A commercial agreement does not establish individual work permission.
Review status as well as duties
Qualifying E spouses may be employment-authorized incident to status with appropriate documentation. Children do not receive employment authorization solely through dependent E status.
Employment authorisation for an E-2 spouse arises from the status itself rather than from a separate application, though employers and licensing bodies frequently want a document they can copy, so families often obtain evidence of it anyway. Separate the household's three exposures: the date the business can trade, the date the family must commit to or vacate housing, and the dates on which each person's status permits what. A spouse's ability to work is generally incident to valid status and is evidenced by that person's own record, so the household budget should not treat the income as available until the record itself is in hand. The conditions stay separate and must not be merged: E-2 requires that the investor develop and direct the enterprise, while a spouse’s ability to work depends on that spouse’s own status and evidence, and paying an invoice confers no work permission.