For employers
TN: Canadian and Mexican Professionals
Fast, inexpensive, renewable, and the category most likely to create a problem the first time you decide to sponsor the person for a green card.
What the category requires
TN is available to Canadian and Mexican citizens entering to perform prearranged professional business activities in one of the occupations listed under the USMCA (formerly NAFTA) professionals appendix. The list is specific, each entry carries its own credential requirements, and it does not cover every white-collar role.
If the role does not map cleanly onto a listed profession, TN is not available, and "close enough" is decided by an officer at the moment of entry.
Canadian and Mexican procedure differ
May generally seek TN admission directly at a port of entry or Customs and Border Protection preclearance location with the supporting documentation in hand, without an advance petition. Fast, and correspondingly unforgiving: the adjudication happens in one conversation with no opportunity to supplement.
Follow a consular process for the TN visa before seeking admission. Different timeline, different documentary posture, and it should be planned rather than improvised.
Port-of-entry strategy
For a port-of-entry application, the support letter is the case. It must establish the profession, the credential, the temporary nature of the engagement, and the relationship between the duties and the listed occupation, clearly enough to be read quickly.
A refusal at a port of entry is not a denial that can be appealed in the ordinary sense, and it creates a record. Preparing for it as a formal adjudication rather than a border formality is the whole of the advice.
The temporary intent problem
TN does not accommodate immigrant intent the way H-1B and L-1 do. An employee in TN status who becomes the beneficiary of a green card process can face a real problem at the next renewal or the next entry.
This is the single most common expensive surprise in the category, and it is entirely preventable. If permanent residence may be the plan, that should shape the classification now, including whether to move the employee to a dual-intent category before anything is filed.
Renewals
TN is renewable, and there is no cumulative maximum in the way H-1B and L-1 impose one. Renewal is not automatic: each one re-tests the temporary character of the engagement, and a long history of renewals can itself invite the question.
Related
H-1B cap alternatives
Your candidate wasn't selected. What's actually available now, without waiting for next March.
Read more →PERM labor certification
Prevailing wage strategy, recruitment design and documentation, ETA-9089 preparation, audit and supervised recruitment response.
Read more →Temporary work visas overview
H-1B, L-1, O-1, TN, E-1/E-2, E-3, and H-1B1, which ones are capped, which are nationality-restricted, and which tolerate immigrant intent.
Read more →Let's talk about your matter.
Consultations are scheduled directly with me. If you're facing a filing deadline say so first and I'll prioritize it.
Schedule a consultation Send a message
[email protected] · (508) 591-0775 · Kingston, Massachusetts