The price alone does not establish actual services or primary duties. Assess the substance of support and the applicant’s authority.
Avoid a spending-based inference
A high invoice cannot replace evidence that others actually perform the operating work.
A lease, payroll, inventory order, or marketing cost may help show an operating plan, but paying it does not itself establish that the intended position is managerial or executive. The first review should produce a ledger separating commercial spending, government charges, professional services, deposits, refund rights and household expense. Identify salaries or service contracts for staff who will perform production, administration, sales, and customer support, then connect those resources to the transferee’s duty allocation. The corporate evidence, the American staffing needed to support a managerial description, immigration counsel, and any response to a request for evidence usually cost more than the filing itself.
Separate government filing fees from legal and document-preparation services, from any company costs of setting up a new office, and from family-related applications. An initial new-office petition does not require the U.S. entity to operate yet, but it needs secured physical premises and, for L-1A, evidence addressing the investment size and the foreign entity’s financial ability to support the proposed operation.