The intracompany route for executives and managers sent to set up a US office — a no-lottery way for an established company abroad to expand into the United States. Structured, evidence-first, and prepared with US-licensed attorneys.
Last updated: 12 June 2026 — reviewed against USCIS requirements and current US legal sources for 2025–26.
Free US L-1A Eligibility Assessment — for company owners and executives planning to open a US office. Find out whether your profile and your business plan fit the new-office test.
Get Assessment| US L-1A Visa for New Offices (intracompany executive/manager transfer) | |
|---|---|
| Governing authority | U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) |
| Prior experience required | 1 continuous year with the qualifying foreign entity within the preceding 3 years, in an executive/managerial role |
| "New office" definition | A qualifying US organisation doing business in the US for less than 1 year |
| Minimum investment | No statutory minimum — credible, funded business plan + secured US premises |
| Initial stay | Maximum 1 year (new office); extensions up to 2 years each, 7-year L-1A maximum |
| Permanent-residence path | EB-1C (multinational manager/executive) — no PERM labour certification |
| Government & professional fees | Confirmed after assessment |
| As of | June 2026 |
We assist company owners and executives based in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Doha, Kuwait City, Muscat, Manama, as well as across India and Sri Lanka, who want to open a US office through the L-1A route. Our role is to convert a complex, scrutiny-heavy filing into a clear, executable plan — and to bring in US-licensed counsel for the petition itself.
The objective isn't a rushed filing — it's a file that holds up at submission and again at the one-year extension.
To qualify for an L-1A new-office visa, you must have worked for the qualifying foreign company for at least one continuous year within the past three years in an executive or managerial role, and there must be a qualifying relationship — parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate — between that foreign company and the new US entity, per USCIS. This is a transfer route, not a standalone startup visa.
A "new office" means a qualifying US organisation that has been doing business in the US for less than one year. Beyond the one-year-abroad and qualifying-relationship tests, the petition must show physical premises secured for the US office and that the US entity will support an executive or managerial role within twelve months — backed by funding and a credible business plan. The pattern that decides these cases isn't who you are; it's how provable your plan is. Find out where you stand — free assessment.
A new-office L-1A is granted a maximum initial stay of one year, after which extensions are granted in increments of up to two years, to a total maximum of seven years for the L-1A category, according to USCIS. That first year is deliberately short — it is the window to make the office real.
At the one-year extension, USCIS expects proof the office is genuinely operating: active operations, revenue or meaningful business activity, and enough staffing to support a primarily managerial or executive role. Requests for Evidence are commonly triggered by too few employees, an executive doing hands-on work, or projections that actual hiring and progress haven't matched. We plan backwards from that extension so the file you build in year one is the file that passes in year two.
No — the September 2025 presidential proclamation imposing a $100,000 fee applies to H-1B only and does not apply to L-1, confirmed across multiple top-tier US legal sources. The L-1A route is unaffected by that charge and has no lottery.
That distinction matters for cost-conscious founders. For an Indian-owned or Gulf-based company that already operates a real business abroad, L-1A is one of the few US routes with no annual lottery and no six-figure proclamation fee — a practical way to place a senior person in a new US office. Standard government and professional fees still apply, and one of them did change in 2026: see the ledger below. We present fees as government and professional figures confirmed after your assessment, never as a quote before we understand your case.
L-1A executives and managers map to the EB-1C green-card category for multinational managers and executives, which requires no PERM labour certification, according to US legal practitioners. It is the natural permanent-residence bridge from a temporary intracompany transfer.
Practitioner guidance is that the US entity should generally have been doing business for at least one year before an EB-1C is filed — another reason the first year of real operations matters so much. For Indian nationals, the timing carries a catch: the EB-1 final-action date is retrogressed (around March 2023 in recent visa bulletins), so even after an EB-1C approval there can be a multi-year wait for a green card. We set that expectation early rather than late.
US immigration is outside the jurisdictions Cosmos is licensed to advise on directly. So for the L-1A route we work on a facilitator basis: your petition is prepared and submitted through US-licensed immigration attorneys in our network, while Cosmos coordinates eligibility assessment, documentation, business-plan readiness and overall case management. We do not represent you before USCIS, and our CICC, MARA and IAA registrations cover Canada, Australia and New Zealand work — not US filings.
This is a heightened-scrutiny program. New-office petitions are adjudicated on projections, then re-tested hard at the one-year extension on actual operations and hiring. Speculative or generic business plans are a leading cause of RFEs and denials, and because there is no statutory minimum investment, there is no "buy your way in" certainty.
We deliberately don't publish a single "new-office approval rate" on this page: current 2026 sources don't isolate a reliable new-office-only figure, and we won't repeat an old number we can't stand behind. We don't make success-rate promises or guarantees of any kind, and we don't imply our CICC, MARA or IAA licensing covers US filings — those go to US-licensed counsel. Every figure here carries its as-of date because USCIS practice shifts within a program year.
For Indian-owned SMEs, L-1A is one of the few US routes with no lottery and no $100,000 H-1B proclamation fee — a genuinely practical way to open a US office around an existing Indian business. The catch sits downstream: on the EB-1C green-card step, the EB-1 final-action date for Indian nationals is retrogressed (around March 2023 in recent visa bulletins), so even after an EB-1C approval there can be a multi-year wait. Plan the temporary route and the permanent route together.
This is general information, not financial, tax, or legal advice. If you move capital to fund the US entity, standard tax and remittance planning applies — consult a qualified chartered accountant or your authorised dealer bank before moving funds.
← View all startup & business visa pathways on the hub page.
No. There is no statutory minimum investment for the L-1A. Instead of a dollar threshold, USCIS looks for a credible, funded business plan and secured physical premises for the US office, plus evidence the entity can support an executive or managerial role within one year.
A new-office L-1A is granted a maximum initial stay of one year, per USCIS. After that, extensions are granted in increments of up to two years, to a total maximum of seven years for the L-1A category — provided the office is shown to be real and operating at the extension stage.
No. The September 2025 proclamation imposing a $100,000 fee applies to H-1B only and does not apply to L-1, confirmed across multiple top-tier US legal sources. Standard I-129 government fees still apply, and premium processing rose to $2,965 for filings postmarked on or after 1 March 2026.
Yes, through the EB-1C category for multinational managers and executives, which needs no PERM labour certification. Practitioner guidance is that the US entity should generally have been doing business for at least a year before filing. For Indian nationals, the EB-1 final-action date is retrogressed, so a multi-year wait can follow approval.
US-licensed immigration attorneys in our network prepare and submit the petition. Cosmos coordinates eligibility, documentation, business-plan readiness and case management. Our CICC, MARA and IAA registrations cover Canada, Australia and New Zealand — not US filings, which is why US counsel handles the petition itself.
Cosmos Immigration is a regulated immigration consultancy founded in Dubai in 2014, working through CICC-, MARA- and IAA-registered professionals, with offices in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Hyderabad and Oakville. For the US L-1A route — which sits outside our licensed jurisdictions — petitions are prepared and submitted by US-licensed immigration attorneys in our network, with Cosmos coordinating the case. Verify Our Credentials
Cosmos Immigration is a private consultancy, not a government body. Program criteria and figures are set by the relevant governments and are subject to change; verified against official sources as of the date shown.
Start with a free assessment, not a sales pitch — or message us on WhatsApp. We'll tell you honestly whether the L-1A new-office route fits your company — even if the answer is no.
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