The contract should make financial responsibility clear, but paying a filing expense does not determine who legally controls the assignment. Separate commercial implementation costs from immigration fees and professional work.
Read the budget beside the service terms
Identify which entity hires the employee, directs tasks and supplies the relevant specialized service. Compare those facts with the contract rather than inferring them from who reimburses a fee. Verify current official charges for the actual petition and family steps. A generously funded project cannot cure an arrangement that principally places the employee under an unaffiliated employer’s control and supervision.
The immigration budget itself covers the Form I-129 fee, any asylum program fee based on the petitioner's size, the fraud-prevention fee applicable to L petitions and optional premium processing, all set out in the USCIS fee schedule. Check the published fee schedule for current amounts and any optional faster-adjudication charge, then set beside it a realistic estimate of the hours needed to produce contemporaneous documents, translations and a truthful account of staffing depth. If the claimed knowledge is tied to a provincial trade certificate, apprenticeship record or journeyperson status, budget separately for obtaining certified copies or any credential evaluation those records may need, in addition to the usual government filing and legal preparation costs.