Compensation and official application charges belong to different parts of the record.
Identify the real payment purpose
Record employment pay accurately and identify actual filing, evaluation or preparation expenses separately. Neither being paid for onboarding nor paying for a course establishes the immigration category by itself.
Create separate columns for compensation, employer business expenses, professional-preparation charges, and government filing or admission payments. Check official fee instructions for the chosen procedure rather than treating wages, a credential evaluation, travel, or an onboarding course as an immigration charge. Canadians may generally request TN admission at a port of entry or have an employer submit Form I-129; the applicable official payment depends on that route. Regardless of cost, eligibility still turns on Canadian or Mexican citizenship, prearranged work in a listed USMCA profession, and that profession’s own qualifications. One common mistake is using a paid training invoice as proof that the position qualifies, although TN forbids U.S. self-employment and requires the real employment arrangement.
Hypothetical example: An accountant in L’Anse-Saint-Jean is promised salary during a U.S. firm’s remote and in-person orientation. She should ask payroll to identify wages and reimbursements, then have the filing team itemize official charges, credential-review costs, and professional fees without double counting them. Her budget can then match the selected application sequence. The decisive file is her citizenship proof, accounting credentials, offer, duties, duration, and employer control; neither the size of her first paycheque nor the price of orientation substitutes for those facts.