Updated November 1, 2026. We have rewritten this page to correct it. When it was first published in March 2026, it said that a Canadian E-2 investor living in the United States could get a standard state commercial driver’s license (CDL), or a non-domiciled one. That was a mistake, and we gave some North Dakota clients the same hope. We were not alone: guidance published in late 2025, including by immigration lawyers, told Canadians that E-2 status kept them eligible for a non-domiciled CDL. The federal rules said otherwise even then. Since 1988 they have treated a Canadian commercial license as the driver’s one license, which bars a U.S. state from issuing another, and the final rule that took effect on March 16, 2026 confirmed that states may not issue non-domiciled CDLs to Canadian citizens. Since May 14, 2026, a Supreme Court decision on carrier hiring has also changed who the big oil-field contractors will work with. This page now explains both.
If you are a Canadian who holds, or plans to apply for, E-2 treaty investor status to run a trucking business in North Dakota or elsewhere in the United States, you probably have two questions: can you or your drivers get a U.S. CDL, and can you get work hauling for the large contractors in the oil field? The answers are no, and, for now, mostly no.
The short answer. As of November 2026, a Canadian citizen in E-2 status cannot get a North Dakota CDL, or a CDL from any other state. A standard CDL requires U.S. citizenship or a green card; the non-domiciled CDL that E-2 holders from other countries can get is closed to Canadians; and a driver who holds a Canadian commercial license may not hold any other U.S. driver’s license at all. Federal rules recognize a Canadian commercial license as the license of a driver whose permanent home is in Canada, so the way to drive is to keep that home and a valid license from your province. But since the Supreme Court’s May 2026 decision in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, our clients report that North Dakota oil-field contractors, on their insurers’ advice, now subcontract only to carriers that carry their own insurance and use drivers with North Dakota CDLs. That shuts out Canadian-licensed drivers, however good their records.
Can a Canadian E-2 investor or employee get a North Dakota CDL?
No. As of November 2026, three federal rules close every route, and North Dakota applies all three.
1. A standard CDL requires citizenship or a green card. A state may issue a regular (domiciled) CDL only to an applicant who proves U.S. citizenship or lawful permanent residence (49 CFR 383.71(a)(5)). E-2 is a nonimmigrant status, so an E-2 investor or employee does not qualify, even after moving to North Dakota.
2. The non-domiciled CDL is closed to Canadians. A non-domiciled CDL is a U.S. state’s commercial license for a person whose home (domicile) is in another country. Since the federal final rule took effect on March 16, 2026 (91 FR 7044), only three statuses qualify: H-2A, H-2B and E-2 (49 CFR 383.5). E-2 is on that list, which is why Canadians are often told they can apply. They cannot. The final rule’s preamble says so directly: states may not issue a non-domiciled CDL to citizens of Canada or Mexico, and the rule rescinded the narrow 2023 DACA exception that had been the only way around that bar.
3. One driver, one license. No one who drives a commercial vehicle may hold more than one driver’s license (49 CFR 383.21). The United States accepts commercial licenses issued by the Canadian provinces and territories under Canada’s National Safety Code as meeting U.S. standards, and so, put in plain terms, the federal rule says that a driver who holds a Canadian commercial license may not get a non-domiciled CDL, or any other kind of driver’s license, from a U.S. state (49 CFR 383.23(b)(1), footnote 1). That includes an ordinary North Dakota car license.
This is the rule North Dakota’s licensing office hands to Canadian applicants: one of our clients photographed the sheet he was given when he applied for a North Dakota CDL and sent it to us. It is not a judgment that Canadian drivers are unsafe. The exclusion exists because Canada and the United States recognize each other’s commercial licenses: the United States treats your provincial license as the equivalent of its own, and a driver gets one.
Can I drive in North Dakota on my Canadian commercial license?
As a licensing matter, yes, with one condition: your permanent home has to stay in Canada. As of November 2026, federal rules accept a commercial license issued by a Canadian province or territory (FMCSA’s driver-license requirements page), but only as the license of the driver’s home jurisdiction: a commercial driver must hold a CDL issued by the state or jurisdiction of his domicile (49 CFR 383.23(a)(2) and (b)(1)). Domicile means your true, fixed and permanent home, the place you intend to return to (49 CFR 383.5). A Canadian E-2 investor or employee who keeps that home in Canada, as E-2 status itself assumes (a treaty investor must intend to leave when the status ends), and who holds a valid Alberta, Saskatchewan or B.C. commercial license, can lawfully drive a commercial truck in North Dakota on it. Someone who has in fact moved his permanent home to North Dakota is in a much weaker position.
Two cautions.
Keep the provincial license valid. Your license comes from your province, and so does the question of whether you can keep and renew it while you spend most of your time in North Dakota. Ask your provincial licensing office before you move, not after. If the provincial license lapses, there is no U.S. license to fall back on (see the three rules above).
Your immigration status has to cover the driving. An E-2 investor is admitted “solely to develop and direct” the enterprise (INA § 101(a)(15)(E)(ii)). An investor who drives now and then while running the company is generally fine; an investor whose real job is driving is a problem (see the business-plan question below). A Canadian employee of an E-2 trucking company needs E-2 employee status and must share the company’s treaty nationality. A driver qualifies only if the position is executive or supervisory, or the driver has special qualifications that make his services essential to the efficient operation of the business, judged in part by whether those skills are readily available in the United States (8 CFR 214.2(e)(3), (e)(17)–(18)). That is a demanding standard for an ordinary driving job. Once the company is registered through Toronto, qualifying employees can interview in Calgary or at another post; our guide to the Canadian E-2 employee process walks through it.
English proficiency applies to every commercial driver on U.S. roads, Canadian or not: a driver must be able to read and speak English well enough to talk with the public and officers, understand road signs, and keep records (49 CFR 391.11(b)(2)). French-speaking drivers should take that seriously.
Why won’t the North Dakota oil-field contractors hire Canadian-licensed drivers?
Because a May 2026 Supreme Court decision allowed brokers, and very likely contractors, to be sued for carelessly choosing a carrier, and, according to our clients, the contractors’ insurers have responded by tightening who gets chosen.
What the Supreme Court decided. In Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, No. 24-1238 (U.S. May 14, 2026), a truck driver badly injured in a crash sued the freight broker that had arranged the load, claiming it should have known from the carrier’s safety rating that hiring that carrier was likely to end in a crash. The lower courts said federal trucking law shielded the broker. A unanimous Supreme Court disagreed. A claim that a broker carelessly chose the carrier concerns the trucks that will carry the goods, the Court held, so it falls within the federal trucking law’s exception for state safety regulation and can go forward (slip op. at 5–6). In plain terms, a broker that chooses a carrier carelessly can now be sued under state negligence law, and the Court’s reasoning, which speaks of any company that hires another to carry goods, very likely reaches shippers and contractors that pick carriers too. The decision did not make anyone automatically liable: two Justices wrote separately to stress that a broker that acted reasonably should be able to defend itself. But it removed a defense the industry had relied on.
What our clients are running into. The common Canadian E-2 trucking plan in North Dakota has been to start by subcontracting to the large companies that haul for the oil field, and to build from there. Since the decision, our clients tell us, those companies’ insurers have told them to subcontract only to carriers that carry their own insurance and whose drivers hold North Dakota CDLs. A Canadian E-2 driver can meet the first condition. Under the three rules above, the driver can never meet the second.
Two things are worth being clear about. First, nothing in Montgomery or in federal law requires a U.S. license; a valid provincial license is lawful. The requirement is the contractors’ and their insurers’ own risk policy, and it may loosen as the industry learns what the decision does and does not expose them to. Second, this is what our clients report from North Dakota in the fall of 2026. We do not know of any public statement of the policy, and it may differ from one contractor or insurer to the next. If you are planning a business around a particular contractor, ask it, in writing, what it requires of subcontracted carriers and drivers before you invest.
Is subcontracting for a larger hauler a sound E-2 business plan?
Not by itself. An E-2 is granted so the investor can develop and direct an enterprise, and the enterprise may not be marginal: it must have the present or future capacity to earn more than a minimal living for the investor and family, or to make a significant economic contribution, and projected income should generally be realizable within five years of starting normal business operations (8 CFR 214.2(e)(15)). A business that is one investor driving one truck under someone else’s contracts looks like a job, not an enterprise, and we would not build an E-2 application on it.
As a first step, though, it made sense. Subcontracted hauling brings money in while the investor builds the customer base, the equipment and the drivers the real business needs. That is how our clients saw it, and it is that stepping stone that the contractors’ new policy has taken away for Canadian-licensed drivers in North Dakota. A plan that depended on it needs another bridge: direct customers, freight that does not run through the large oil-field contractors, or a slower ramp-up funded by the investment itself. A business plan should show the officer how the enterprise grows without assuming that the bridge is there.
What about E-2 investors who are not Canadian?
The non-domiciled CDL is open to them. As of November 2026, an E-2 investor or employee who is a citizen of another treaty country (other than Mexico, which is excluded for the same reason as Canada) can apply for a non-domiciled CDL in a state that issues them. North Dakota resumed issuing non-domiciled CDLs on April 13, 2026, after a federal review had paused them since December 2025; applicants must apply in person with an unexpired passport and valid immigration documents (NDDOT announcement). The license expires when the I-94 admission period ends or after one year, whichever comes first, and renewal is again in person. The state checks immigration status through the federal SAVE system before issuing (91 FR 7044). Plan renewals around the I-94 date: a license that cannot outlast the I-94 can strand a driver mid-season.
How did the CDL rules get here?
- April 2025: Executive Order 14286, “Enforcing Commonsense Rules of the Road for America’s Truck Drivers” (90 FR 18759), directed the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to review state issuance of non-domiciled CDLs.
- September 29, 2025: FMCSA issued an interim rule limiting non-domiciled CDLs to H-2A, H-2B and E-2 holders.
- November 10 and 13, 2025: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit stayed that interim rule (Lujan v. FMCSA, No. 25-1215), and the earlier rules applied again.
- February 13, 2026: FMCSA published the final rule (91 FR 7044), largely reaffirming the interim rule, including the bar on Canadian and Mexican citizens. It took effect on March 16, 2026.
- April 13, 2026: North Dakota resumed issuing non-domiciled CDLs after FMCSA recertified it.
- May 5, 2026: the D.C. Circuit refused to pause the final rule while a new challenge to it (Rivera Lujan v. FMCSA, No. 26-1032) goes forward, so the rule is in force.
- May 14, 2026: the Supreme Court decided Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II.
- As of November 1, 2026: that challenge was argued on September 15, 2026, and we know of no decision.
Even if the D.C. Circuit strikes the final rule down, that would not open a U.S. CDL to a Canadian license holder. The one-license rule and the recognition of Canadian licenses are much older (49 CFR 383.21 and 383.23, in place since 1988 for Canadian licenses), and, as far as the public reporting on the case shows, the challenge does not reach them.
Your drivers’ status matters too: a Wyoming stop the Board decided in October 2026
The crackdown is not only about licensing. In Matter of M-S-V-, 30 I&N Dec. 130 (BIA 2026), a long-haul driver who had overstayed a visitor visa was arrested in Laramie County, Wyoming, after the truck he was in failed to stop at the Interstate 80 port of entry. He had no commercial driver’s license, only an expired regular license. ICE detained him in February 2026, and on October 6, 2026 the Board of Immigration Appeals ordered him held without bond. Driving a commercial truck without a valid CDL, together with the arrest (which counted as criminal history even without a conviction), meant he could not show that he was not a danger to the community; the Board also found him a flight risk. The Board also noted that the immigration judge had not asked whether he was working without authorization.
For an employer the lesson is simple: check every driver’s license and work authorization (Form I-9) before the first load, not after a roadside stop. A driver who is detained may be off the road for the rest of the case. How bond hearings work today, and what a bond packet needs, is set out in our guide to immigration detention and bond hearings.
What should a Canadian planning an E-2 trucking business do now?
- Keep your permanent home in Canada and drive on your provincial license, and confirm with your province, before you move, that you can keep and renew it while spending most of your time in the United States.
- Do not apply for any North Dakota license while you hold a Canadian commercial license. The one-license rule forbids it.
- Ask any contractor you plan to haul for what it now requires of subcontracted carriers and drivers, and get the answer in writing.
- Build the business plan without the subcontracting bridge, or with a second source of freight that does not depend on it.
- Do not count on Canadian drivers as E-2 employees unless the position meets the executive, supervisory or essential-skills standard.
- Watch the D.C. Circuit, but do not plan around it: the Canadian exclusion rests on older rules that, as far as public reporting shows, the case does not challenge.
When this page first appeared, its thesis was that the crackdown was aimed at other drivers and left the Canadian E-2 investor untouched. The licensing rules did not work that way, and the market has since moved further. The investor who does best now is the one who plans for the rules as they are, keeps a valid provincial license, and builds a business that does not depend on someone else’s insurance policy.
My office handles E-2 and other business immigration matters for Canadians across the Rocky Mountain West, including clients from Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan who are building trucking businesses in North Dakota and Montana. If you are weighing an E-2 trucking plan, or yours has run into the problems on this page, contact Immigration Law of Montana, P.C. to schedule a consultation.
