The employer pays the Form I-129 filing fee, the fraud prevention and detection fee, the asylum program fee where it applies, and premium processing if chosen, all at the amounts in the current USCIS fee schedule, Form G-1055. Legal fees, relocation and dependants' applications are additional.
Separate government fees, professional fees and the cost of delay
Government fees for an L-1A petition are fixed by the USCIS fee schedule and depend partly on the employer's size and on whether premium processing is requested; check Form G-1055 rather than relying on a figure someone remembers. The company should also budget for a licensed U.S. immigration attorney to prepare the petition, because the managerial-capacity analysis is where petitions most often receive requests for evidence, and a well-prepared file is cheaper than a response.
Practical costs follow: relocation, temporary housing, health coverage for the family, and the L-2 applications for Dana's husband and children. There is one cost that is easy to overlook: the U.S. plant's own readiness.
If the supervisors Dana is meant to manage are not yet hired, the company may have to accelerate recruitment to support the petition, which is a real expense and worth building into the acquisition budget. Hypothetical example: Rohan's Canadian maker of prosthetic components wants him to run a newly purchased U.S. workshop.
The acquisition budget should separately identify petition charges, document collection, moving costs and the cost of the management layer he is meant to oversee. Board minutes, a staffing plan and payroll forecasts settle whether the company truly budgets for a manager rather than an individual contributor. It is also sensible to record prior L time early, because L-1A status has a seven-year ceiling and a later extension cannot repair a missed cap calculation.