Companies which have offices abroad can transfer employees to the U.S. as “intracompany transferees.” This immigrant visa does not require a labor certification.
The offices abroad and in the U.S. maybe the same corporate entity or related as subsidiaries or affiliates. For the visa to remain valid, the offices in both locations must be doing business for the entire time that the L-1 employee is working in the U.S., and the ownership relations should remain constant.
If the office in the U.S. is a newly opened office, the applicant for the L-1 visa must provide the evidence to the Immigration Service to prove that the new office has a suitable place to do business, a qualifying business structure exists, and that the employer has the ability to pay the employee and to begin doing business in the U.S.
The employee must have been an employee for the overseas office during one of that person’s last three years abroad. The employee must be an executive, manager or person with specialized knowledge of the company product and procedures relevant to the international market.
Spouses and unmarried children under 21 years old of intracompany transferees may be granted L-2 visas. L-1 spouse is permitted to work in the U.S.
L-1 visas are granted for one year for a new office. An intracompany transferee can remain in L status for up to five years if the transferee qualified based on specialized knowledge, and for up to seven years if the transferee qualified based on executive managerial capacity.