing basis; a subsidiary that exists only as a registration would not qualify. Because the subsidiary has three years of operations, this is an established-office petition, so the initial period can be up to three years, renewable to a seven-year maximum in L-1A status. Cost planning should separate petition fees from proof the role is real. A chart, payroll support, internal budgets and contract records are often already maintained in the normal course. Premium processing can change the decision timetable, but it does not cure a thin description of management. If the company uses an outside preparer, ask for a fee scope that identifies who gathers the corporate records, who verifies travel history and who updates the file if the proposed start date moves. Work backward from the foreign-employment threshold and leave a buffer for document collection. The travel log should distinguish days physically in the United States from Canadian work periods, because the location of the qualifying work matters. A schedule that uses visitor travel for ordinary management while the petition is pending creates a separate compliance problem. If the transfer must wait, preserve the U.S. operating records and let the Canadian team make the management decisions until admission is available.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.