IN THIS GUIDE · Test whether an owner's executive role is real when the U.S. subsidiary is still small
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
The conditions the petition must meet
The Canadian and U.S. companies must have a qualifying relationship as parent and subsidiary, branch or affiliate, and both must be doing business, meaning actively providing goods or services rather than merely existing. The applicant must have worked for the Canadian company for one continuous year within the three years before the petition in a managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge capacity. The U.S. position must be primarily managerial or executive. L-1A status is limited to seven years in total, and an L-2 spouse is employment-authorized incident to status. The petition should identify the qualifying relationship with current ownership records, not only a historic incorporation document. It should also show continuing Canadian and U.S. commercial activity through ordinary business records.
Executive capacity in a small operation
An executive directs the management of the organization, sets goals and policies, exercises wide discretion and receives only general supervision from a board or shareholders. A manager supervises professional or managerial staff or manages an essential function. With three technicians and an administrator, the founder's ability to show she is primarily executive depends on what she will actually spend her days doing. If she is the only person who can commission a control panel, the petition will read as a technician with a title. Build the U.S. staffing so that a field supervisor or lead technician handles day-to-day work, and describe her role in terms of contracts, pricing, hiring and strategy. A weekly calendar can be useful corroboration when it assigns operational tasks to others and shows her handling budgets, senior hiring, performance targets and material contracts. Titles alone do not settle capacity.
Owner-employees and the year abroad
Ownership does not disqualify an applicant, but it invites scrutiny of whether an employer-employee relationship exists. Payroll records showing she was paid as an employee of the Canadian corporation, corporate minutes recording her appointment, and tax filings treating her as an employee are the evidence. The one continuous year abroad is counted from her employment with the Canadian corporation, not from incorporation; time spent physically in the United States on business trips does not count toward the year and, if extensive, may interrupt it. Assemble a month-by-month record before assuming the year is satisfied. For an owner, the record should distinguish shareholder control from day-to-day employment. Pay slips, remittances and corporate resolutions help establish the latter without overstating the former.
What to ask before the petition is drafted
Ask who will be the most senior person in the U.S. company after she arrives and whether the answer is really her. Ask whether the U.S. subsidiary's contracts and revenue support a full-time executive salary or whether the Canadian company will be funding her. Ask what the organization chart will look like in twelve months and whether the hiring plan is funded. Ask whether her existing responsibilities in Canada will be delegated, because an executive who still runs the Canadian company remotely may struggle to show the U.S. role is her primary occupation. The decision is whether the staffing plan is already funded and realistic, rather than aspirational. A petition should explain the trigger for each hire and who will absorb the work before that hire starts.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.