Assess each person’s eligibility, intended entry and timing rather than assuming the household can enter together on any chosen date. A spouse and unmarried children under 21 may qualify for L dependent status.
Coordinate family entry with the principal’s actual status
The principal’s petition approval alone does not put accompanying relatives in status. A qualifying L spouse may work incident to valid status with appropriate evidence, including the applicable spouse-specific I-94; children do not receive that spouse authorization.
Qualifying L spouses are employment authorized incident to status, but a proposed regulated activity may have its own professional requirements. Cross-border tax preparation for the first two years, a household move, a vehicle, temporary accommodation, and a spouse's job search all have costs, and none of them are immigration fees. Do not ship a household or enrol children in school on the strength of a filing receipt. The difference from an L-1A household is the ceiling: L-1B is limited to five years in total, so an eighteen-month assignment that becomes permanent must be re-examined before the limit, and a longer future may require a different route. Unmarried children under 21 accompany and may study; a child ageing past 21 is no longer a derivative.