Five years is the maximum for this category, against seven for the managerial and executive category. A new-office petition is approved for one year initially. Time already spent in a related status counts toward the ceiling, so the arithmetic should be done before a multi-year assignment is promised to anyone.
Plan the whole arc, not the first petition
Hypothetical example: Anouk is the platform specialist the diagnostics group hopes to keep in the United States well beyond a first assignment. Assignments of this kind rarely end when the first approval does, because commissioning programmes expand and clients ask for the person who did the last site. That makes the ceiling a live constraint rather than a footnote.
Three points shape the plan. First, count backwards: any earlier period Anouk spent in the United States in a related status reduces what is available now. Second, if the group's real ambition is for her to lead the American operation eventually, moving to the managerial category later is a different petition with its own qualifying-capacity requirement, and it is far easier to arrange while she still has qualifying employment abroad within the relevant window.
Third, time spent working outside the United States during an assignment can, in defined circumstances, be recaptured against the ceiling, but that depends on records of physical presence which nobody keeps retrospectively. Start the travel log on day one.