IN THIS GUIDE · A qualifying year abroad that eight months of American project work appears to have broken
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
What the continuous year is actually measuring
An L petition requires one continuous year of qualifying employment with a qualifying organisation outside the United States, falling within the three years immediately before the petition is filed. Three words in that sentence do most of the work. Continuous excludes a year assembled from scattered stints. Qualifying means the employment was itself managerial, executive or specialised-knowledge work, so a year spent in a junior role does not count merely because it was a year. And outside the United States is a geographic test, not a payroll test, so being paid from Nova Scotia while sitting in Maine does not satisfy it. Marguerite's eleven years easily contain a qualifying year; the question is which twelve months to point at.
Time inside the United States neither breaks the year nor builds it
The regulations treat periods spent in the United States in lawful status, working for a parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate of the same employer, as not interruptive of the year of continuous employment abroad — while also not counting toward it. That rule is more forgiving than most people expect and more demanding than they assume. Marguerite's eight months in Maine do not reset her clock, so her earlier Canadian service still stands. But those months contribute nothing, so the qualifying year has to be found in the Canadian time within the relevant three-year window, and the window may need to be measured carefully if the commissioning trips were split across several years.
Managerial and executive are different findings, and neither of them means senior
L-1A reaches a beneficiary employed in a managerial or executive capacity, which the law defines by function rather than by rank. A manager supervises and controls the work of other supervisory, professional or managerial employees, or manages an essential function of the organisation at a senior level, with authority over day-to-day operations. An executive directs the management of the organisation or a major component, sets goals and policies, and works under only general supervision. Running gangs directly, without an intervening layer of supervisors, tends to read as first-line supervision instead. Marguerite's four supervisors are therefore evidence, and so is what she decides without asking anybody.
What the acquisition itself has to prove, and how long the transfer can last
Both entities must be doing business, meaning the regular, systematic and continuous provision of goods or services, and the relationship between them must be one of parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate demonstrated on corporate records rather than asserted. A recent acquisition therefore needs share transfer documents, the purchase agreement, registry filings and evidence that the Maine terminal is trading. If it has been operating under the group's control for less than a year, the petition is treated as a new office and is approved initially for one year, with the extension decided on what has been built. Otherwise the maximum period in L-1A status is seven years, and L-1B is capped at five.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.