Keep year-round household expenses separate from the enterprise’s seasonal cash needs. Potential spouse wages should not substitute for evidence that the business itself satisfies the non-marginality requirement.
Plan status and cash independently
A spouse and unmarried children under 21 may seek dependent status. A spouse in valid E-2 or E-2S status generally has employment authorization incident to status, while children do not. If the family travels during quiet periods, check each person’s admission record and document needs.
Do not assume that an investor’s return trip automatically updates the authorized stay of dependants who remained behind. Plan status and cash independently, since a seasonal business creates a household cash-flow pattern that has nothing to do with anyone's immigration position and can be disruptive if not anticipated. Build the household budget on a monthly basis and identify the months in which the business produces nothing, then establish what the family lives on during them.
Where a reserve is intended to cover it, keep that reserve outside the business and outside the investment figure. Where a spouse expects to work, treat that as requiring its own confirmation rather than as a solution to the off-season, and note that any authorization available to them depends on holding and maintaining valid dependent status. Children may accompany as dependants while unmarried and under 21 without work authorization in that status.