Review each family member’s status and expiration date alongside the principal’s employer change. Do not assume that a principal’s new approval automatically updates every dependent’s documents or authorizes a spouse to work. The required steps depend on the family’s location, existing records, and selected transition procedure.
Track the household as individual records
Create a list of each person’s current admission, passport, visa where applicable, and planned travel. Ask which dependent applications or admission steps are needed and when they should occur. A hypothetical family remaining in the United States while the principal travels has different coordination needs from a family making a joint trip.
If someone joins later, use current principal-status evidence. Avoid relying only on the new offer letter to establish the principal’s actual status. A first household review should produce a table rather than a reassurance.
Use one row per family member, with the current admission record, document expiry, passport validity and planned travel, and a column for the step each person needs. Hypothetical example: a family discovers at this stage that a child document expires two months before the principal expected the transition to complete, which is the kind of fact that changes the plan while changing it is still cheap. The table is also what shows that a principal new approval does not automatically update a dependent record.
TD does not authorize employment, so a spouse expecting to work should have that raised as its own question at the first meeting rather than assumed. The required steps depend on where each person is, what records they hold and which transition procedure is selected.