Read the general life across the border overview
Hypothetical example: the Provencher-Lamontagne household is moving because one of them is transferring to an American affiliate as a specialized-knowledge employee. His wife wants to keep her Quebec employer and work for it from the United States. Their elder child is nineteen and part-way through college; the younger is fourteen and will simply enrol in school. The transfer answers the first person's question and none of the others, and the three answers are not found in the same place.
The spouse's authorization is real, and it is broader than people expect
A spouse admitted in dependent status under the L category is employment-authorized incident to that status and needs no separate permit, with the endorsement on the arrival record serving as evidence. That authorization is not limited to American employers, so continuing to work for a Quebec company from a home office in the United States falls within it. What it does not resolve is everything outside immigration: where she is now taxable, whether her employer is comfortable with a worker resident abroad, and whether her professional or licensing obligations follow her. Those questions should go to an accountant and to her employer before the move, not after.
The nineteen-year-old has a deadline the others do not
Dependent status is available to an unmarried child under twenty-one and permits study but not work. It ends on the twenty-first birthday, which for this household arrives in the middle of a degree. Continuing after that date requires the young person's own status, generally as a student admitted by an institution that can issue the necessary documentation, and that process runs on the school's admission calendar rather than on the family's. Beginning it eighteen months out is comfortable, beginning it three months out is not, and assuming the parent's extension carries the child along is the mistake that ends the studies.
Every household needs the same table drawn once
List each person, their citizenship, their age at the intended move and at each anniversary of it, and what they intend to do: work, study, run a business or none of these. Then write beside each name where the permission for that activity comes from. Where a cell is blank, that is the work to be done. This exercise takes an evening and routinely finds the problem that would otherwise appear at a renewal: a birthday, a partner who is not a spouse in law, or an assumption that a dependant may earn. It is worth redoing whenever the principal's category changes, because dependants' rights differ sharply between categories.
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.