IN THIS GUIDE · Read the org chart the way an officer will
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Count the people the petitioner actually employs
L-1A requires that the U.S. role be primarily managerial or executive. A manager supervises and controls the work of other supervisory, professional or managerial employees, or manages an essential function. Marcus's headcount problem is that contract mechanics employed by the client are not his employer's staff, and an officer may treat him as a first-line supervisor of non-professional workers. Either show a structure with subordinate supervisors on the subsidiary's payroll, or present the role honestly as a function manager with evidence of discretion over the maintenance function. Ask for payroll records, job descriptions, and reporting lines for each claimed subordinate. An initial audit should name people who actually exercise supervisory or professional judgment and separate them from client personnel. A chart with names but no employment evidence invites a closer inquiry into who performs the manager’s work.
Prove the foreign year with payroll, not a letter
Marcus must have worked for the Logan Lake company for one continuous year within the three years before the petition, in a managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge capacity. His T4s, pay statements and an organizational chart from that period do the work. Periods spent in the United States on business visits do not count toward the year, and a gap for an unrelated job breaks continuity. Pull the records first; petitions are drafted around what they show. The foreign year should be placed on a calendar before preparation begins. Match every month to pay evidence and note any leave, change of employer, or U.S. work. This prevents an attractive title from obscuring a continuity issue that later documents cannot cure.
Confirm both companies are active and related
The subsidiary must be a parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate of the Canadian employer, with ownership and control traced through share registers. Both entities must be doing business during the whole period of the transfer, meaning regular provision of goods or services, not merely existing. If the subsidiary was created for this contract and has no other staff or premises, the petition is a new-office case with a one-year initial approval and stricter evidence about capacity to support a manager. Ownership proof and operating proof answer different questions. Share records establish the qualifying relationship; invoices, payroll, and active contracts show that the entities are doing business. Treating an incorporation certificate as proof of both can leave a central eligibility point unsupported.
Write the U.S. duties as decisions, not tasks
The strongest L-1A descriptions list what the manager decides: budgets approved, hiring and discipline authority, contract terms negotiated, vendors selected, and the percentage of time spent on each. A description that reads like a mechanic's work order, however senior, will be read as hands-on. Marcus should keep his own tool time honest and small, and the petition should explain who performs the technical work he does not. For each proposed decision, identify the document that shows Marcus made it: a budget approval, signed hiring decision, vendor selection, or contract authority. Percentages of time should reflect the evidence. A duty list becomes more credible when the business records lead the description.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.