Read the general life across the border overview
Whether the partner can keep earning is usually the question that settles a move, and the answer depends entirely on which status the principal holds. A spouse admitted in L-2 or E-2 is employment-authorised as a consequence of the status itself. A spouse admitted in TD is not, and no arrangement of remote work changes that. Set out below is the distinction and the evidence each side of it rests on.
L-2 and E-2 spouses: authorised incident to status
A spouse admitted in L-2 or E-2 is employment-authorised by virtue of that status rather than by a separate grant, so an employment authorisation document is not universally required before starting a job. The admission record annotated to show spousal status is the operative evidence, and an employer completing the verification form should be directed to it rather than asked for a card. Two cautions follow. The authorisation is derivative, lasting exactly as long as the underlying status and ending with it, including where the principal’s employment ends. And it belongs to spouses only: children in L-2 or E-2 may not work at any age. Where a spouse would prefer a card for administrative convenience, applying for one remains possible, but a pending application is not a precondition for lawful work. The marriage itself has to be documented with a certificate, and with a certified translation where the original is not in English.
TD dependants: study yes, employment no
The TD category carries no work benefit of any kind. A TD spouse may not accept employment in the United States, and the prohibition attaches to the work rather than to the payer, so continuing to serve a Canadian employer remotely from a U.S. address is employment in the United States and is not permitted merely because the salary and the client both remain in Canada. Contracting through a Canadian corporation does not alter that analysis. What TD does permit is study: a dependant may enrol full time while maintaining status, without converting to a student classification. A household that needs two incomes therefore has to solve the problem structurally — the partner qualifying for a status of their own, whether a TN in a listed profession with the prearranged employment and credentials that classification demands, or another work-authorised category. A dependant who later obtains an independent basis changes status through the appropriate filing, never by starting work first and regularising afterwards.
Working the question backwards from the household
Hypothetical example: a Mackenzie household in which one partner is a civil engineer holding a U.S. offer and the other is a bookkeeper employed by a Canadian firm. If the engineer enters as TN, the bookkeeper enters as TD and cannot keep the Canadian job while living in the United States, even remotely. If the engineer’s employer is instead a related company willing to file a transfer petition, that same bookkeeper becomes an L-2 spouse and may work for whomever they choose. The principal’s classification therefore determines the partner’s income, which makes it worth raising with the employer before an offer is finalised rather than after. Children follow separately throughout: dependent status requires an unmarried child under twenty-one, the birthday ends it, and school enrolment neither extends the status nor freezes the age. Citizenship counts on its own terms as well — a Canadian permanent resident card is not Canadian citizenship and does not open TN to the person holding it. A household moving on an immigrant basis meets a different set of rules again: eligible derivatives in an investor case join without any additional qualifying investment of their own, a child’s protected age is worked out from actual filing and visa-availability dates rather than from a household timetable, the principal must be admitted before or together with the derivative relatives, and under the Gold Card framework each eligible joining spouse or unmarried child under twenty-one carries its own US$15,000 non-refundable processing fee and its own US$1 million gift, in corporate-sponsored cases as well as individual ones, which is why official guidance is to name family members at the outset.
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 — USMCA professionals
- USCIS — L-1A executives and managers
- Department of State — Treaty investors
- USCIS — EB-5 program
- INA 203 — Immigrant investor requirements
- Official Gold Card program
- Executive Order 14351
- USCIS — employment authorization for certain spouses
- Department of State — after the immigrant visa interview