Read the general business expansion overview
Hypothetical example: a maple-products wholesaler with operations near Pontiac wants to open a U.S. distribution office to serve retail accounts it currently supplies from Quebec, and to send its managing director, who co-owns the company, to run it. There is no U.S. entity yet, no premises and no staff. A new-office L-1A is approved for one year and lives or dies on the extension. This guide explains what has to be in place before filing, what the one-year plan must promise, how a co-owner's role is assessed and what the extension petition will demand.
Filing requirements for a new office are physical, not aspirational
USCIS requires a new-office petition to show that sufficient physical premises to house the new office have been secured, that the beneficiary has been employed abroad for one continuous year in the three years before filing in an executive or managerial capacity, and that the U.S. operation will support an executive or managerial position within one year, supported by the proposed nature of the office, its scope, organizational structure and financial goals, the size of the U.S. investment and the foreign entity's financial ability to remunerate the beneficiary and to begin doing business. In practice that means a formed U.S. entity owned by the Canadian company, premises appropriate to the proposed distribution operation and documented as secured, a capitalization plan with funds transferred or committed, and the Canadian company's financial statements. A letter of intent alone does not show secured premises, but a month-to-month, shared or home-based arrangement is not categorically disqualified if it is actually secured and sufficient for the operation described.
The co-owner question and the one-year plan
A managing director who owns part of the Canadian company can be transferred; ownership does not disqualify him, but the petition must show that the U.S. role is genuinely executive or managerial and that he is an employee of the organization rather than a sole proprietor moving himself. Board resolutions, an employment agreement and payroll records establish that. The one-year plan should describe the distribution office's staffing at filing and at twelve months — a warehouse lead, a sales representative, an administrator — with hiring dates, salaries and the customers the office will serve, and projections that tie revenue to that staffing. The plan should describe the director doing hands-on work in the first months and then managing, because that is what a new office is, and because a claim that he will be purely managerial from day one in an empty warehouse is not believable.
Build the extension file from the first month
The extension requires evidence that the U.S. and foreign entities are still qualifying and doing business, a statement of the duties performed during the year and those to be performed, a description of the staffing including the number of employees and their positions with wage information, and evidence of the financial status of the U.S. operation. Collect it as it happens: the lease and any expansion, each employee's offer letter and payroll record, sales invoices to U.S. accounts, bank statements, an updated organization chart and the director's own record of decisions. Where the plan slipped, explain why and what replaced it. His spouse in L-2 status is employment-authorized incident to status and may work in the office; children may study but not work. The seven-year L-1A maximum runs from the first admission.
What else is on your mind?
Does being a business owner or director qualify me for L-1A?What employment history should an L-1 transfer review cover?What makes a new-office L-1A case different?Why does an L-2 spouse’s admission record matter for work?Editorial source review: 2026-09-07. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.