Read the general life across the border overview
A household can hold passports from more than one country. Dependent status for a spouse or child depends on the principal's category, but the documents each person holds are their own, and the steps that apply to one member are not automatically the steps that apply to another. Build one record per person before any date is confirmed. Give each person's record a single owner and a single place to live, because the failure in a multi-person file is almost never a missing rule; it is a document nobody was responsible for.
Record nationality and documents for each person
For every member, write the full name exactly as it appears on the travel document, the issuing country, the expiry, and any earlier U.S. records. Add the relationship evidence: marriage certificate, birth certificates, and any court or civil-registry documents. Where those are in French or another language and would be submitted to USCIS, a full English translation with the appropriate translator certification is required. Note plainly that the principal's Canadian citizenship, which may open a category to that person, is not shared with a spouse who is a national of a different country. Ask which steps apply to each individual rather than assuming the family repeats one identical process. Check every record against the name as it appears on the travel document, including accents and hyphens, since a mismatch between documents is resolved by correspondence and correspondence takes weeks.
Keep dependent status separate from a person's own eligibility
TD covers a spouse and unmarried children under 21; a partner who merely lives with the applicant is not a spouse for this purpose. Study is permitted in TD status and employment is not authorized, and an unpaid activity is a specific question to review rather than something answered by a blanket rule in either direction. Qualifying E and L dependent spouses are employment-authorized incident to valid status, with the proper I-94 evidence, and the rule for children is not the same. A spouse who has their own offer of employment may deserve an assessment in their own right. Where a family member's plan depends on a rule you are unsure of, write the question down as a question rather than adopting a provisional answer, and take the list to the review.
Sequence the household's decisions
Hypothetical example: one partner holds Canadian citizenship, the other holds citizenship of a third country, and two children have different ages and different school years. The household is about to book a single departure date. Before that, set out which document each person needs, which age-related or status deadlines apply to each, and what the housing, employment and school commitments would cost if the date moved. Then mark which of those items genuinely depend on the principal's outcome and which are separate questions, so no one is waiting on a decision that was never connected to their situation.
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.