The EB-1C Green Card qualifications are quite similar to the L-1A Executive/Manager criteria. There is a higher standard for qualification for the EB-1 Green Card than for the L-1A visa. To qualify, the employee must have been a manager or executive both abroad and in the U.S.

For the L-1 visa, the employee only needs to be sponsored for a managerial or executive position in the United States, but need not have held such a position abroad. Second, the employee must have supervised abroad and continue to supervise in the US other employees that are professionals. The manager or executive must not be a front-line manager, e.g. someone who supervises the lowest level of employees in the company, especially employees in positions that do not require a Bachelor’s degree or higher.

To qualify for EB-1C classification in this category, the sponsoring U.S. employer must:

  • Have a qualifying relationship with a foreign company (parent company, branch, subsidiary, or affiliate, collectively referred to as qualifying organizations); and
  • Be doing business as an employer in the United States and in at least one other country directly or through a qualifying organization.

Doing business means the regular, systematic, and continuous provision of goods and/or services by a qualifying organization and does not include the mere presence of an agent or office of the qualifying organization in the United States and abroad.

To qualify, the named employee must also:

  • Generally, have been working for a qualifying organization abroad for one continuous year within the three years immediately preceding his or her admission to the United States; and
  • Be seeking to remain inside the United States on a permanent basis to provide service in an executive or managerial capacity for a branch of the same employer or one of its qualifying organizations.