EB-1C — Multinational Manager or Executive

What the category requires

• A qualifying relationship — the United States employer and the foreign employer must be the same company, a parent, subsidiary, affiliate or branch — proved with ownership and control evidence, not an assertion.
• One year abroad — the employee must have worked for the foreign entity for at least one continuous year within the three years before the petition, in a managerial or executive capacity.
• A managerial or executive role here — the United States position must itself be managerial or executive, which is a legal test about function and authority, not about a job title.
• A year of doing business — the United States employer must have been operating for at least one year.

Where these petitions go wrong

Almost always on the nature of the role. "Manager" in ordinary business usage and "manager" in the statute are different things: managing a function or a team of professionals, with authority over personnel decisions or over a major component of the organisation, is what counts. A senior individual contributor with a manager's title is not what the regulation describes.

The second common failure is the qualifying relationship, particularly after a reorganisation, a share transfer or the creation of a holding company. That has to be documented up the chain.

From L-1A to EB-1C

Many EB-1C cases begin as L-1A intracompany transfers, and the two categories track each other closely enough that a well-run L-1A builds much of the record the EB-1C will need. They are not identical, though, and an approved L-1A is not a promise of an approved EB-1C.

If a transfer is likely to become permanent, it is worth planning the two together from the start.