Unpaid work is not automatically exempt from immigration requirements. Review the spouse’s actual activities and status. Qualifying L spouses may be authorized incident to status with the required evidence, but a pending principal petition does not grant that permission.
Use a lawful and credible staffing plan
Do not assume unapproved family labour will satisfy the office’s needs. Identify authorized resources and real costs. Dependent children do not acquire the spouse’s work permission, and family ownership does not remove the authorization question.
Create a household timeline listing the principal’s authorization, each dependent’s status evidence, school plans, and any intended work. Relationship certificates settle the derivative link, but they do not give children a spouse’s work permission. Do not treat an anticipated approval as permission to begin a separate job or fill an operating role. The person must have completed one continuous year with the related foreign organization during the preceding three years; L-1B stay is generally capped at five years. Hypothetical example: A a dialysis-equipment workflow specialist whose family assumes a teenager may work in the new office. The first review should identify the missing record, decide whether the facts can be documented truthfully, and postpone the next step if they cannot. Relabelling routine work or reconstructing records after the event creates a credibility problem.
Create the staffing plan without counting the spouse until lawful status and work authority exist. Specify every launch task, its performer, compensation, supervision and start date, and budget for authorized employees or vendors. The principal case independently needs a qualifying organization relationship, one continuous foreign year in the preceding three and specialized knowledge tied to the company rather than general expertise. A new office receives at most a one-year initial approval, while total L-1B stay is generally capped at five years. Once admitted in qualifying L-2 status, a spouse is employment-authorized incident to status; a pending petition is insufficient, and L-2 children cannot work.
Hypothetical example: A Saguenay aquaculture-monitoring firm expects its transferred sensor specialist’s spouse to build the new office website. The firm instead contracts an authorized vendor for launch and records that cost in its funding model. After the spouse obtains L-2 status, the couple may revisit paid website services with appropriate evidence. Describing pre-entry coding as unpaid family support would leave the activity and the office budget inaccurately presented.