IN THIS GUIDE · A Central Frontenac applications engineer's L-1B turns on two narrow facts: what she knows that the trade does not, and whether a parental leave broke her year abroad
Start with the L-1B eligibility and application overview
What a leave does to the year abroad
The rule asks for one continuous year of full-time employment with the qualifying organization within the three years before the petition is filed. It does not ask for the year immediately preceding the filing, which is what makes her file workable: the fourteen months she has worked since returning sit comfortably inside the three-year window and can be presented as the qualifying year on their own. A period of leave is not employment for this purpose, so the safer presentation names a clean twelve-month block of actual work rather than counting four years and hoping nobody notices the gap. Prove the block with payroll registers, tax slips and a human-resources letter that states the start of the block, the leave dates and the return date without ambiguity.
Knowledge the company built, not knowledge the trade shares
Any competent applications engineer can read a hydraulic schematic, size a plough for a truck chassis and quote from a parts catalogue. That is trade knowledge and it defeats a petition. What may support one is her command of this company's own control system, the configuration library that maps county salt-spreader specifications to its build options, the warranty-failure history behind three design revisions and the calibration procedure the company will not publish. Describe those four things concretely and attach the artefacts that prove she is their custodian: the specification documents she authored, the change log with her name on it, the internal training material she wrote and the engineering-review minutes.
Where she will sit, and why that answer is short here
She will work in the subsidiary's own office, on the subsidiary's payroll, supervised by its general manager. That keeps the file clear of the restriction on placing an L-1B worker at an unaffiliated employer's site, which requires that the petitioner keep control of the work and that the arrangement not amount to supplying labour. State the arrangement plainly and attach the subsidiary's lease and organizational chart. If the plan later drifts, so that county garages set her schedule and direct her day, the analysis changes and the petition should be amended rather than left to stand on a description that is no longer true.
The five-year ceiling and what the household should know now
L-1B status is capped at five years in total, and time already spent in either L-1 classification counts toward that five-year limit; L-1A has a seven-year maximum. A two-year assignment fits, but the family should write down what happens at the end of it, because approval creates no path to permanent residence and an employer's intention to sponsor later is not a plan. Her spouse would be employment-authorized incident to L-2 status and may work for any employer without a separate application, and children under twenty-one may attend school. Decide before departure whether the Ontario house is rented or sold, because that decision is far harder to unwind than the visa.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.