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At a time when the President Donald Trump administration has announced a steep new $100,000 fee on fresh H-1B applications, many are asking if the lesser-known L-1 visa could be an alternative. The L-1 has been used for decades by multinational firms to shuffle executives and staff between overseas and US offices.
The L-1 is a non-immigrant work visa for intracompany transfers. A worker must have been employed abroad by a multinational’s parent, branch, subsidiary, or affiliate for at least one continuous year in the last three years, in either an executive/managerial role (L-1A) or a specialised knowledge role (L-1B). Only the company can petition; individuals cannot apply on their own.
Texas-based attorney Chand Parvathaneni told The Indian Express, “It is an intra-company transfer visa. If you are working for company X in India for a year, you can be transferred to the same company X in the US but you cannot switch to company Y or Z. The rule is very narrow.”
According to official US State Department data, issuances dipped during the pandemic but quickly recovered: 76,988 were issued in FY2019, just 24,863 at the 2021 low, and then 76,671 in FY2023. Refusal rates, once around 10%, have fallen to about 3–4%.
Still, Parvathaneni cautioned that “L-1s have higher rejection rates than H-1Bs because of potential misuse. Specialised knowledge is vague, so consulates in India especially scrutinise them very closely.”
The main attraction is that there is no lottery or quota. Multinationals can apply year-round, and large firms can use “blanket petitions” to speed up processing. The visa also allows dual intent holders can pursue a green card without jeopardising their status, and spouses on L-2 visas can work automatically in the US.
But the restrictions are sharp. The visa is available only if the worker has already spent a year abroad in the same company. It ties the employee to that firm’s US branch, with no portability to another employer. And it has hard time limits: five years for L-1B and seven for L-1A. Unlike H-1B holders, L-1 workers cannot extend simply because they are waiting for a green card.
Houston-based attorney Rahul Reddy said companies factor this in: “If a person is more eligible for L-1, they were already bringing them on L-1 because it costs less and keeps them tied to the company. But it’s not easy. Rejections are high because the government wants to make sure the skill set is truly unique.”
The H-1B is meant for “speciality occupation” professionals with a bachelor’s degree or higher, and is capped at 85,000 new visas each year.
Employers must pay the prevailing wage and prove they are not undermining US workers. By contrast, the L-1 has no cap and no prevailing wage requirement, but only applies to intra-company transferees.
Reddy rejected the idea that H-1Bs are “cheap labour”: “If I hire a US citizen, technically I could pay them just the minimum wage, around $20,000. But if I hire an H-1B, the Department of Labor sets the prevailing wage. For a software developer, it’s about $100,000, and we cannot pay less than that. On top of that, there are filing fees of $2,500 to $10,000, plus lawyer costs. So H-1B is never cheap labour. If anything, L-1 has fewer wage requirements.”
Is the L-1 really an alternative to the H-1B?
Not for most workers. Parvathaneni said: “The number of L-1 visas is not going to suddenly go up because of the H-1B changes. Companies like Infosys or TCS already use this option when their employees don’t clear the H-1B lottery. For most individuals, it is not a substitute.” Reddy agreed: “Even before this new $100,000 fee, companies were already choosing L-1 if their employees were eligible. It’s not something new.”
No. “For students in the U.S. on F-1, this is not an option at all. They haven’t worked abroad for a year with the same company. L-1 is for employees already embedded in the company’s global operations,” Parvathaneni told The Indian Express.
What about dependents? Can L-1 spouses work?
Yes. A major advantage of the L-1 is that dependents can build their own careers. “Not only can the spouse come,” Reddy explained, “they get an automatic work permit. If I am taking one of my employees from India to the U.S. on L-1, their spouse is more inclined to stay with my company because they can also work.” This contrasts with H-1B, where spouses on H-4 visas face restrictions.
The L-1 is not a blanket substitute for H-1B. It is a specialised tool, meant for multinational transfers, with big advantages for those who qualify but hard limits for everyone else. As Reddy summed it up, he said, “These are really skilled people that companies are paying a lot of money to bring into the country.”
“For people in India working for big firms, yes, it can be an option. For students or those already in the U.S., no. H-1B remains the main pathway. So the number of L1 applications flowing in going forward will grow at the same pace and will have no impact on the H1B’s rule changes because both have independent and separate paths and requirements,” Parvathaneni added.
