Many multi-national companies have policies of international rotation of managerial level personnel to assure that all key personnel within the company have equal opportunity for career advancement when an appropriate position becomes open in any location around the world.

Cross-fertilization of ideas among high level employees and executives enhances a company’s competitiveness; exchanges of ideas often result in innovation that is essential to a company's reputation and development. A regular rotation of key personnel improves and ensures uniformity of service and procedure within the company at a global level.

When a multi-national company is developing a new market in another country, it may become necessary to have some employees with specialized knowledge work in the newly established office. The availability of an experienced employee with specialized and proprietary knowledge is often the determining factor in the success of the new office.

Large multi-national companies also need the flexibility to transfer their employees freely without being limited to any particular employee or any particular location.

The L visa was specifically designed to facilitate the needs of intra-company transfers by multi-national companies. Smaller and even start up companies can also take advantage of the L visa. However, since the USCIS (formerly the INS) will scrutinize L visa petitions filed by lesser-known companies more closely, professional consultation with an experienced immigration lawyer is strongly recommended these types of businesses.

L-1A visas are designed for intra-company executive transferees coming to work in the United States. The L-1A visa holders must have been employed in an executive or managerial capacity for the foreign company at an overseas location continuously for at least one year out of the past three years. Further, the L-1A holder must be coming to the U.S. to work for the U.S. company in an executive or managerial capacity.
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L-1B category covers specialized knowledge personnel. An example of specialized knowledge personnel would be an individual who possesses proprietary knowledge about a company's product and who travels to the U.S. to impart his or her specialized knowledge to new U.S. employees.

Additionally, in both cases, the U.S. company and foreign company must be related in a specific way, such through a parent/subsidiary relationship or through an affiliated employer.

USCIS has provided a special set of procedures to be used by companies that are frequent users of the L-1 visa category or are large multi-national organizations. It is called "L-1 Blanket Petition Program." Under this program, the approved company need only receive one approval from the USCIS to transfer a certain number managerial, executive and professional employees.

For more information on L visa, please click on the following links:

Description
Benefits of L visa
Requirements for L visa
Requirement Details I: Qualifying entities
Requirement Details II: Qualifying Position
Procedure for obtaining an initial L visa
Obtain and maintain an L visa
From L Status to Green Card
Documents and Information Needed
L-1 Status in I-485 Pending Period
Attorney and Filing Fees for L Visa
Memo: Be Aware of Abandonment of COS and AOS Applications
L-1 visa FAQ