Skip to content
RICHMOND · L-1A FIELD GUIDE

Can a reorganisation break the qualifying relationship a case depends on?

Sources checked:

THE DIRECT ANSWER

A reorganisation can change the relationship, so document the current structure and proposed changes separately. L classification requires a qualifying parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate relationship and qualifying international business activity. Counsel should assess eligibility at filing and the effect of later changes before the companies rely on a planned structure.

Ask the corporate team the immigration question

The people executing the restructuring are usually optimising for tax, financing or governance, and nobody has told them a transfer case depends on the result. Put the question to them directly: after completion, what will the ownership path be between the employing entity abroad and the one in the United States? Get the answer in writing from someone who can commit to it, and pass it to immigration counsel before the packet is finalised.

Two conditions run underneath the corporate question and are unaffected by it. The transferee must have completed one continuous year of qualifying employment abroad with a related entity within the three years preceding the transfer, and the United States role must be managerial or executive for L-1A. A reorganisation can disturb the first indirectly, if the entity that employed the person during part of that year turns out not to have been related to the United States entity in a qualifying way.

Establish the employing entity for each month of that year from payroll records, then read the corporate chart against it rather than the other way round.