IN THIS GUIDE · Buying an existing U.S. business for a transfer
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Analyze the structure that will exist
Identify the purchaser, acquired entity and foreign employer, then trace ownership and control after closing. An asset purchase and a share purchase can leave different entities employing people and conducting business. Give counsel the actual transaction documents and intended structure rather than assuming the purchase agreement proves the required relationship.
Classify the office by business activity
A business newly acquired by the group is not necessarily a new office for L purposes. The definition concerns doing business in the United States for less than one year. Assess the operation’s facts and continuity; a new owner, fresh entity registration or revised branding should not be used as an automatic shortcut.
Show the purchaser’s qualifying role
Buying an enterprise does not establish qualifying foreign employment or managerial duties. Explain who will perform ordinary work after closing, what authority the transferee will have and how the acquired staffing structure supports that role. If the buyer will mainly deliver the service personally, the purchase price does not solve the classification issue.
Coordinate closing and immigration evidence
Transaction terms, ownership effective dates, staffing changes and the proposed assignment need a consistent chronology. Obtain independent commercial advice on the acquisition and immigration advice on the transfer. The records should distinguish completed facts from conditions and plans, with any later changes assessed before relying on the original petition narrative.
What the first review produces on an acquisition
Bring the transaction to a first review early, because the outputs are cheap at that stage and expensive later. Four findings should come out of it. The first identifies the structure that will exist after closing and whether it produces a qualifying relationship between the foreign employer and the U.S. entity, or merely common ownership described as one. The second addresses the beneficiary rather than the company: whether one continuous year of qualifying employment abroad within the three years preceding the petition is available, and from which entity. The third classifies the acquired business as an established operation or as a new office for these purposes, since that classification changes what must be shown and, for a new office, generally results in an initial one-year approval. The fourth lists the transaction documents required and the dates on which each becomes available. What the first review cannot produce is an assurance that a purchase creates eligibility, because buying an enterprise establishes neither qualifying foreign employment nor managerial or executive duties in the proposed role.
Hypothetical example: a purchase that answers the wrong question
Hypothetical example: a Canadian contract manufacturing group agrees to buy a small U.S. sterile-filling operation, and the buyer principal expects to relocate and run it. The first review produces findings the parties had not separated. The relationship finding depends on which entity acquires the target and whether the foreign employer sits in the same chain, which a draft agreement may leave open. The employment finding depends on whether the principal has actually been employed by a qualifying foreign entity for one continuous year within the preceding three, rather than owning it, which for a founder is frequently unclear. The role finding depends on who will perform production, quality and administrative work after closing, since a principal who will personally cover those functions is not describing a managerial or executive role. The output is not a decision but a list: three open questions, the records that would answer each, and the person responsible. That list is what makes the transaction timetable realistic.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.