How to register a company in Canada 2026

How to register a company in Canada: the short answer

How to register a company in Canada comes down to five steps. First, pick a federal or a provincial company. Then check the director residency rule where you file. Line up a Canadian registered office. File the articles with Corporations Canada or the provincial registry. Last, open your accounts with the CRA.

This guide is written for a founder or a parent company outside Canada. It covers the corporate side only: the setup itself, the office you have to keep, what each registry charges, and the filings that follow in year one. It leaves out visas, work permits, immigration and personal tax. Every fee below is quoted from the registry that charges it, with the date we checked it. Where no official figure exists, we say so rather than guess. Nothing below is borrowed from another provider's page.

What registering a company in Canada actually involves

The Government of Canada sets this out in four parts. You incorporate, either federally or in a province. You get a Business Number (BN) and a corporation income tax account from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). You register as an extra-provincial corporation in every other province where you plan to work. Then you apply for any permits your trade needs. Incorporation is the act that creates the company as a separate legal person. Extra-provincial registration is the later filing that lets that company work in a province other than its home one. On the federal route, and in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta, the BN and the tax account arrive on their own when you incorporate. Sales tax, payroll and import-export accounts do not. You open those yourself, once the rule that triggers each one is met.

A federal corporation is one formed under the Canada Business Corporations Act, or CBCA. It exists from the date shown on its certificate of incorporation, not from the day you sign or pay. A provincial corporation is formed under a provincial act instead, such as Ontario's. Either way, the test for carrying on business in another province is low. An address, a post office box or a phone number there counts. So does offering your services or products there.

Corporation or sole proprietorship?

Take the corporation if you want the liability shield, outside shareholders, or a name that holds up across Canada. Take the sole proprietorship if one person trades alone and wants the cheapest start. Ontario charges CAD 60 for the business name against CAD 300 to incorporate. The catch is that your own assets stand behind the debts. Our Canadian sole proprietorship registration details page covers that route on its own.

Federal or provincial: which should you pick?

Federal incorporation gives you a name that is protected across Canada. It does not give you the right to trade everywhere. You still register in each province where you do business. A provincial company is simpler if you will work in one province only. Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta are the usual picks.

When federal makes sense

Go federal when the name matters more than the fee. You get that name across the country, and the registered office may sit in any province you name in the articles. The price is the residency rule. With a board of one or two, one of them has to be a resident Canadian. Our federal CBCA corporation guide sets out the statute in full.

When provincial makes sense

Go provincial when the whole business sits in one province and no Canadian will join the board. Ontario dropped its residency test in 2021 and British Columbia never had one. That is why our own Canadian work covers those two. Read the Ontario OBCA corporation guide before you choose.

Do you need a Canadian resident director?

The rule binds the board, not the owners. A non-resident person or a foreign company may own every share of a Canadian corporation, in each jurisdiction checked for this guide. Federally, at least 25% of directors must be resident Canadians, and at least one where the board has fewer than four. Most provinces no longer ask.

So the choice of route carries a real cost. A foreign parent can hold every share anywhere. It cannot sit on the board itself, because a director must be a natural person. If your board will be one or two people and none of them lives in Canada, the federal route asks you to find a resident Canadian director. Ontario and British Columbia do not. Where a province wants an agent for service instead, that is a service you buy, not a seat you give away.

What you need to set one up

The list is shorter than most people expect. The company needs a name, a Canadian registered office and at least one director. There is no minimum share capital and no par value, so no money has to be paid in on day one. What the Act does ask is that each share be paid for in full before it is issued.

Document checklist

The federal registry asks for a signature, not a legalised bundle. Form 2 must be signed by an incorporator, and where the incorporator is a company, by an individual it authorises. Notarised translations turn up later, in a provider's pack or a bank's, not in the registry's.

• Articles of incorporation: the name, the province of the registered office, the share classes and their rights, any share restrictions, the number of directors, and any limit on the business.
• Director details: full name, plus either a home address or an address for service. Neither may be a post office box, and both are published.
• The securities register and the share subscription, showing who takes which shares and what they pay for them.
• The registered office address, and in British Columbia a records office address as well, each with a mailing and a delivery address.
• A name search report where the province still wants one: an Ontario-biased NUANS report in Ontario, an Alberta NUANS report in Alberta.
• For a corporate shareholder, we ask for notarised English translations of its business licence and articles, plus passports of anyone holding more than 25%. That is our pack, not a registry demand.
• For a founder who is an individual, we ask for passport scans and a dated address proof under one month old. Again, those are our own checks.

Name search and numbered companies

Federally you no longer buy a separate NUANS report. Corporations Canada folded the name search and the pre-approval into the application itself, on a page dated 4 July 2025. Ontario still wants an Ontario-biased or weighted report from a private supplier, and will not take a federal one. Alberta still wants an Alberta report, under 91 days old. British Columbia runs its own name request at CAD 30 instead. If none of that appeals, ask for a number name and skip the search.

Registered office address

The address has to be a real place in the province you named, able to take legal papers. Corporations Canada puts it plainly: choose an address where you will be sure to receive documents, because in law they count as received. The address is also public. A director who does not want a home address on the register may file an address for service instead. For a company we set up, the first year of address sits inside the package, while the separate registered address service for a Canadian sole proprietorship is a renewal product for sole traders.

Filing it, step by step

Six steps take you from a blank page to a certificate. They run in order, because each one feeds the next. Most of the delay people meet when they register a company in Canada comes from doing them out of sequence.

1. Choose where to file and what to form: federal or provincial, corporation or sole proprietorship.
2. Clear the name, or ask for a number name and skip the search.
3. Draft the articles: share classes, any restrictions, and the number of directors.
4. Fix the registered office, name the first board, and appoint officers if you want them.
5. File with the registry, report the significant control details, and pay the fee.
6. Collect the certificate, check your CRA accounts, then apply for the bank account.

Step 1. Pick where to file

Start with where the board will live and where you will trade. A one-person board with no Canadian director rules out the federal route. Trading in three provinces makes that route worth its extra filings. Everything after this follows from the one choice.

Step 2. Clear the name

Federally the search now runs inside the application. In Ontario and Alberta you buy the NUANS report first and attach it to the filing. British Columbia issues its own name approval instead. A number name needs none of this, and the Director must assign one on request.

Step 3. Draft the articles

The articles set the share classes, any maximum number of shares and the rights on each class. Add any limit on who may hold or move shares. Say how many directors there will be, or give a range. Basic federal incorporation packages all of this with a number name, one or two share classes and up to ten directors.

Step 4. Fix the office and the board

Form 2 records the first registered office and the first board of directors. Each director gives a home address or an address for service. Officers are optional: the directors may appoint them, one person may hold several offices, and no jurisdiction here asks for a company secretary.

Step 5. File and pay

Federal filings go through the Online Filing Centre. Ontario filings go through the Ontario Business Registry, using that nine-digit company key. Alberta is the odd one out, because you cannot file with the province at all and the papers go to a registry agent. What comes back is the certificate of incorporation, and the company exists from the date it shows.

Step 6. Accounts and bank

Federally, and in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta, the Business Number and the tax account are issued for you. Check both, then open whatever else the business needs. The bank comes last, because it is a separate approval and the bank wants the certificate first.

Cost and time: how to register a company in Canada

Fees read on 16 September 2026 from Corporations Canada, ServiceOntario, BC Corporate Online, the Registraire des entreprises and alberta.ca. The Corporations Canada page carries no fiscal-year label, only its own Date modified of 6 May 2025.

Two separate bills arrive. The registry charges a published government fee, the same for everyone. A provider charges a service fee on top, and that one is not regulated. Our Canada company registration pricing and scope page lists what our package covers and what it leaves out.

What the fees leave out is where quotes drift apart. A registry fee never covers a name search bought from a private supplier, a second province, or the bank. Alberta quotes vary most, because the agent's share of the bill is not regulated. A low headline price usually means the year of address, the significant control filing or the first annual return sits outside it.

After you incorporate

The certificate does not settle your tax position, though on most routes it opens the first two accounts for you. A company incorporated in Canada is treated as resident here for tax and is taxed on its worldwide income. There is no offshore or exempt version of a Canadian corporation, whatever a rival guide may hint.

Business Number and tax accounts

On the routes we file, there is nothing to do here. The Business Number and the tax account come with the incorporation itself. What does not come with it is the sales tax account, the payroll account and the import-export account. Open each one when the rule that triggers it is met, and not before.

Corporate bank account

The bank decides this one, not the registry. FINTRAC makes the bank confirm that the company exists, from the certificate of incorporation or the most recent record carrying its name, its address and the names of its directors. Banks ask for more than that, and each asks for something different. No reliable average exists for how long the account takes, because no Canadian bank publishes one, so treat any number you read elsewhere with care.

Trading in other provinces, and your first year

The bar for carrying on business in a province is low. Corporations Canada names an address, a post office box or a phone number in the province, or offering services or products there. Alberta counts a phone listing, an advert giving an Alberta address, a resident agent, a warehouse or an interest in Alberta land. Cross the line and you register, whatever your head office says.

Year one is a calendar, not a single event. Two filings sit at the centre of it, and they go to different bodies on different dates: the annual return to the registry, and the T2 corporation income tax return to the CRA. Keeping both on time, along with the registers, is what our Canada company secretary services are for.

Six mistakes that cost money

Most of what we end up fixing was built in on day one. These six come up again and again when founders register a company in Canada without help.

• Treating a federal name as a licence to trade everywhere. The name is national; the right to operate still needs a filing in each province.
• Giving an address that cannot take legal papers. Documents sent there count as received, whether or not anyone opened them.
• Reading the residency rule backwards. Under CBCA s.105(3) a board of one or two must include a resident Canadian, so a small board is the binding case and not an exemption.
• Checking the name only for an identical match. It has to be distinctive and must not confuse with an existing corporate name, business name or trademark.
• Taking the certificate as tax or licence clearance. Sales tax, payroll and import-export accounts still need opening, and so does any trade permit.
• Leaving the annual return unfiled because the company is dormant. Corporations Canada dissolves after two years of non-filing, and the registers still have to be kept.

Questions we get asked

Where TKEG Expat comes in

If you would rather not work out how to register a company in Canada on your own, we file it for you. Our Canada company incorporation services cover an Ontario or British Columbia corporation at USD 1,950, which includes the government incorporation fee, one year of registered address and the Business Number. We also register Canadian sole proprietorships and act as nomination secretary.

If you plan to move money for clients, that is a second layer of work. FINTRAC requires a money services business, and a foreign one serving clients in Canada, to register before it begins to operate, and charges nothing for the registration itself. We handle MSB and foreign MSB registration as separate work that sits on top of the incorporation, never as part of it. Tell us the province and who will sit on the board, and we will tell you what the route costs.