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ANMORE · L-1B FIELD GUIDE

Does a long record with the company establish specialized knowledge by itself?

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THE DIRECT ANSWER

No. Length of service is background. L1B asks for special knowledge of the employer's products, services, or applications, or an advanced level of knowledge of its processes and procedures. Generic experience, however long, does not meet it. A qualifying corporate relationship and the required period of qualifying employment abroad are separate requirements.

Describe knowledge, then attach the years

A useful draft names what the person knows and shows the years as how they came to know it. If the description survives without the tenure sentence, it is doing real work; if removing that sentence empties it, the claim needs rebuilding around specific internal subject matter. Ask two colleagues to read it cold.

Anything they could have written about a competent long-timer anywhere is not yet the argument. Two further conditions shape the plan. L-1B stay is capped at five years in total, so a role conceived as open-ended needs a succession or alternative route discussed at the outset rather than in year four.

And where the employee would work primarily at a third party's premises, additional conditions apply: the placement must not amount to labour for hire, and the employee must remain under the petitioning employer's control rather than the site owner's. Hypothetical example: a vaccine cold-chain specialist is wanted at a customer's distribution facility three days a week, which makes supervision and control a documented question rather than a scheduling detail.