Do not decide the issue from the lease date alone. Review the qualifying organization’s actual period of doing business in the United States.
Apply the definition to the real organization
The new-office framework concerns less than one year of qualifying U.S. business activity. Identify the entity and operating history rather than equating every new location with a newly operating organization. Where the new-office rules do apply, their one-year initial limit and specific evidence remain necessary; a branch-opening schedule does not change those rules.
Confirm the actual approval and status dates from the government notice, and preserve the originally submitted business plan alongside a record of how staffing, duties, and finances actually developed. The second block is preparation and filing: the business plan, the organization chart with hiring dates, the ownership chain, and the petition itself, with premium processing available if the company wants a faster decision. L-1A still requires one continuous year of managerial or executive employment abroad in the preceding three, a qualifying parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate relationship with continuing foreign operations, and a proposed position that is chiefly managerial or executive.