IN THIS GUIDE · Affiliates owned by the same people
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
List the owners on both sides
Create a side-by-side schedule of all ownership interests in the foreign and U.S. companies. Include the percentages and relevant voting arrangements rather than only the shared owners. The regulatory affiliate definitions require a specific relationship; partial overlap is not a substitute for proving the applicable definition.
Explain how control is exercised
Identify who directs each company and what agreements affect that authority. Different share classes, voting arrangements or investor rights may matter even when ownership percentages appear straightforward. Give counsel the governing documents so the analysis follows actual rights rather than assumptions based on the founders’ informal working relationship.
Keep business cooperation in perspective
Shared customers, common branding or agreements between the companies can explain commercial context. They do not independently establish qualifying affiliation. Separate the evidence showing cooperation from the evidence proving ownership and control, then document the real international operations and the beneficiary’s qualifying employment.
Review changes in the owner group
A new investor, transfer between family members or altered voting agreement can change the affiliate analysis. Maintain dated records and assess proposed changes before relying on an old approval or chart. The relationship must remain qualifying during the transfer, alongside a U.S. role that is primarily managerial or executive.
Build a dated ownership schedule both sides can be tested against
Common ownership is established by records, and the record doing the work is a schedule listing every owner of both companies with the proportion held and the rights attached, prepared as at a stated date. Partial schedules showing only the beneficiary interest cannot establish the affiliate relationship, because the definition turns on the whole ownership picture and on control rather than on a familiar name appearing in both columns. For each entry, cite the source: the share register, the membership ledger, the partnership agreement or the equivalent record in the relevant jurisdiction. Then add a second layer recording where voting rights depart from ownership proportions, since different share classes, proxies and voting agreements routinely produce a control position the proportions do not disclose. Sign and date the schedule and preserve the underlying records alongside it. A schedule prepared this way can be tested; one assembled from memory or from a group presentation cannot, and the difference becomes visible at the first request for evidence.
Hypothetical example: two businesses with an overlapping owner group
Hypothetical example: a Canadian equine training facility and a U.S. boarding and event business are owned by an overlapping group of family members and outside investors in differing proportions. What settles the affiliate question is not the family relationship but the pair of complete ownership schedules read together. Prepare both, aligned so each owner appears on one row across two columns. The comparison then shows directly whether the same person or group owns and controls both, and in what proportion. Add the governance layer next: whether decisions require a supermajority, whether any investor holds a blocking right, and whether a voting agreement binds several holders to act together. Those documents can convert an apparently split ownership into common control, or the reverse. Commercial cooperation between the two businesses, including shared customers, referrals or a services agreement, belongs in a separate part of the file, because it explains context without establishing the corporate relationship the classification requires.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.