When should a new-office extension be prepared?

Begin preserving operational evidence as soon as the office starts, then plan the filing against the actual approval and status expiry dates. Initial new-office approval is limited to one year, and an extension requires review of what the business has actually achieved.

Build the record continuously

Keep invoices, payroll, financial statements and evidence of the employee’s qualifying work as they arise. Compare actual operations with the original plan and explain material changes. Do not wait until expiry to discover that the only evidence is a launch forecast.

Processing and continued-status questions should be assessed for the specific filing. Begin preparing the extension from the first month rather than treating it as a task for the final quarter, because the extension is assessed on what the operation did across the whole period and evidence of the early months is the part most often missing. Set up a simple routine: a monthly note of what the business did, what was invoiced, who was hired, what the individual worked on, and what changed against the plan.

Retain the underlying records as they are generated. When the extension falls due, the file assembles itself from material created contemporaneously rather than being reconstructed under time pressure. Identify the filing deadline at the outset and work backward from it, allowing time for the review to identify gaps while something can still be done about them.