For L-1A new-office purposes, the operation must support the managerial or executive role within one year of approval. A distant contract forecast does not replace that showing.
Connect the first year to supported resources
A qualifying U.S. organization doing business for less than one year also needs sufficient premises and the qualifying foreign managerial or executive year. Initial new-office approval cannot exceed one year. Explain actual commitments, ordinary work allocation and expected managerial responsibilities without promising that commercial delays extend the authorized period.
The company needs to prepare evidence of the proposed operation itself, not just the individual and the corporate relationship, and that means reviewing premises, staffing, and financial capacity before treating a planned launch date as a guaranteed immigration outcome. Recapture is arithmetic: days genuinely spent outside the United States during the L period do not consume the seven years, so careful travel records can return real months to an executive who has been crossing the border regularly. The requirement is one continuous year of qualifying employment abroad within the three years preceding the petition, so filing early on the strength of a fourteen-month association that includes contract months puts the case at risk over a point that four months of patience resolves.