Information about L "intracompany transferee" visas

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The L classification, which originated with the 1970 amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act, was designed to facilitate the temporary transfer of foreign nationals' management, executive, and specialized knowledge skills to the United States to continue employment with an office of the same employer, its parent, branch, subsidiary, or affiliate. 

There are limitations on the period of stay for L visa holders: seven years for executives/managers and five years for specialized knowledge personnel. Subsequent legislation modified the definition of “affiliate” to specifically include the international partnership agreements used by international accounting firms. It also also mandated a “blanket” petition process to accelerate the admission of individual L nonimmigrants. Finally, section 206 modified the prior qualifying experience requirement to allow one year of the prior three (rather than the immediate prior year) to qualify an L-1 employee.

Further legislation in 1999 further expanded the definition of "affiliate" to qualify for L-1 classification employees of international management consulting firms (most of which had been spun off from international accounting firms bearing the same names).

The L nonimmigrant provision is designed to facilitate the temporary transfer of foreign nationals with management, executive, and specialized knowledge skills to the United States to continue employment with an office of the same employer, its parent, branch, subsidiary, or affiliate.

Petitioners seeking to classify aliens as intracompany transferees must file a petition on Form I-129 (including the L supplement) with USCIS for a determination on whether the alien is eligible for L-1 classification and whether the petitioner is a qualifying organization. An individual L-1 petition is filed at the service center having jurisdiction where the alien will be employed

Basic Evidentiary Requirements for an L-1 Petition.

Evidence of the following must be submitted to support all petitions filed for L classification:

• There must be a qualifying relationship between the business entity in the United States and the foreign operation which employs the alien abroad;
• For the duration of the alien's stay in the United States as an intracompany transferee, the petitioner must continue to do business both in the United States and in at least one other country, either directly or through a parent, branch, subsidiary, or affiliate.
• The alien must have been employed abroad by the foreign operation for at least one of the last three years. Such one year of employment outside the U.S. must have been continuous. Although authorized periods of stay in the United States for the foreign employer are not interruptive of the prior year of employment, such periods may not be counted towards the qualifying year of employment abroad.
• The alien's prior year of employment abroad must have been in a managerial, executive, or specialized knowledge capacity.
• The prospective employment in the United States must also be in a managerial, executive, or specialized knowledge capacity. However, the alien does not have to be transferred to the United States in the same capacity in which he or she was employed abroad. For example, a manager abroad could be transferred to the United States in a specialized knowledge capacity or vice versa. The burden is on the petitioner to provide the documentation required to establish eligibility for L classification. The regulations do not require submission of extensive evidence of business relationships or of the alien's prior and proposed employment. In most cases, completion of the items on the petition and supplementary explanations by an authorized official of the petitioning company will suffice.

Recent legislation (the L-1 Visa Reform Act.) added a new section to the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended (Act). This new section renders ineligible for L nonimmigrant classification a specialized knowledge worker if the worker will be “stationed primarily” at the worksite of an employer other than the petitioner or an affiliate, subsidiary, or parent and either (1) the alien will be “principally” under the “control and supervision” of the unaffiliated employer, or (2) the placement at the non-affiliated worksite is “essentially an arrangement to provide labor for hire for the unaffiliated employer,” rather than a placement in connection with the provision of a product or service for which specialized knowledge specific to the petitioning employer is necessary.