
The L-1 visa permits a U.S. employer to transfer certain employees from one of its affiliated foreign offices to one of its offices in the United States.
One of the key L-1 visa requirements is that the employee is coming to the U.S. to provide services in an executive, managerial, or specialized skills role. This blog post will focus on the employees coming as L-1 executives or L-1 managers and will go over some common challenges with these petitions.
L-1 Executive
If your role in the U.S. will be an executive role, you will need to show that you are coming to the U.S. to perform an assignment and you will primarily perform the following duties:
(1) Direct the management of the organization or a major component or function of the organization;
(2) Establish the goals and policies of the organization, component, or function;
(3) Exercise wide latitude in discretionary decision-making; and
(4) Receive only general supervision or direction from higher level executives, the board of directors, or stockholders of the organization.
USCIS will generally want to see that the US company has adequate levels of professional and/or managerial employees who perform and manager routine operational and administrative tasks, which in turn enables you to spend majority of your time supervising and managing your subordinate professionals and managers. Executives may generally sign legal documents on behalf of the company.
You may submit the following evidence about your role in the U.S.:
- Letter from the Petitioning U.S. entity that lists the specific duties you will perform and the percentage of time you will spend on each task;
- A list of employees in the US who are subordinate to you plus details such as their job duties, education, location, information whether they had any subordinates;
- An organizational chart showing the staffing of your department showing that there is a sufficient amount of professional/managerial employees who perform routing operational and administrative tasks.
L-1 Manager
If your role in the U.S. will be a managerial role, you will need to show that you are coming to the US to perform an assignment and you will primarily perform the following duties:
(1) Manage the organization, or a department, subdivision, function, or component of the organization;
(2) Supervise and control the work of other supervisory, professional, or managerial employees, or manages an essential function within the organization, or a department or subdivision of the organization;
(3) Has the authority to hire and fire or recommend those as well as other personnel actions (such as promotion and leave authorization) if another employee or other employees are directly supervised; if no other employee is directly supervised, functions at a senior level within the organizational hierarchy or with respect to the function managed; and
(4) Exercise discretion over the day-to-day operations of the activity or function for which the employee has authority. A first-line supervisor is not considered to be acting in a managerial capacity merely by virtue of the supervisor’s supervisory duties unless the employees supervised are professional.
Again, USCIS will generally want to see in the Organizational chart showing that the US company has adequate levels of professional and/or managerial employees who perform and manager routine operational and administrative tasks, which in turn enables you to spend majority of your time supervising and managing your subordinate professionals and managers.
There are two types of managers that can qualify for an L1 visa:
- People manager – managing other people (subordinates)
- Function manager – Manager does not supervise or control the work of subordinates, but instead is responsible for managing an essential function within the organization.
Again, to show that you are coming to the U.S. to perform a managerial role, you will need to submit the following documents:
- Letter from the Petitioning US entity that lists the specific duties you will perform and the percentage of time you will spend on each task;
- A list of employees in the US who are subordinate to you plus details such as their job duties, education, location, information whether they had any subordinates;
- An organizational chart showing the staffing of your department.
Should I try to qualify as both an executive & manager?
One thing you should avoid doing in the L-1 petition is to try to fit the US job under both the executive and manager definition. You should decide which definition fits better for the job and only argue one of them (manager/executive), as otherwise the petition may be denied for not meeting any definition. One difference between these roles to keep in mind is that an executive makes broader decisions over finance, manufacturing legal, research, purchasing, engineering, etc, while managers would generally make limited decisions.
Is size of the US company relevant for determining the managerial/executive role?
Yes, USCIS does take size of the US company in consideration when determining whether the Beneficiary can work as a manager/executive and examines whether the company has reasonable needs for this position. If the US company does not have many employees (e.g. has only 2 employees and no admin employees), it can be hard to make an argument that you will primarily engage in managerial/executive employees if there are no employees who will be performing the day to day operations and admin tasks.
Please see our blog post that discusses the qualifying relationship for L1 visa here.
Please see our blog post that compares E2 and L1 visa here.
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