Read the general eligibility basics overview
A Léry resident may be gathering travel documents while comparing professional work and a company transfer. Separate Canadian residence from citizenship and use the actual personal facts rather than a general description such as based in Canada. Write two lines at the top of the file and keep them there: country of citizenship, and current Canadian status with the document that proves it. Almost every question in a route comparison resolves back to one of those two lines, and stating them plainly keeps a discussion from drifting into assumptions nobody has checked.
Give each document its proper meaning
Canadian permanent residence does not confer Canadian citizenship. TN requires the principal to be Canadian or Mexican, together with the profession’s conditions. A residence card, Canadian address or pending document request does not establish a citizenship that has not been obtained. If a citizenship application is in progress, record where it stands, whether the application is submitted, the test scheduled or the ceremony pending, and treat the outcome as unknown until it happens. That is not pessimism; it is what makes a plan work either way. Where a passport from another country is held, note its expiry and the renewal process, since some renewals take months and the document is needed for almost everything else. A permanent resident card, a work permit and a passport answer three different questions and cannot stand in for one another.
Assess genuine alternatives independently
L requires qualifying foreign employment, a related-company relationship and an appropriate U.S. role, with continuing international business. E-2 requires relevant treaty nationality, qualifying ownership, investment and direction. Neither becomes established merely because a TN nationality basis is unavailable. Hypothetical example: a permafrost monitoring specialist holds Canadian permanent residence and a passport from a country with no relevant treaty. That closes nothing by itself, but it changes the order in which the options should be examined, and a TN request in any event turns on whether the duties fit a profession that appears on the USMCA list. Ask counsel to work through each route's threshold condition first, whether nationality, qualifying employment, corporate relationship or the treaty status of the investor, before effort goes into supporting evidence, since a route eliminated at the threshold cannot be rescued by a strong file.
Prepare individual household records
Hypothetical example: spouses have different citizenships and different document-renewal dates. Identify the actual intended status and process for each. Do not assume one person’s passport or visa-document requirements apply to every relative, or that a shared address proves an eligible relationship. Build one row per family member with citizenship, status document, expiry date and intended activity, then note which rows depend on which. A dependent's status generally follows the principal's, so a gap in the principal's plan reappears in every row beneath it. Where two spouses hold different citizenships, the same route can look different for each, and it is worth asking whether either could be the principal. Renewal dates deserve their own column, because a document expiring in the middle of a process is a foreseeable problem rather than an emergency.
What else is on your mind?
Does Canadian permanent residence give me access to TN?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?Editorial source review: 2026-09-07. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.