IN THIS GUIDE · L-1B work at an unaffiliated client site
Start with the L-1B eligibility and application overview
Describe actual supervision
Identify who assigns work, evaluates performance, changes priorities and can reassign the employee. Contract language should agree with daily practice. Client feedback and site rules do not necessarily establish prohibited client control, but a nominal employer supervisor cannot cure an arrangement in which the client principally directs and supervises the worker.
Identify the company’s deliverable
Explain the product or service exchanged with the client and why its delivery requires knowledge specific to the petitioning company. A request for additional staff with general skills points to a different arrangement. The offsite rules examine both control and the nature of the engagement, so payroll evidence alone is insufficient.
Support the plan from both sides
Use the statement of work, service terms, reporting structure and a detailed assignment letter to describe responsibilities. If a client letter is available, it should confirm actual facts rather than recite immigration language. Resolve differences about location, duties, supervision and duration before filing; do not submit contradictory versions and expect a label to reconcile them.
Review changes before deployment
A different client, reporting arrangement or statement of work may change facts central to eligibility. Establish an internal review point before the employee starts revised duties. An approved petition is not a general staffing permission. The continued assignment must remain consistent with the qualifying work and any required immigration action.
Establish who directs the employee from day to day
A specific statutory provision governs placements at another employer's site, and it is worth reading before the assignment is designed. A petition is generally to be denied where the beneficiary will be stationed primarily at the worksite of an employer other than the petitioner and either the beneficiary will be controlled and supervised principally by that unaffiliated employer, or the placement is essentially an arrangement to provide labour for hire rather than in connection with the provision of a product or service for which specialized knowledge specific to the petitioning employer is necessary. Both limbs matter. Describe, concretely, who sets the employee's priorities, who reviews their work, who conducts appraisals, who approves leave and who they escalate to when something goes wrong. Hypothetical example: a statistician embedded in a client's analytics team for a year needs an answer to each of those questions that points to the petitioner.
Describe the deliverable the petitioner is responsible for
The second limb turns on what the petitioning company is actually providing. Identify the product or service it owes the client under the contract, and explain why performing it requires knowledge specific to that company rather than general capability the client could source anywhere. The engagement documents usually settle this: a statement of work describing a defined outcome, milestones and acceptance criteria reads very differently from one that supplies named individuals at a daily rate for a period. Where the contract is of the latter kind, the difficulty is structural rather than a matter of explanation. Review the actual agreement rather than the account of it given by a project manager, and where the arrangement has evolved since it was signed, establish what it has evolved into before the employee is scheduled to travel.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.