The General Requirements for an L-1 Visa

Today’s globalized world requires comprehensive investment strategies for businesses that want to compete on the world stage. Growing businesses, whether U.S.- or foreign-based, may want to commence or expand their presence in the United States to take advantage of the significant opportunities for growth throughout the United States. The South Florida economy is a great place for businesses to reach consumers and take advantage of various other benefits available to them in the region. At Jurado & Farshchian, our experienced immigration attorneys can work with you to help you reach your L-1 visa application goals at all stages of the process.

What is an L-1 Visa?

An L-1 visa is a visa program that allows companies with an established presence within the United States to transfer members of their management team between foreign offices and their U.S. affiliates or to use such management teams to establish a new presence within the United States. This allows business to focus on promoting growth and ensuring the success of their endeavors.

A company may also apply for a blanket L-1 visa. If a company chooses this route and their application is approved, they will not need to complete the individual application for every management team member they wish to send here. While this does not guarantee every applicant’s admission, it does mean that employers can allow employees to show up at a U.S. embassy abroad with the L-1 blanket approval and a job letter, which will help expedite the process (as opposed to having to file individual petitions for every applicant). As such, blanket applications are beneficial for larger corporations with many employees that qualify as a manager, executive, or employee with special knowledge and for those companies that anticipate multiple transitions in staffing. There are stricter requirements for approval for blanket petitions, and smaller companies are usually disqualified from the process because of those restrictions.

What are the General Requirements for L-1 Visa Petitioners?

A business can qualify if it currently is or will be doing business as an employer within the United States and at least one other country throughout the time that the L-1 visa holder is in the country. Doing business typically means regular, systematic, and continuous provision of either services or goods in the United States. It does not mean the mere presence of an employee or an office. The business must actively be engaged in business practices or aiming to become engaged in such practices.

L-1 visa petitioners must be foreign nationals that have worked for a qualifying business for at least 12 months out of the three years preceding the visa application. They must be coming to the United States to serve as a manager, executive, or employee with special knowledge. Typically, an executive capacity is defined by the ability to make important and far-reaching decisions with minimal oversight. Managerial capacity usually refers to an employee’s ability to oversee the work of various professional employees in order to manage the business or a component of the business, such as a specific department. It can also be used to refer to an employee’s capacity to manage an essential function of the organization even if he or she is not supervising other employees.

Employers choose the L-1 visa process because they want to make sure that their best employees are making the biggest impact. Often, that includes transferring employees for a variety of purposes into and out of the United States. That process can be complicated, and you may need to consider many additional details during the process. Our experienced immigration attorneys work with clients on the L-1 visa process every day, and we can use that experience to help you through the process as well. For more information about the L-1 visa process, call us 305-921-0440 or email us at [email protected].

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