An eligible spouse and unmarried children under 21 may seek L-2 based on the principal’s qualifying L-1 status. The executive label creates no additional dependent category or special family work entitlement.
Coordinate separate records
Include family planning in the transfer schedule, but keep relationship and admission documents distinct from corporate governance exhibits. An eligible L-2 spouse may work incident to status and should verify appropriate evidence, including L-2S classification where applicable. L-2 children may attend school but cannot work.
Board approval of relocation expenses does not itself authorize any family member’s admission, stay or employment. Keep the two evidence streams on separate schedules, because they depend on different people and one regularly waits for the other unnecessarily. The principal's file depends on the company, its governance records and whoever assembles them; the family's file depends on civil registries, translators and each individual's own documents.
Begin the second immediately rather than after the first is complete. Any employment authorization available to a spouse depends on holding and maintaining valid dependent status, and it ends when that status does, so a household relying on two incomes should understand that both rest on the principal's position. Children may hold dependent status while unmarried and under 21 and cannot work in it.
Confirm the documentation each employer will require before anyone begins work.