L-1 lets multinational companies transfer managers, executives (L-1A) and specialized knowledge employees (L-1B) to a related U.S. office. Prima.Law handles individual and blanket L cases.
An employee with one continuous year of work for a qualifying organization abroad in the three years before admission, coming in a qualifying role.
The employer files Form I-129. Under an approved blanket petition, the employee uses Form I-129S. Family members use L-2 and Form I-539.
The U.S. and foreign entities must be related as parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate, doing business in the U.S. and at least one other country.
L-1A reaches a 7-year limit and L-1B a 5-year limit. A new office petition is limited to an initial stay of one year.
L-1 lets a multinational organization transfer an employee from a qualifying foreign entity to a related U.S. entity. L-1A covers managers and executives. L-1B covers employees with specialized knowledge of the organization's products, services, research, equipment, techniques, management or processes. The U.S. employer files Form I-129, or, under an approved blanket petition, the employee uses Form I-129S.
An employee coming to open a new office receives a maximum initial stay of one year, and the employer must show it has secured physical premises. Other employees receive up to three years, with extensions in increments of up to two years until the 7-year L-1A or 5-year L-1B maximum. Spouses and unmarried children under 21 may seek L-2 status, and L-2S spouses are employment authorized incident to status.
General information based on USCIS and other government guidance. Eligibility depends on each client’s facts; this is not legal advice.
Ownership records, org charts and proof of the year abroad sit with a foreign affiliate, often in another language and time zone.
How Prima.Law helps: A proven checklist built by active immigration lawyers lists every corporate and employment record; the employer uploads to it in the client portal and staff mark items complete.
Duties and org charts that do not show who the transferee manages, or what specialized knowledge they hold, leave the petition exposed.
How Prima.Law helps: Smart Interviews collect duties, reports and staffing from the employer, Package Assembly binds org charts and evidence into one indexed PDF, and AI Case Review checks it before filing.
The transferee and each L-2 family member need a DS-160, and long CEAC sessions time out, forcing staff to enter the same data again.
How Prima.Law helps: Each person's data is prepared once in Prima.Law and the Chrome extension autofills the DS-160 on CEAC. If CEAC is slow or goes down, the data stays safe and is sent again, not retyped.
Templates for individual L-1A, L-1B, new office and blanket L cases, each loading the right I-129 or I-129S forms and checklist.
Store the U.S. petitioner and the foreign entity as contacts. Autofill places each in the right I-129 fields along with the employee.
The checklist collects org charts, ownership records and proof of the year abroad, uploaded by the employer through the client portal.
For consular cases, the Chrome extension autofills the employee's DS-160 on CEAC from the profile. Review and submit on CEAC.
Verify the corporate relationship and the employee's continuous year abroad in a qualifying role.
The employer files Form I-129, or uses an approved blanket petition and issues Form I-129S.
The employee applies for the L-1 visa at a consulate, then seeks admission to the U.S.
Extensions come in increments of up to two years, until the L-1A or L-1B maximum is reached.
Registration, LCA, I-129, cap-exempt petitions, extensions and transfers.
EB-1A extraordinary ability, EB-1B researchers, EB-1C multinational managers.
Treaty trader and investor cases, at the consulate or by I-129 in the U.S.
All business immigration case types in Prima.Law.
Book a demo and see how Prima.Law handles L-1 Visa cases.