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If your company has operations both in the United States and abroad, the L-1 visa is the route for moving key people between them. It lets a qualifying multinational bring an executive, a manager, or an employee with specialized knowledge from a foreign office to a related U.S. office — including to open a brand-new U.S. office. The employer files the petition; the employee cannot self-petition.
| L-1A | L-1B | |
| Who it is for | Executives and managers | Employees with specialized knowledge of the company's products, services, techniques, or internal processes |
| Maximum total stay | 7 years | 5 years |
| Initial period | 3 years (1 year for a new U.S. office) | 3 years (1 year for a new U.S. office) |
| Extensions | Up to 2 years at a time, to the cap | Up to 2 years at a time, to the cap |
A qualifying relationship. The U.S. and foreign entities must be parent and subsidiary, branches of the same company, or affiliates — and both must be actively doing business, meaning the regular and systematic provision of goods or services, for the whole time the employee is in L-1 status. A mailing address or a sales agent is not enough.
One year abroad. The employee must generally have worked for a qualifying organization outside the United States for one continuous year within the three years before admission.
The right role, on both ends. The employee must have held, and be coming to fill, an executive, managerial, or specialized-knowledge position. "Managerial" can include managing an essential function rather than supervising staff, which matters for smaller organizations. The petition must also show that the employee's prior education, training, and employment qualify him or her to perform the intended services, although the work in the United States need not duplicate the work performed abroad, under 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(l)(3)(iv).
A spouse and unmarried children under 21 can come along in L-2 status, normally for the same period as the employee. Spouses may work in the United States without applying for a separate work permit — an I-94 annotated "L-2S" is itself proof of employment authorization for Form I-9. L-2 children may attend school but are not authorized to work.
New offices get extra scrutiny. The petitioner must show it has secured physical premises and that the U.S. operation will realistically support an executive or managerial role within a year, and the first approval is limited to twelve months.
Blanket L petitions let large multinationals pre-establish the corporate relationship, so individual employees can be processed much faster. Eligibility generally requires a U.S. office doing business for at least a year, three or more entities in the group, and one of the following: ten L-1 approvals in the past year, U.S. affiliate sales of $25 million or more, or a U.S. workforce of at least 1,000.
Third-party worksites are a common L-1B problem. Under the L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2004, an L-1B employee stationed primarily at an unaffiliated employer's site must not be controlled or supervised by that employer, and the arrangement cannot amount to labor for hire.
The time caps are not absolute. They generally do not apply to employees whose U.S. work is seasonal or intermittent or totals six months or less per year, and a full year of residence and physical presence abroad resets the clock.
L-1 allows dual intent. Pursuing a green card does not undermine L-1 status, and L-1A managers and executives often move on to the EB-1C multinational executive or manager immigrant category.
Government filing fees change frequently, so check the current USCIS fee schedule before filing. This page is general information, not legal advice — contact our office to discuss a specific transfer.