Guangzhou's expedited work permit service: on this guideline, Category A only — nine situations, and an address that has already moved

The question employers ask most often on the phone is: "can this be rushed?"

Guangzhou has a published written answer: the Guangzhou Municipal Science and Technology Bureau (Guangzhou Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs) Guidelines on Urgent Handling and Extended-Hours Service for the Foreigner's Work Permit in China, posted on the bureau's website on 30 April 2025. It splits "rushing" into two different things — urgent handling and extended-hours service — with different thresholds and different people eligible for each.

The guideline is short: a little over eight hundred characters of substance. This article takes it apart clause by clause and does the one thing we do every time — checks it against anything later or higher up. Two things do not line up. One will waste your trip; the other changes what "expedited" should mean to you.

Only one of the documents quoted below publishes an official English text, and it is marked where it appears. The other translations are ours, and the Chinese controls.

1. The threshold has two layers, not one

The guideline says the service is available "with immediate effect" and states no expiry date. The first sentence of section 1(1), on eligibility, narrows the field sharply:

The applicant shall meet the conditions for handling a Foreigner's Work Permit in China as a foreign high-end talent (Category A), and shall satisfy one of the following conditions:

That sentence ends on a colon and leads into the nine items below; there is no full stop inside it. But it contains two layers, joined by "and", not "or":

1. You have to be Category A first. If you do not meet the conditions for foreign high-end talent (Category A), none of the nine items below is available to you. Category B and Category C applicants have no place in this section — but they do have one in section 2, on extended hours; see section 5 below.
2. Then one of nine. "One of the following conditions" means any one — not all nine.

Keep the two layers apart: matching three of the nine but not being Category A does not qualify you; being Category A but matching none of the nine does not either. The Category A criteria live in the Classification Standard for Foreigners Working in China (Provisional) — Guangzhou's own English edition calls it the Evaluation Criteria for Foreigners Employed in China (Trial) — and we are not repeating it here. We covered several Category A concessions on the documents side in the piece on degree authentication, but each of those has its own qualifying sub-category (the commitment system for work experience certification runs only to Category A items (1) and (2); for the highest degree certificate it runs to items (1) through (4)), and none of them bears on whether you can be expedited.

2. The nine situations, copied out

Section 1(1) of the guideline lists nine items. Verbatim:

1. Entering China to undertake a science and technology or talent project;
2. Entering China to attend a large-scale conference;
3. Entering China to deal with an enterprise's urgent business matters;
4. Entering China to attend the commissioning of a major project;
5. Entering China to deal with a major enterprise-related accident or legal litigation where there is a time-limit requirement;
6. Entering China to provide scientific and technological consulting services for a major scientific research project;
7. Entering China to provide technical support services for a major engineering project;
8. Attending, by invitation, science and technology or cultural exchange activities and the like organised by the government;
9. Entering China by invitation to take part in professional competitions in sport, science and technology, finance and the like, or to serve as a coach for a national or world sporting competition.

Three things are worth flagging in that list:

First, eight of the nine begin with "entering China" or "entering China by invitation". Items 1 to 7 all open with "entering China" and item 9 with "entering China by invitation"; only item 8 reads "attending, by invitation, science and technology or cultural exchange activities and the like organised by the government" — no "entering China". That difference is in the original; we do not add the words back, and we do not infer from it whether item 8 reaches someone already inside China. That falls to the counter officer to determine. If you are already in China and Category A, there is another route to separate out first — see section 7.

Second, the guideline never defines "major", "urgent" or "large-scale". Nowhere in the text is a standard set for what counts as a large-scale conference or a major project, and no list of supporting evidence is given. As section 3 explains, this is confirmed on the spot by the counter officer.

Third, item 5 is the only one of the nine in which the words "where there is a time-limit requirement" actually appear. (That is our count of what those nine lines say, not a claim that the other eight carry no time pressure; item 3's "urgent business matters" describes urgency, not a stated time-limit condition. Evidence requirements are for the counter officer to determine.) In practice item 5 is the easier one to evidence, because a hearing date or a statutory accident deadline is already written on a document somebody else sent you — that observation is ours, not the original's.

3. So much for "approval without meeting" — here is the exception

Guangzhou first moved the work permit online on 30 January 2020, and temporarily, as a pandemic measure (Notice of the Guangzhou Municipal Science and Technology Bureau on Temporarily Implementing Full-Process Online Handling of the Foreigner's Work Permit, dated 29 January 2020: "with immediate effect the Foreigner's Work Permit in this city shall be handled entirely online"). It became standing policy only in 2022. Article 1 of the Several Measures for Further Optimising the Handling of the Foreigner's Work Permit (issued by the Guangzhou Science and Technology Bureau, dated 15 March 2022, posted on the website on 16 March 2022; the bureau's own published English title is Several Measures for Further Optimization of the Processing of the Foreigner's Work Permit in Guangzhou) runs to 3 sentences beneath its heading line:

1. Rolling out full-process online handling of the work permit The Foreigner's Work Permit in China shall be handled entirely online under a "commitment plus notification" system, with approval without meeting. No paper application materials need be submitted when applying. After approval, a newly issued Category A Foreigner's Work Permit may be collected directly; for a newly issued Category B or Category C Foreigner's Work Permit, paper application materials must be submitted as required and the originals verified before the permit is collected.

Note that the third sentence already draws a boundary around "without meeting": Category A collects directly, Categories B and C submit paper and have originals verified. Urgent handling adds another boundary. Section 1(2) of the guideline, on procedure, is 2 sentences:

During acceptance and examination, an applicant who meets the conditions for urgent handling may apply for urgent handling. The applicant, the employer's handling officer or an entrusted agent shall attend one of the acceptance counters for the Foreigner's Work Permit in China and present the relevant supporting documents for urgent handling, and the counter officer shall confirm whether the conditions for expediting are met.

Four things in those two sentences are easy to read past:

• Applying for urgent handling is not a click. Somebody has to go to the counter, present documents, and be confirmed on the spot by the counter officer.
• That somebody need not be the applicant — but an "entrusted agent" is not just anyone you send. The original lists three alternatives: the applicant, the employer's handling officer, an entrusted agent. And requirement 5 under item 10 of Table 1 in (II) Guide to Apply for Foreigner's Work Permit (over 90 days) says:

5. Where a specialised service agency is entrusted to handle the matter, a letter of authorisation from the employer must be submitted (the original is collected), specifying the entrusted organisation, the specific entrusted individual and the entrusted matters, and giving the entrusted individual's ID number and contact telephone number; one authorisation per person per matter. The specialised service agency shall be registered in the "System".

That requirement sits in the materials-acceptance column, and the guideline does not separately say whether the same set applies to the urgent-documents trip. Preparing against the stricter set — original letter of authorisation, the agent's ID number and phone, one authorisation per person per matter, agency registered in the system — costs you nothing. (Appendices 2 and 3 of the application guidelines are the authorisation templates.) - "The relevant supporting documents for urgent handling" are never itemised. Whether a conference invitation, a project approval document or a court summons counts, how many copies, whether a Chinese translation is needed — this guideline says nothing. So do not assemble a bundle on anyone's guess, ours included. Ask the acceptance counter first. - The moment for raising it is "during acceptance and examination". In other words this is not something that can only be requested before filing; a case already in progress is within that sentence. The words "within China" and "outside China" appear nowhere in the guideline, and it does not distinguish the pre-entry Foreigner's Work Permit Notification stage from the post-entry Foreigner's Work Permit stage — so neither do we. The receiving authority's reading governs.

4. "Five working days": the expedited figure is the same as the ordinary completion limit

The time limit for urgent handling, section 1(3), is 1 sentence:

In principle it shall be completed within 5 working days, save in special examination circumstances.

Set that beside the ordinary limit and something emerges that most people miss. Chapter VI of the Guangzhou Guidelines for Applying for a Foreigner's Work Permit (2020 revision), "Application procedure", part (3) "Time limits", has 2 items:

1. The completion time limit for applying for a Foreigner's Work Permit in China from outside China, applying for a Foreigner's Work Permit in China from within China, applying for an extension of a Foreigner's Work Permit in China, and short-term permit notifications is: counted from the day after the accepting body accepts the case, completion within 5 working days.
2. The completion time limit for applications to vary, cancel or reissue a Foreigner's Work Permit in China, and for cancellation of a permit notification, is: counted from the day after the accepting body accepts the materials, completion within 1 working day.

The ordinary completion limit already says 5 working days. So does the urgent-handling sentence. On the face of these two texts, urgent handling does not state a shorter completion limit than the ordinary one — which is the opposite of what most people expect the word to mean.

So what does it compress? The clue is the word "accepts": the limit above starts running "from the day after the accepting body accepts the case", which means there is a stretch before acceptance that sits outside this limit. That stretch is set out in the volume.

First, the volume's scope, because every figure below belongs only to it. (II) Guide to Apply for Foreigner's Work Permit (over 90 days) — that is the bureau's own English title — carries the Chinese heading "90 日以上", while its opening line reads "where the contract term of employment exceeds 90 days, the work permit shall be handled under this guide". In Chinese, "90 日以上" includes 90 days; "exceeds 90 days" does not, and the official English "over 90 days" sides with "exceeds". Two of the three exclude 90, and the Chinese heading is the wider of them; if your contract is exactly 90 days, ask the receiving authority which volume is yours (90 days or less has its own volume, (III)).

In the pre-entry stage, where the Foreigner's Work Permit Notification is obtained, that volume says:

B. Preliminary review. The accepting body shall conduct a preliminary review within 5 working days of the successful online submission of materials (the day of submission is not counted within the period). Where materials are incomplete or the content non-conforming, the accepting body shall notify the corrections and additions online on a one-off basis; where materials are complete and the content conforming, the preliminary review is passed.

The post-entry stage has the corresponding step: "the accepting body shall conduct a preliminary review of the materials submitted online within 5 working days from the day after submission". So before "acceptance" there is, on each side of entry, a further stretch of up to 5 working days.

This is where to stop and be plain: the original does not say whether the urgent five working days swallows the preliminary review. The word "preliminary review" does not appear anywhere in this guideline, and it never says which stretch it changes. We are not answering that for it — and it is exactly the question worth asking on 12345 or at the counter: "does urgent handling compress the preliminary review, the stretch after acceptance, or both?" Only two things are certain: the sentence is followed by "save in special examination circumstances", so it is not a promise; and none of these limits include your own preparation time, nor the embassy or consulate's visa processing, the medical examination, or an authentication body's turnaround. Those clocks run separately — we worked through them in the piece on the medical certificate and the piece on degree authentication.

5. Extended hours: open to all three categories, but it is thirty extra minutes a day

Section 2's threshold is much wider than section 1's. Its eligibility condition is a single sentence: applicants for a Foreigner's Work Permit in China in Category A, Category B or Category C. Which means Categories B and C cannot use urgent handling, but they can use extended hours.

Section 2(2), the arrangement, verbatim:

1. Service hours: working days 9:00–12:30 and 13:00–17:00 (of which 12:00–12:30 is the extended-hours service period)
2. Content of the extended-hours service: consultation on Foreigner's Work Permit in China matters, acceptance of applications, urgent handling, verification of materials, collection of documents.
3. Extended-hours service points: Guangzhou Foreigner's Work Service Window (address: Counter 517, 5th Floor, Guangzhou Government Affairs Center, No. 61 Huali Road, Tianhe District, Guangzhou) Huangpu District Foreigner's Work Service Window (address: Counter 405, Zone A, 4th Floor, Government Affairs Service Centre, No. 3 Xiangxue Third Road, Huangpu District, Guangzhou) Nansha District One-Stop Work Service Window (address: Counter 3, 2nd Floor, Nansha International Talent Port, No. 167 Haibin Road, Nansha District, Guangzhou; extended-hours service period 12:00–13:00) Tianhe District Foreigner's Work Permit Service Point (address: Counter 3, 7th Floor, Tianhe Talent Port, No. 13 Ruanjian Road, Tianhe District, Guangzhou)

Note one thing before reading on: the first address on that list stopped serving the public after 30 September 2025, under the relocation announcement of 19 September 2025 — see section 6. The three points below are about this April 2025 text as written.

First, "extended" means the lunch half-hour. Counters usually shut at 12:00; this one runs to 12:30. It is not evening opening and it is not weekend opening — the original says "working days". Treat it as "you can still make the lunchtime run", not as "you can go after work".

Second, Nansha is an hour, not half an hour. That entry carries its own note in brackets: "extended-hours service period 12:00–13:00". Of the four points, only Nansha's row has its own timing. Do not go to Nansha on a 12:30 assumption, and do not go to the other three on a 13:00 one.

Third, the original lists five things that can be done in the extended period: consultation, acceptance of applications, urgent handling, verification of materials, collection of documents. Urgent handling is itself on that list — so on this text, applying to expedite on the lunchtime run is allowed.

6. The first address on that list stopped applying after 30 September 2025

The first address in the service-point list above is "Counter 517, 5th Floor, Guangzhou Government Affairs Center, No. 61 Huali Road, Tianhe District". That counter has stopped serving the public.

The Announcement (Guangzhou Foreigners' Work Service Window relocated to Guangzhou Immigration Service Center) (posted on the bureau's website on 19 September 2025) gives two paragraphs under "I. Location" — two sentences in the Chinese, three as the bureau's own English splits them. In that official English:

New address: One-Stop Service Window for Foreigners Working in China, Guangzhou Immigration Service Center (Address: 4th Floor, Entry and Exit Reception Hall for Foreigners of Guangzhou Public Security Bureau, No. 155 Jiefang South Road, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou). Service starts from October 9, 2025. The former service counter 516、517, 5th Floor of Guangzhou Government Affairs Center will be closed after September 30, 2025.

Both documents are talking about the same Counter 517. The later one closed it — and the earlier one is still posted in the same section of the bureau's website (we opened it on 10 September 2026 to confirm). Turning up at Huali Road on the strength of the April 2025 guideline means a wasted trip. A December 2024 FAQ in the same section also still gives "Counters 516 and 517, 5th Floor, Guangzhou Government Affairs Center, No. 61 Huali Road" (confirmed the same day).

The more consequential mismatch is the hours: the relocation announcement gives them as "Monday to Friday 9:00-12:00, 13:00-17:00. Closed on weekends and public holidays" — with no 12:00–12:30 extended period in it. (The Chinese says 工作日, "working days"; under China's holiday-shift system that can include a Saturday and exclude a Monday, so check the year's holiday schedule before you go.) Whether extended-hours service continues at the new address is answered by neither original, and we found no third document in that section answering it (search scope: every notice title across the three pages that section currently runs to, read one by one on 10 September 2026). So if you were planning to arrive at the Yuexiu counter at 12:10, call 020-12345 before you set out. That is the enquiry number the relocation announcement itself provides.

Two smaller things worth knowing first. The relocation announcement carries an attachment, Traffic Guidance (交通路线图.docx) — the new counter is on the 4th floor of a public security exit-entry reception hall, so download it before you travel. And part IV(1) of the announcement lists the on-site service as "consultation on, acceptance of, and issue of administrative licensing decisions for the Foreigner's Work Permit in China, and the like" — it does not separately name "verification of materials" or "collection of documents", which the old guideline's extended-hours content did. Whether they sit inside "and the like" is not stated, so if you are Category B or C and going specifically to have paper originals verified, settle that on the same phone call.

As for the other three points on the list — Huangpu, Nansha, Tianhe — the relocation announcement does not mention them at all; it deals only with the municipal-level counter. Whether they are still where they were, and whether their extended periods have changed, is something for which the last public statement we can find is the 30 April 2025 guideline itself (same search scope as above). Note also that the counter numbers for the same addresses are not written identically elsewhere: the bureau's 4 December 2024 FAQ gives Nansha as "Counters 3–8, 2nd Floor", while this April 2025 guideline says "Counter 3, 2nd Floor". Ask by counter number before you go. A government page does not come down just because a newer notice went up. Addresses, phone numbers and counters: always check them against something dated later — we ran into the same thing last time, in the piece on the work permit and social security card.

7. If you are already out of time

Urgent handling addresses the approval stretch. The situations below sit outside its reach — and they are usually the real position of the people who call to ask "can this be rushed?":

• You have entered China and the 15-day clock is running — first check whether that deadline is yours. It appears at the head of the volume's section "1. Applying for a Foreigner's Work Permit in China from outside China (new application)": "For a first-time application for a Foreigner's Work Permit in China, the Foreigner's Work Permit Notification is applied for before entry, and the Foreigner's Work Permit is handled within 15 days after entry, in the following two steps:" — which governs the route where you enter on a Z or R visa obtained with the Notification. The same volume's section "2. Applying for a Foreigner's Work Permit in China from within China" separately lists the situations in which you may apply directly inside China, nine of them, the first being:

① A foreign high-end talent (Category A) who has already entered China holding another visa or a valid residence certificate;

Article 3 of the 2022 Several Measures says the same: "a foreigner holding a valid visa who is employed by an employer may apply for the Foreigner's Work Permit directly within China". So: which route you are on decides whether the 15-day figure applies to you at all, and that is for the receiving authority to determine. Anyone already in China and in Category A should settle this first rather than panicking on the other route's clock. - What if you are already past 15 days. Neither this guideline nor this volume states any consequence for missing it, and neither sets out a remedial procedure — both originals are silent (checked 10 September 2026). We are not going to invent a consequence for them. Whether a late filing is accepted, and whether an explanatory letter is wanted, only the receiving authority can answer. A separate deadline comes from Article 30, paragraph 1 of the Exit and Entry Administration Law of the People's Republic of China (adopted 30 June 2012, in force 1 July 2013):

Where the visa held by a foreigner specifies that a residence permit is to be obtained after entry, the foreigner shall, within thirty days from the date of entry, apply for a foreigner's residence permit to the exit-entry administration of the public security organ under the local people's government at or above the county level in the place of intended residence.

Those two numbers govern two different things — do not use one for the other. The application and consequences of the residence-permit deadline are for the exit-entry administration to determine; they are outside this article, and this article does not give legal advice. Nothing in the urgent-handling guideline addresses extending either deadline (the words "extend" and "deadline" return zero hits across its full text). - Your file has been returned once already. The volume's sentence has to be read with its condition attached:

Where materials are found in the course of review not to meet the requirements and are returned, the employer shall complete the application materials on a one-off basis as prompted and resubmit them for review as soon as possible; each time materials are submitted, the acceptance time is recounted.

One rejection and the acceptance time starts over. Which is why in Guangzhou "get it right first time" is worth far more than "file it and see". As for whether you can still ask for urgent handling after a return and resubmission: the guideline says only "during acceptance and examination … may apply for urgent handling", and does not say whether a resubmitted file counts as back inside "acceptance and examination". The original does not answer it, and neither will we — it is worth asking outright at the counter. - You are not Category A but you are genuinely out of time. On this guideline, the urgent-handling section is not available to you. What is available is extended hours, and moving the controllable parts of the ordinary process earlier: authentication, the medical examination and the criminal record certificate all sit outside the receiving authority's time limits, and their clocks belong to other people. Which stretch is longest is covered in degree authentication and the criminal record certificate. - You match one of the nine but cannot produce paperwork for it. The guideline gives the determination to the counter officer and provides no evidence list. The honest approach is to take whatever does evidence the timing — invitation, court summons, project approval, competition notice — to the counter and let them look at it, rather than hunting for an answer online. The outcome is not something we can predict, and it is not something any agent can promise.

8. One line each — which route is yours (with the jurisdiction on every line)

• You are Category A and match any one of the nine (Guangzhou) → you may apply for urgent handling under this guideline; but somebody (the applicant, the employer's handling officer or an entrusted agent) must attend the acceptance counter with the supporting documents and be confirmed by the counter officer. This is the Guangzhou bureau's practice and governs Guangzhou only.
• You are Category B or C (Guangzhou) → under the guideline of 30 April 2025 the urgent-handling section does not reach you; the eligibility condition for extended-hours service names Category A, B and C applicants.
• You want the extended half-hour, 12:00–12:30 (Guangzhou) → that half-hour rests only on the 30 April 2025 guideline, and only for the four points it lists: Huali Road Counter 517 (which, per the relocation announcement of 19 September 2025, stopped serving the public after 30 September 2025), Huangpu Counter 405, Nansha (12:00–13:00), and Counter 3 on the 7th floor of Tianhe Talent Port. The municipal counter has been at No. 155 Jiefang South Road, Yuexiu District since 9 October 2025, and the hours the relocation announcement gives it are "Monday to Friday 9:00-12:00, 13:00-17:00" — with no extended period. Do not turn up in Yuexiu at 12:10. The announcement does not mention Huangpu, Nansha or Tianhe; call 020-12345 before setting out.
• You intend to file in Huangpu or Nansha District → under the Decision of the Guangzhou Municipal People's Government on Adjusting Certain Municipal Administrative Powers (Guangzhou Municipal People's Government Order No. 223, in force 1 August 2026), Appendix 2 item 10, the Foreigner's Work Permit in China is delegated to the Huangpu and Nansha district science and technology authorities, with the remark reading "limited to" three matters: handling, variation and cancellation. "Extension" is not in that enumeration, and neither is "reissue". The Decision states no criterion for how cases are allocated (the split by district comes from the bureau's FAQ of 4 December 2024 — "handles business for the whole city except Huangpu and Nansha districts" / "handles Huangpu district business" / "handles Nansha district business" — a different and earlier document). The same Decision also says "where a delegated matter is particularly major or complex, the delegating body may implement it directly, subject to the delegation agreement", and "from the date of handover, the receiving body handles the relevant matters within its remit, and the original body completes cases it has already accepted". So: a case already accepted by the municipal bureau is, on that sentence, still finished by the municipal bureau; and where extension and reissue go is a question to settle before you file. (We did not find a published delegation agreement in that section on 10 September 2026.)
• You are in Tianhe (Guangzhou) → the point on that guideline's list is the "Tianhe District Foreigner's Work Permit Service Point" (Counter 3, 7th Floor, Tianhe Talent Port, No. 13 Ruanjian Road). It is in the April 2025 guideline; it is not in the September 2025 relocation announcement.
• You just want to know how many days expediting saves (Guangzhou) → on the face of the texts: none off the completion limit — the guideline's "in principle completed within 5 working days" is the same figure as the ordinary completion limit in the main application guidelines, and it is followed by "save in special examination circumstances". Whether it compresses the preliminary review that precedes acceptance is not stated. For a number you can rely on, ask the receiving authority — do not take this section to your boss as a date.

Every item above is sourced and dated, but requirements differ from place to place, and what governs is what the receiving authority requires at the time. This article covers procedure and time limits only. We do not process applications, and we do not judge whether any given application meets the urgent-handling conditions — that is the counter officer's call.

9. Where translation and escort interpreting sit on this track

Something against our own interest first, because it has to be said: this guideline does not say whether the "supporting documents for urgent handling" need a Chinese translation. It does not even itemise what those documents are (a full-text search for "translation", "translated text" and "Chinese" returns zero hits). So if anyone tells you that expedited paperwork must be translated and sealed by a translation company, ask them for the source — it is not in the original we found.

What does have a basis is the document checklist — and it is longer than one sentence. The materials requirements in the body of (II) Guide to Apply for Foreigner's Work Permit (over 90 days) say "non-Chinese materials must be accompanied by a Chinese translation issued by a notarial institution within China". But remark 5 to Table 1 in the same volume states the rule more fully, and the two have to be read together:

5. Non-Chinese supporting materials must all be accompanied by a Chinese translation issued by a notarial institution of our country (passports and international travel documents excepted), or by a Chinese translation authenticated by our embassies or consulates abroad, or by foreign embassies or consulates in China. Where the meaning of the translation differs seriously from the original, the employer must provide it again.

There are two differences, and both bear on the reader's money and time: the remark gives two routes — a translation issued by a notarial institution inside China, or one authenticated by a Chinese embassy/consulate abroad or a foreign embassy/consulate in China — and passports and international travel documents are excluded from the requirement. Guangzhou's own official English matches the remark: "provide the translated version issued by Chinese notary organizations or the translated version authenticated by Chinese diplomatic or consular missions in foreign countries or foreign diplomatic or consular missions in China". So: if you already hold a consulate-authenticated translation, on this sentence you need not redo it through a notary office; and if what you are filing is a passport, you need not pay to translate it.

Which of the two sentences governs is not ours to decide for the receiving authority — before filing, ask about the one you already hold. What is certain is that neither sentence contains "a translation company's seal alone". We set the three cities' wordings side by side in whose seal belongs on a work permit translation. What we do is the step before: getting the text right and the layout matched to the original, then handing it to the notary office or the authentication channel to process under its own procedure. Whether to accept it is the notary office's or the mission's decision, and an applicant's own draft is equally allowed.

The other certainty comes from those two sentences in section 3: urgent handling requires somebody at the counter, showing the documents and hearing what the officer says. That trip cannot be avoided — and if you want someone alongside to get the wording right on the spot, that is exactly what escort interpreting is for.

One closing reminder: the completion clock starts at acceptance, not at the moment you realised you needed to file. What usually decides whether you make it is not the approval stretch at all.