diff --git a/.changeset/long-spiders-wave.md b/.changeset/long-spiders-wave.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..8c836621db
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+++ b/.changeset/long-spiders-wave.md
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+'@backstage/plugin-catalog-backend-module-gitlab': patch
+---
+
+The `last_activity_after` timestamp is now being omitted when querying the GitLab API for the first time.