Read the general life across the border overview
A family move is several immigration files that happen to share an address. The principal's status sets the framework, but each family member's rights — to work, to study, to remain past a birthday — come from their own dependant status and their own facts. Work each person out separately before the household commits to a date, a school or a job.
The spouse's right to work follows the principal's category
Hypothetical example: an East Hants precision-machining engineer is transferred to a related U.S. entity on L-1B; his spouse is a primary-care paramedic who wants to keep working. As an L-2 spouse she is employment-authorized incident to status, so U.S. immigration law permits her to take a job. Had the principal instead been on TN, she would hold TD, which allows presence and study but not employment, and the same plan would fail. The category chosen for the principal therefore decides the spouse's working life. Then the second gate applies: paramedicine is state-licensed, and the state's certification body, not immigration, decides whether her Nova Scotia training and registration are recognised and what examinations she must pass. Start that enquiry the day the transfer is proposed.
The child's file has a clock in it
The couple's son is twenty and in his second year of college in Nova Scotia. As an L-2 child he may enter and study in the United States but may not work, including part-time campus jobs. His L-2 eligibility ends at his twenty-first birthday. If the assignment will outlast that date, he needs his own route in advance — most often student status through a U.S. institution, with its own admission, funding and timing requirements — or a decision to complete his studies in Canada while the parents are away. A household that assumes he can 'sort it out later' discovers that dependant status cannot be extended past the birthday and that a change of status takes months. Put his date of birth on the first page of the plan.
Each person's plan needs its own document set
The engineer's file is the L-1B petition with its specialized-knowledge and qualifying-year evidence. The spouse's file needs the marriage certificate, her passport and, for the licensing board, her training transcripts and registration history; she may also want an employment authorization document to simplify onboarding even though authorization is incident to status. The son's file needs his birth certificate, passport and, if he will study in the United States, the institution's admission and the student-status paperwork with its financial evidence. Keep the three sets separate, and record what each person will actually do on arrival. If the assignment's start date moves, walk through the effect on each file individually: an earlier date may help the son, and a later one may cost him his eligibility.
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: 2026-09-07. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.