An E-2 spouse is employment-authorized incident to status and may work in the business or anywhere else. Children under twenty-one may study but are not authorized to work.
Two derivative statuses with very different work rights
The spouse of a treaty investor is admitted in E-2 dependant status and, under current policy, is employment-authorized incident to that status without a separate application. She can be the office manager of the service business, take an unrelated job or run her own activity, and her work continues for as long as the principal's E-2 status and her own remain valid. Unmarried children under twenty-one are also admitted as dependants and may attend school, but they hold no work authorization, and helping on a job site for pay would be unauthorized employment.
A child who turns twenty-one loses derivative status and needs a category of his own, which is worth planning if any child is close to that age at the time of the application. None of these derivative rights depend on the family members holding Canadian nationality; only the principal investor and the enterprise's ownership are tested for treaty nationality.