L-1B Intracompany Transferee, Specialized Knowledge
L-1B moves an employee with specialised knowledge of a multinational employer's products, services, research, techniques or internal processes from an affiliated foreign office to a US office. It carries the same corporate relationship and one-year-abroad tests as L-1A, but caps out at five years rather than seven and has no equivalent fast lane to a green card. It is the harder of the two L categories to win.
- Срок
- Three years initially. A new-office L-1B is limited to a one-year initial stay. The overall maximum is five years.
- Продление
- Extensions in increments of up to two years to the five-year maximum. Once the five years are used, the employee must leave; there is no minimum period abroad specified before a fresh petition, but a new petition and, where relevant, a new visa are required.
- Работа
- Yes, incident to status, only for the petitioning employer in the specialised knowledge role described in the approved petition. A material change requires an amended Form I-129. No separate EAD is issued.
- Двойное намерение
- true - L is a recognised dual intent category, so a pending green card case does not undermine L-1B status or admission.
- Члены семьи
- Spouse and unmarried children under 21 get L-2 status for the same period. L-2 spouses are work authorised incident to status under the L-2S code on Form I-94 and need not file Form I-765. L-2 children may study but may not work.
- Путь к грин-карте
- No mirror category, which is the practical difference from L-1A. Most L-1B holders go through PERM labour certification into EB-2 or EB-3, which takes years and has to start early given the five-year cap. Some qualify for EB-1B outstanding researcher or EB-2 national interest waiver instead.
- Срок рассмотрения
- Regular Form I-129 adjudication runs several months; premium processing gives a 15 business day response for $2,965. Requests for evidence are markedly more common on L-1B than L-1A, which adds months even with premium processing. Consular waits since the October 2025 interview waiver rollback add further time.
Кто подходит
- Employees with special knowledge of the organisation's product, service, research, equipment, techniques or management and its application in international markets
- Employees with an advanced level of knowledge or expertise in the organisation's processes and procedures
- Employees who have worked for a qualifying organisation abroad for one continuous year within the preceding three years
- Specialised knowledge employees being sent to help establish a new US office
Требования
- A qualifying corporate relationship between the US and foreign entity: parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate
- Both entities doing business for the whole of the beneficiary's L-1 stay
- One continuous year of qualifying employment abroad in the three years before admission
- Specialised knowledge as defined in 8 CFR 214.2(l)(1)(ii)(D), which USCIS reads narrowly
- Where the employee will be stationed mainly at an unaffiliated employer's worksite, the L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2004 requires proof that the unaffiliated employer will not principally control or supervise the work and that it is not labour for hire
- For a new office: secured premises and financial ability to compensate the employee and begin doing business
- Form I-129 with the L supplement, or Form I-129S under an approved blanket L
Как подать
- 1
Document the qualifying corporate relationship with ownership and control evidence
- 2
Document one continuous year of qualifying employment abroad within the last three years
- 3
Build the specialised knowledge case around what is distinctive to the organisation, not what is generally hard to learn
- 4
The US employer files Form I-129 with the L supplement, or Form I-129S under an approved blanket L
- 5
Pay the base fee, the Asylum Program Fee, the $500 fraud fee and any covered-employer surcharges
- 6
Add Form I-907 for premium processing where timing matters
- 7
Complete Form DS-160, pay the $205 MRV fee and interview in your country of nationality or residence
- 8
Canadian citizens may present the approved petition or blanket documents to CBP at a port of entry instead
Сборы и формы
| Form I-129, L petition | $1,385; $695 for a small employer of 25 or fewer full-time equivalent employees, or a nonprofit |
| Asylum Program Fee on Form I-129 | $600 regular petitioner, $300 small employer, $0 nonprofit |
| Fraud Prevention and Detection Fee | $500 on an initial L petition or a change of L employer |
| Public Law 114-113 fee for covered employers | $4,500 where the petitioner has 50 or more US employees and more than half are in H-1B, L-1A or L-1B status, on petitions filed before Oct. 1, 2027 |
| 9-11 Response and Biometric Entry-Exit Fee, L-1 | $4,500 for covered employers, on petitions postmarked or filed on or after Sept. 9, 2026 |
| Form I-907 premium processing | $2,965 |
| MRV nonimmigrant visa application fee, petition-based tier | $205 |
| Blanket L fraud prevention and detection fee, paid at the consulate by the principal applicant | $500 |
| Form I-539 for L-2 dependants inside the United States | $470 paper, $420 online |
Что изменилось в 2025 и 2026 годах
- Sept. 9, 2026: a DHS final rule issued Aug. 10, 2026 requires covered employers to pay the 9-11 Response and Biometric Entry-Exit Fee on every H-1B and L-1 petition, $4,000 for H-1B and $4,500 for L-1. A covered employer has 50 or more US employees with more than half in H-1B, L-1A or L-1B status. It does not apply to an amended petition that does not seek to extend status. The fee runs on petitions filed on or before Sept. 30, 2027.
- Aug. 10, 2026: the 9-11 Biometric Fee rule exempts amended petitions that do not seek to extend the beneficiary's current status, which matters for the frequent worksite amendments L-1B employers file.
- Oct. 1, 2025: the interview waiver rollback announced Sept. 18, 2025 took effect and superseded the July 25, 2025 guidance. Almost every nonimmigrant applicant now needs an in-person interview. The standing carve-outs are A-1, A-2, C-3 other than personal staff, G-1 through G-4, NATO-1 through NATO-6, TECRO E-1, diplomatic and official visas, and 12-month renewals of B-1/B-2, Mexican border crossing cards and H-2A. Waiver-eligible applicants must also apply in their country of nationality or residence, must never have been refused a visa unless overcome or waived, and must have no apparent ineligibility. The old under-14 and over-79 age exemptions were abolished. No further update has issued as of September 2026.
- July 15, 2026: State told nonimmigrant applicants to interview in their country of nationality or residence, or at the designated processing post if their country has no routine operations. Applying elsewhere is allowed but harder to qualify, the MRV fee is non-refundable and non-transferable, and waits are much longer. A, G, C-2, C-3, NATO and diplomatic applicants are exempt.
- Jan. 1, 2026: Presidential Proclamation 10998, signed Dec. 16, 2025, took effect at 12:01 a.m. EST and replaced Proclamation 10949 (signed June 4, 2025, effective June 9, 2025). It fully suspends visa issuance to nationals of 19 countries - Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen - plus holders of Palestinian Authority travel documents, across every nonimmigrant and immigrant category. It only reaches people who were outside the United States and held no valid visa at 12:01 a.m. EST on Jan. 1, 2026; no earlier-issued visa was revoked under it. L is outside the partial suspension list, so nationals of the 19 partially suspended countries remain eligible for L visas.
- July 4, 2025: Public Law 119-21 added non-waivable immigration surcharges on top of normal filing fees. The ones that touch nonimmigrants are the Form I-94 fee, held at $24 for FY 2026, the parole fee, adjusted to $1,020 for FY 2026, parolee EAD surcharges of $560 initial and $280 renewal, and a statutory visa integrity fee of at least $250 on nonimmigrant visa issuance. The $250 visa integrity fee is enacted but unverified as collected: it appears nowhere on the State Department fee schedule as of September 2026 and no implementing rule has published.
- Current USCIS fee schedule, Form G-1055 edition 05/29/26: an L Form I-129 is $1,385, or $695 for a small employer or nonprofit, plus the Asylum Program Fee.
- L-1B remains the harder filing and got harder. On USCIS Form I-129 quarterly data the L-1B denial rate moved from 7.7 percent in FY 2025, on 13,894 completions, to 8.4 percent in the first half of FY 2026, on 6,908 completions. The RFE rate rose from 26.2 percent to 28.7 percent, peaking at 35.1 percent in December 2025, consistently several points above L-1A.
- Policy Manual Volume 2, Part L has had no substantive update in 2025 or 2026. The Feb. 26, 2025 entry is a technical change swapping "noncitizen" for "alien". The last substantive alerts remain Aug. 16, 2022 on managers, executives and specialized knowledge, and Oct. 20, 2023 on sole proprietorships. Nothing has changed the specialized knowledge standard, the new office rules, blanket L, or the one continuous year abroad requirement. There is also no L-1 rulemaking on the DHS Unified Agenda.
- Blanket L consular adjudication is unchanged. 9 FAM 402.12 was last updated April 23, 2024 and the clearly approvable standard at 9 FAM 402.12-7(E) is intact. The Form I-129S endorsement change, where the approval notice replaces the stamped paper form, dates to Aug. 3, 2023 rather than this period.
- Aug. 5, 2026: USCIS policy alert PA-2026-05 on evidence, requests for evidence and notices of intent to deny took effect immediately. USCIS may now deny outright, without first issuing an RFE or NOID, where the required initial evidence was not filed with the petition. RFE response time is capped at 84 calendar days plus three mailing days, and the extra 14 days formerly allowed for international correspondence is gone. On an L-1B, where RFEs already hit nearly three filings in ten, that makes the initial evidence package decisive.
Где чаще всего ошибаются
- Pitching specialised knowledge as general industry expertise. It must be knowledge of this organisation's own products, processes or methods.
- Third-party placement cases, which trigger the L-1 Visa Reform Act control and labour-for-hire tests.
- Assuming L-1B is a stepping stone to L-1A. Promotion mid-assignment needs an amended petition and does not extend the five-year cap unless the classification actually changes.
- Leaving the green card process to year four when PERM alone takes longer than that.
- Losing the one continuous year abroad by an intervening US assignment.
- Not recapturing time spent outside the United States against the five-year cap for want of travel records.
- Two separate $4,500 lines now apply to covered employers from Sept. 9, 2026.
- Blanket L refusals at the window are effectively unappealable and force an individual Form I-129.
Также в категории Intracompany transferee
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