IN THIS GUIDE · A qualifying year worked through a personal corporation
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
The requirement is employment, and invoices describe something else
The route requires one continuous year of qualifying employment with the qualifying organization outside the United States within the three years before the petition. An arrangement in which a personal corporation invoices for management services describes a supplier relationship on its face, whatever the commercial reality. That does not automatically end the analysis, because the substance of the relationship matters, but it does mean the file has to explain the arrangement rather than assume it reads as employment. Marcus should start by gathering everything that describes how he was actually engaged, including the agreements behind the invoicing. An opening assessment should make a date strip from the payroll, contracts, travel, leave, and corporate records. It identifies whether there is a genuine continuous qualifying year, rather than assuming that a long commercial association fills every gap.
Owners are examined for the relationship as well as the role
A person who owns most of the business and also works in it raises its own questions about the employment relationship and about the intention to depart at the end of the authorized stay. Those questions are answerable, and they are answered with documents: the corporate governance arrangements, the board's role, the terms on which the individual is engaged, and evidence that the entity rather than the individual is the employer. This is an area where advice specific to the ownership structure is worth obtaining before the petition is designed, because the structure itself may need attention first. The corporate documents should answer who owns and controls each organization on the filing date. Share registers, minute books, and ownership charts settle that issue more reliably than a group website or a job title.
The American role has to be managerial or executive in substance
In a transport business, the general manager's week can be dominated by dispatch, driver issues and equipment problems, which is operating rather than directing. The petition has to describe the American organization around the role: who reports to whom, which functions exist, what Marcus would decide without approval, and who performs the work he oversees. A title carries none of this on its own. Where the American subsidiary is small, describing an essential function that the transferee manages, rather than a large team, is often the more accurate account. For the American role, build a decision log: budgets approved, senior staff supervised, functions directed, and discretion exercised. It prevents a polished title from masking day-to-day work that is principally operational.
The corporate side is the easy part, so confirm it and move on
Where a parent company owns a subsidiary outright, the qualifying relationship is usually simple to evidence from the share register and corporate filings. Both entities must also be actively doing business throughout, which needs ordinary trading evidence on each side: customers, revenue, staff, premises. Confirm all of that early so the effort can go where the real question is, which here is the employment history. Assuming the whole case is straightforward because the ownership is straightforward is how the difficult issue gets discovered late. The opening assessment should also identify who performs the work beneath the manager. Payroll summaries, organization charts, contracts, and service-provider arrangements can show whether the proposed role will direct a function or merely do the function itself.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.