Read the general business expansion overview
Hypothetical example: a rural water-well drilling contractor wants to open a first U.S. location and move its operations lead there. A new office petition is normally approved for one year, and the evidence that supports it is physical and financial rather than aspirational: secured premises, the capacity to support the role, and a plan the business can actually fund. What happens in that year determines whether the arrangement continues.
Premises and capacity are the threshold evidence
A new office petition asks whether there is somewhere for the operation to exist and whether it can support the position being filled. The records that answer that are a signed lease or purchase document for suitable premises, evidence of the equipment and licensing the trade requires in that jurisdiction, and financial evidence that the parent can fund the operation through its first year. For a drilling contractor, yard space, rig storage and any state licensing or bonding requirements are part of that picture. A registered address at a service provider does not answer the question.
The corporate conditions do not relax for a new venture
Everything required of an established transfer is still required here. The ownership relationship between the Canadian company and the new U.S. entity must be documented, the transferee must have one continuous year of qualifying employment abroad within the three preceding years, and the Canadian side must be actively doing business. Where a family contracting business has grown through several numbered companies, the entity that employed the transferee and the entity that owns the new venture may not be the same, and that has to be sorted out with corporate documents before the petition rather than explained afterwards.
Design the first year to be provable
Because the initial approval is short, the operating plan should be built so that its progress can be evidenced: hiring on identified dates, revenue from named contracts, equipment placed in service, and the transferee's role developing as described. Where the role is claimed as managerial, the first year should actually produce the staff or function being managed, since a lone operator performing the technical work personally at the end of that year is a weak position to be in. Treat the plan as something a reader will check against reality later, not as a document filed once.
What else is on your mind?
Does being a business owner or director qualify me for L-1A?What employment history should an L-1 transfer review cover?What makes a new-office L-1A case different?Why does an L-2 spouse’s admission record matter for work?Editorial source review: 2026-09-07. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.