IN THIS GUIDE · Reconstructing a qualifying year abroad when employment has breaks, transfers and United States business travel
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
Build a month-by-month employment timeline
Start with a single table covering the last several years, one row per month, showing the employing entity, the role, the location, and whether the person was on payroll, on leave, or not employed at all. Fill it from payroll records and contracts rather than memory. Parental leave, unpaid sabbaticals, secondments and short resignations all belong in the table exactly as they occurred. The purpose is a truthful picture that counsel can assess, not a tidy one. Build the table in a spreadsheet with one row per month and columns for entity, role, location, and payroll status, filling it from payroll records and contracts rather than from memory. Parental leave, unpaid sabbaticals, secondments, and short resignations all belong in it exactly as they occurred. The purpose is a truthful picture counsel can assess rather than a tidy one.
Identify which employer each period belongs to
Each period needs a named employer, because the qualifying year must be with an organisation related to the US employer as parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate. A move between group companies may be continuous employment in practice while looking like two jobs on paper, and an interval with an unrelated employer is simply outside the relevant service. Collect the contracts, transfer letters and payroll statements that show which entity paid and directed the person in each stretch. Attach a named employer to every period, since the qualifying year must be with an organisation related to the United States employer as parent, branch, subsidiary, or affiliate. A move between group companies may be continuous employment in practice while appearing as two jobs on paper, and an interval with an unrelated employer sits outside the relevant service entirely.
Treat time spent in the United States separately
Trips to the United States deserve their own column. Record the dates, the purpose, the status used, and who paid the person during each visit, using passport stamps, travel bookings and expense records to fix the dates. Brief business travel is treated differently from a period of employment in the United States, and the interaction with the one continuous year abroad within the relevant preceding three-year period is genuinely technical. Present the dates; let counsel apply them. Give United States trips their own column with dates, purpose, the status used, and who paid during each visit, fixed from passport stamps, travel bookings, and expense records. Brief business travel is treated differently from a period of employment in the United States, and how either interacts with the continuous year abroad within the preceding three years is genuinely technical. Present the dates and let counsel apply them.
Turn the timeline into a legal question, then a decision
Send the completed timeline to licensed US immigration counsel with the questions attached: which window is being counted, whether a particular gap interrupts it, and whether waiting a period would produce a cleaner record. Ask for the answer in writing before the role is offered or accepted. If the chronology is short of what is needed, the useful outcome is a revised start date or a different route, not a filing that hopes the gaps go unnoticed. Hypothetical example: an employee resigned for four months to care for a parent and then rejoined the group through a different entity. Send the completed timeline to counsel with the questions attached: which window is being counted, whether that gap interrupts it, and whether waiting would produce a cleaner record.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.