L-1 Visa
for Intracompany Transferees

There are two types of L-1 visa. The L-1A visa enables a U.S. employer to transfer an executive or manager from one of its affiliated foreign offices to one of its offices in the U.S. This also enables a foreign company which does not yet have an affiliated U.S. office to send an executive or manager to the U.S. to open a new office. The L-1B visa enables a U.S. employer to transfer a professional employee with specialized knowledge relating to the organization’s interests from one of its affiliated foreign offices to one of its offices in the U.S. This also enables a foreign company which does not yet have an affiliated U.S. office to send a specialized knowledge employee to the U.S. to open a new office.

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L-1 General Qualifications of the Employer and Employee

To qualify for L-1A, the employer must:

• Have a qualifying relationship with a foreign company (parent company, branch, subsidiary, or affiliate, collectively referred to as qualifying organizations); and

• Currently be, or will be, doing business as an employer in the U.S. and in at least one other country directly or through a qualifying organization for the duration of the Beneficiary’s stay in the U.S. as an L-1A.

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The employee/beneficiary must also:

• Generally have been working for a qualifying organization abroad for one continuous year within the three years immediately preceding his or her admission to the U.S.; and

• Be seeking to enter the U.S. to provide service in an executive or managerial capacity/specialized knowledge capacity for a branch of the same employer or one of its qualifying organizations.

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For L-1A employees, executive capacity generally refers to the employee’s ability to make decisions of wide latitude without much oversight; managerial capacity generally refers to the ability of the employee to supervise and control the work of professional employees and to manage the organization, or a department, subdivision, function, or component of the organization. 

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For L-1B employees, specialized knowledge means either special knowledge of the employer’s product, service, research, equipment, techniques, management, or other interests and its application in international markets, or an advanced level of knowledge or expertise in the employer’s processes and procedures.

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New Offices

For foreign employers seeking to send an employee to the United States as an executive or manager to establish a new office, the employer must also show that:

• The employer has secured sufficient physical premises to house the new office;

• The employee has been employed as an executive or manager for one continuous year in the three years preceding the filing of the petition; and

• The intended U.S. office will support an executive or managerial position within one year of the approval of the petition.

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Period of Stay

All L-1 petition based on a new office will be allowed a maximum initial stay of one year; all other qualified employees will be allowed a maximum initial stay of three years. The L-1A employees could apply for extension of stay of up to an additional two years, until reached the maximum limit of seven years. For all L-1B employees, requests for extension of stay may be granted up to an additional two years, until the employee has reached the maximum limit of five years.