Read the general life across the border overview
A business that uses contractors should not assume a spouse or child can fill a role under the principal’s permission.
Map the proposed people and activities
Start by naming who performs each task and under what arrangement. For every family member, record the duties proposed, where the work is physically done, who directs it, and how it is paid — salary, contractor invoice, distribution, or nothing at all. Keep that list beside the company’s commercial staffing plan, which answers a different question: the staffing plan says how the business gets its work done, while the immigration question is whether each named individual holds a status that permits them to do it. Invoicing through a family holding company does not convert unauthorized work into contracting, and an arrangement described as unpaid still has to be examined rather than assumed to sit outside the rules, because it is the activity that is regulated and not merely the payment.
Read each dependent status on its own terms
The dependent categories do not grant the same permissions. TD status, held by the spouse or child of a TN professional, allows study but no employment of any kind. Spouses in L-2 status and spouses of E treaty investors or employees are authorized to work incident to holding valid spousal status, so the record that matters is that individual’s own status document rather than the principal’s approval notice. Unmarried children under twenty-one may hold derivative status and attend school, but derivative child status confers no work authorization in L-2 or E, and the child’s eligibility ends at twenty-one. Where a spouse’s own qualifications would independently support a work category, that is a separate case with its own filing and its own evidence, not an extension of the family’s.
Do not substitute immigrant plans for present permission
An immigrant plan authorizes nothing in the meantime. EB-5 derivatives — a spouse and unmarried children under twenty-one — may generally be included subject to the applicable age-protection provisions, but conditional permanent residence starts at immigrant admission or on approval of adjustment, lasts two years, and is lifted only by the later petition to remove conditions. The Gold Card route runs through whichever EB-1 or EB-2 process applies, and the payment involved is a gift from the applicant to the U.S. government together with a processing charge; it is neither an EB-5 investment nor a substitute for one, and its terms should be re-verified against the official program materials before any money moves. Hypothetical example: a Parkland County couple own a U.S. installation business staffed largely by subcontractors, and assume the spouse can simply take over scheduling once the family arrives. Whether that is permitted depends entirely on the spouse’s own status; approval of the principal’s petition, and the couple’s shared ownership of the company, decide nothing about it.
What else is on your mind?
Is a matching job title enough for TN?Can years of experience replace a degree for TN?Can my own U.S. company employ me under TN?Can my spouse work if I hold TN status?Editorial source review: 2026-09-08. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.
- Department of State — TN professional workers
- Department of State — 9 FAM 402.17
- USTR — USMCA Chapter 16 Appendix 2
- USCIS — fee schedule
- ICE — nonimmigrant classes that may study
- TN qualification and procedure regulation
- USCIS — L classification documentation and evidence
- Department of State — 9 FAM 402.12
- USCIS — employment authorization for certain spouses
- L definitions, foreign employment and new-office evidence
- 8 USC 1184 — specialized knowledge definition
- L1B specialized knowledge and offsite placement statute
- Department of State — treaty investors
- Department of State — 9 FAM 402.9
- USCIS — EB-5 investor program
- USCIS — business and investment visa overview
- USCIS — Child Status Protection Act
- Department of State — Visa Bulletin
- Current EB5 capital statute; not obsolete regulatory thresholds
- Direct qualifying employees and full-time positions
- Official U.S. government Gold Card FAQ