IN THIS GUIDE · A general manager whose American company is an affiliate, not a subsidiary, and who still drives a harvester
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
An affiliate is proved with share registers, not with family history
The regulation recognises a parent, a branch, a subsidiary or an affiliate, and affiliation is the one that most often exists here without anyone having planned it. Two companies can be affiliates where they are owned and controlled by the same group of persons in substantially the same proportions. Equal thirds on both sides is a strong position, but the proof has to be documentary: incorporation records, share registers and shareholder agreements for both companies, plus a chart showing each individual's percentage twice. What does not prove it is the fact that the same family is behind both, or that they share a logo, a customer or an accountant. Where a spouse or a trust holds part of one side and not the other, the proportions stop being substantially the same, and that detail should be found now rather than in a request for evidence.
Both companies have to be doing business, and one of them is new
The qualifying relationship is only half of the corporate test. Both the Canadian and the American entity must be doing business, meaning the regular, systematic and continuous provision of goods or services, and not merely holding an agency, a bank account and a registration. The Quebec side satisfies this comfortably. The American company is the exposed one, since a corporation formed weeks ago has no trading history at all. Where the American entity has been operating for less than one year the petition is treated as a new office, approved initially for one year and judged on evidence of secured physical premises and the capacity to support the role, which is a different evidentiary exercise from the one this family is preparing for. The lease, the equipment orders and the first supply contracts matter more than the organizational chart at that stage.
Managerial capacity is measured in duties, and a harvester seat is a duty
The executive or managerial test looks at what the beneficiary actually does, not at where the title sits on a chart. Managerial capacity generally means supervising and controlling the work of other supervisory, professional or managerial employees, or managing an essential function of the organization, with authority over hiring and firing or over day-to-day operations at a senior level. Executive capacity means directing the management of the organization and exercising wide latitude in discretionary decision-making. Jean-Sebastien's difficulty is seasonal: for several weeks he does the work himself because there is nobody else to do it. The answer is not to hide that but to plan the American staffing so the operation has line supervisors from the start, and then to describe his week honestly, including the proportion that is hands-on and why it is expected to shrink.
The year abroad, the seven-year ceiling and what they mean for a family business
He must have been employed abroad by a qualifying entity in the group for one continuous year within the three years immediately before the petition is filed, in a managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge role. In a family company that year is usually real but poorly evidenced, because nobody issues themselves a job description. Payroll records, tax slips, board minutes and dated contracts he signed are worth more than a letter written now describing the past. The other date to note is the ceiling. Time in this category is limited to a maximum of seven years for a manager or executive, and five for a specialized-knowledge transferee, so a family that expects a permanent American presence should be discussing what follows the transfer before the first period is even granted.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.