No. Training and qualifying foreign employment are separate requirements.
Check the employment chronology
Establish one continuous full-time qualifying foreign year within the relevant preceding three years. Ordinary foreign qualifying work may be managerial, executive or specialized knowledge, while the U.S. role must meet L-1B. Brief U.S. visits do not automatically break continuity, but those days do not count toward the foreign year.
Create a timeline beginning with the foreign employment start date and include any breaks, promotions, travel, and entity changes. Preserve dated records showing the employee’s knowledge and prior projects, then confirm current foreign duties and the tasks planned in the United States. If internal training records, project histories, technical comparisons, and assignment documents already demonstrate the applicant’s special or advanced company knowledge, waiting may add delay without resolving a legal gap. The specialist and the company should start identifying which procedure specifications best demonstrate distinctive company-specific knowledge, and gathering evidence of the specialist's role in developing them, well before a transfer date is set.
- USCIS — L classification documentation and evidence
- Department of State — 9 FAM 402.12
- 8 USC 1184 — specialized knowledge definition
- USCIS — employment authorization for certain spouses
- ICE — nonimmigrant classes that may study
- USCIS — fee schedule
- L definitions, foreign employment and new-office evidence
- L1B specialized knowledge and offsite placement statute