No. The petitioning U.S. affiliate pays the Form I-129 fee, any additional L-petition fee and optional premium processing under the USCIS G-1055 schedule regardless of the client contract. The client pays the affiliate for a deliverable, not for immigration fees or the specialist's salary.
The petitioner pays, and the client's money stays commercial
Hypothetical example: a state agency contract will fund the corridor-mapping project generously, and the firm's accountant asks whether the agency can be billed for the immigration costs. The affiliate is the petitioner; it pays the USCIS fees at filing per the current G-1055 schedule, together with any legal fees and certified translations of French records. The agency pays the affiliate under the services agreement for mapping deliverables.
Keeping those flows separate matters beyond accounting: if the client paid the specialist's salary or immigration costs directly and supervised the work, the arrangement would look like labour for hire, which does not qualify. Relocation costs are a commercial matter for the firm and should be committed after approval, not before. Confirm the fee amounts on the USCIS site at filing; premium processing is an optional additional fee if the contract timeline requires speed.
Cost review should include technical-document preparation, translations, filing charges, travel, and any client-site arrangements that become unnecessary if the transfer is postponed. Ask which invoices are refundable and who bears them. Hypothetical example: an industrial-robotics programmer's company pays a consultant to prepare demonstration material before confirming the corporate relationship.
The reviewer pauses that work, collects the ownership records first, and then narrows the technical package to the knowledge needed for the assignment. This sequence protects the budget and makes the final evidence more focused.