It ordinarily describes a commercial obligation whose actual terms should be reviewed separately from government and professional charges.
Identify the payer and purpose
Do not treat licensing expenditure as proof that the employee has specialized knowledge or that a company relationship qualifies.
The government charges for an L-1B petition are fixed by the USCIS fee schedule (G-1055): the Form I-129 fee, the fraud prevention and detection fee and any surcharge that applies to the petitioner, with premium processing as an optional addition. Government filing fees follow the standard USCIS schedule regardless of the argument's complexity; the added cost is typically the time spent documenting the company's own procedures in detail. Clarify whether the professional scope includes assessing the prior working relationship, qualifying employment period and connection to the proposed transfer. Separate ordinary business spending, evidence preparation and official immigration charges rather than suggest that a costly project purchases eligibility. Ask who can authenticate training, product history, comparative experience, and the proposed assignment; then budget legal review, secure document handling, corporate evidence, official charges, and family applications separately. Price the work needed to collect foreign-employment records, corporate-relationship documents, internal technical materials, translations, petition preparation, current government fees, and any optional expedited service. If the customer is paying the subsidiary a licence fee, the contract can allocate the specialist’s travel and living costs, but immigration fees should be paid by the petitioner as the employer.