Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta or Quebec for a non-resident founder

Direct answer

On the rule most non-resident founders ask about, the four provinces are identical: none of Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta or Quebec imposes any director-residency requirement, so a board composed entirely of people outside Canada is lawful in all four. The real differences sit elsewhere. Alberta is the only one of the four that requires a person holding Canadian status — a resident-Albertan agent for service — and the only one whose incorporation the founder cannot file at all, because filings pass through a private registry agent in person. British Columbia requires two provincial addresses open to the public between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on business days. Quebec publishes ultimate-beneficiary information, requires a French name and asks every director for identity documents, while the other three keep beneficial ownership private or have no register at all. And every province's small-business rate runs through Canadian-controlled private corporation status, which a foreign-controlled company does not have.

Why the usual comparison is the wrong one

Almost every published comparison of Canadian provinces for foreign founders is a comparison of director-residency rules. It reaches four provinces — Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec — and then treats them as interchangeable, because on that one criterion they are, each of them having removed or never had the rule. Ontario's requirement was repealed with effect from 5 July 2021, leaving disqualifications about age, capacity, individual-person status and bankruptcy only. [1] Alberta's went the same way, and Alberta's own guidance compresses the whole test to "Directors must be adults." [4] [15] British Columbia never imposed one. [2] Quebec admits "any natural person" as a director subject only to capacity, and permits a board of one. [5]

Federal incorporation is the outlier, and that is why these four keep appearing together. The Canada Business Corporations Act requires that "at least twenty-five per cent of the directors of a corporation must be resident Canadians. However, if a corporation has less than four directors, at least one director must be a resident Canadian." [8] A founder with nobody in Canada willing to sit on the board is shut out of the federal route and pushed toward one of these four provinces. The federal versus provincial comparison works through that decision in full.

So the residency row is a filter, not a comparison: once it has selected the four it has nothing left to say, and the founder still has to choose. What separates them is a different set of questions — what presence the province demands inside its borders, who may press the button on a filing, whether the owner's name becomes public, what the government charges to start and to stay alive, and whether the province offers any route to living in Canada. On those the four are not close.

The master matrix

Every cell is cited to an official source fetched on the verification date or marked as not published. Fees are government fees in Canadian dollars and exclude professional and agent charges, except where the source itself makes the agent charge part of the price.

Four notes belong under the table rather than inside it, because they hold in all four provinces. The small-business rate does not reach a foreign-controlled company anywhere: each provincial rate is available only to a Canadian-controlled private corporation, and the CRA's conditions include not being controlled directly or indirectly by non-resident persons. [30] The federal Start-up Visa is not a fallback: IRCC's page carries the banner "Paused", states the programme "was paused on June 30, 2026" and is closed to all other applications, and records that the associated work permit stopped accepting new applicants on 19 December 2025 — and it never applied to Quebec, being defined as targeting businesses in Canada outside Quebec. [35] Banking is unverified for all four: no source reviewed here commits any bank to opening an account for a non-resident-owned corporation. And the table does not rank the provinces, because its rows point in different directions — Alberta wins on tax rate and loses on filing access and local presence, Ontario wins on maintenance cost and loses on immigration, Quebec loses on privacy and wins on being the one province where a Montreal address is lawful for the statutory office. Where a cell carries no number, no government publishes one.

Local footprint: the row that actually separates the four

Strip the four down to what each requires to exist inside its borders, and a clean ranking appears.

Ontario and Quebec require an address. Ontario's registered office must be in Ontario at the address in the articles, with records there or at another place in Ontario set by the directors. [1] Quebec's rule is plainer still: "The head office of a corporation must be permanently located in Québec", with the records kept there. [5] Neither requires that any particular person be present: a founder abroad contracts for a compliant provincial address, files it, and the requirement is met.

British Columbia requires two addresses, and both must be attended. The condition quoted in the matrix — a British Columbia location "accessible to the public between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on business days", never a post office box, for the registered office and again for the records office — is not a mailbox specification. [13] It describes somewhere a person can be found in business hours to accept service and permit inspection, which is why BC non-resident incorporations run through a law or accounting firm — a professional engagement with a recurring fee, not an address subscription.

Alberta requires a person, and that person must hold Canadian status. ABCA section 20.1(1) is one sentence: "A corporation shall appoint an agent for service who is a resident Albertan", and section 1(cc.1) defines that as a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident, in either case ordinarily resident in Alberta. [4] Alberta describes the role in ordinary language: an agent for service "is an individual located in Alberta who can accept notices and documents in person or by mail on behalf of the corporation. The agent for service does not need to be a lawyer." [15] The registered office must separately be a physical Alberta location, publicly accessible in normal business hours, and a designated post office box cannot serve as either office. [4]

The consequence is the sharpest finding on this page. A founder with nobody in Canada can satisfy Ontario or Quebec with a contract and British Columbia with a professional engagement, but cannot satisfy Alberta at all without a citizen or permanent resident who actually lives there and will consent to be named. Alberta has the lowest tax rates of the four and the highest human-presence barrier, and those two facts are usually reported separately.

Both western provinces add a mail risk. Alberta posts annual return reminders and the section 213 notices that precede dissolution to the registered office. [4] British Columbia sends the annual report reminder and "any notice of dissolution … should the company fail to file its annual reports for two consecutive years" to the registered office's mailing address. [13] A stale foreign address in either is a way to lose the company without seeing the warning.

Filing access: who is allowed to press the button

The four differ more on this than on anything except immigration, and a founder planning a remote incorporation should read it first.

Ontario is direct and key-gated. A founder files in the Ontario Business Registry themselves, with a service standard of "immediate" online. [10] But authority to transact does not come from owning the corporation: every entity has a nine-digit company key, issued free to its official email address or by mail to the registered office, and whoever holds it can file. [9] That cuts both ways for a founder abroad — no intermediary is structurally required, and the official email address becomes a critical asset, because the key is reissued only to it.

British Columbia is direct, with a paper duty attached. Founders are told to "Apply using Corporate Online", and the company is incorporated at the date and time of filing, so the wait lives in the Name Request. [11] But the articles and incorporation agreement are signed and kept rather than filed, and a named completing party examines them for original signatures before filing and delivers the originals to the records office afterwards. [13] Someone handles physical originals in British Columbia — logistics rather than a legal barrier, but not a purely electronic transaction.

Alberta is the only one of the four a founder cannot file. Every filing goes through "a registry agent or authorized Alberta service provider", presented with the NUANS report, valid identification and the fee; there is no consumer-facing government channel. [15] An agent must therefore be retained before anything happens, and its charge is unregulated: the September 2026 catalogue files corporate products under "Uncapped Products (service charge is market dependent)". [16] The total cost of an Alberta incorporation is unknowable from official sources: $291.75 is the government's share and a private business quotes the rest. Ask an agent for its charge on the incorporation and on each change notice carrying a $0.00 government fee, because those still attract a service fee.

Quebec is direct, fast, and asks for identity documents. The Registraire publishes a target of two business days for articles of constitution, one under priority treatment. [19] The distinctive requirement is documentary: a copy of a government-issued identity document showing given name, surname and date of birth is required for each director — a passport serves — and the obligation targets directors only, expressly not ultimate beneficiaries, shareholders or partners. The copy is destroyed after the filing, and omitting it causes refusal. [21] Have passport scans ready before starting.

Ranked on how much a founder abroad can complete without engaging anyone in Canada: Ontario and Quebec first, British Columbia next, Alberta last by a wide margin.

Transparency: whether your name becomes searchable

For many non-resident founders this is the row that changes the answer, and the four occupy three genuinely different positions.

Quebec publishes. Ultimate beneficiaries are declared to the Registraire on a disjunctive test — 25% of voting rights or 25% of fair market value, plus control in fact, general partner and trustee cases. [6] What reaches the public register is the name, the qualifying condition and the percentage; a natural person's home address becomes public unless a valid professional address is declared, and a post office box cannot serve as one. [20] A founder expecting ownership privacy should learn this before filing, not after.

Ontario and British Columbia keep a register, and keep it in the building. Ontario's sits with the corporate records, is filed with nobody and is not public; it is disclosed on request to police, tax officials and listed regulators, and must be reviewed at least once each financial year with changes recorded within 15 days. [1] British Columbia's is the same shape, stated unusually clearly: the register is kept "in each company's own records office", and "There is no requirement to send the transparency register anywhere." [14] A registrar-held register with limited public search is legislated but comes into force only by regulation, and was not in force on the verification date; the British Columbia guide carries that finding and its citation.

Alberta has nothing. The ABCA imposes no beneficial-ownership register and no transparency filing; the only ownership record it requires is the section 21(1) securities register, which is not filed with anyone, and the one disclosure reaching the Registrar — on the annual return — collects shareholders of record rather than beneficial owners. [4] The Alberta guide records that a beneficial-ownership amendment remains at consultation stage, which makes this the claim on this page most likely to expire first.

Two cautions. Provincial privacy is not federal privacy: a federal corporation files individuals-with-significant-control information with Corporations Canada and part of it is published. And none of this touches a bank — FINTRAC-regulated institutions run their own beneficial-ownership analysis whatever a registry publishes, so registry privacy buys nothing at the account-opening desk. See the federal corporation banking scenario.

Tax: the small-business rate is a mirage for a foreign-controlled company

The province comparison that circulates most widely is a comparison of small-business rates. For a non-resident founder it is close to irrelevant, and the reason is a single CRA condition: every one of the four small-business rates is available only to a Canadian-controlled private corporation, and the CRA's conditions for that status include the corporation not being controlled directly or indirectly by one or more non-resident persons. [30] A company controlled from abroad therefore pays each province's general rate on its first dollar of active business income, not the headline small-business rate. That reshuffles the ranking completely:

On the column that applies to a foreign-controlled company the spread between best and worst is four percentage points and Alberta's advantage is real; on the column that does not apply, the four sit within 1.2 points of each other. Two are also mid-transition, which is why a rate must be read from the government that sets it: Quebec's bulletin, dated 29 April 2026, moves its minimum rate for taxation years beginning after that date, so a calendar-year Quebec corporation sees 3.2% for 2026 and 2.2% from 2027.

Quebec adds a gate the others lack even for a CCPC: the small-business deduction runs through a payroll-hours test, full at 5,500 hours and reducing linearly to zero at 5,000, which a solo founder with no Quebec payroll does not reach. [26]

The sales-tax row cuts the other way for an online seller. Ontario is one tax at 13%; Alberta is 5% GST and nothing else; British Columbia adds a separately administered 7% PST, meaning a second registration and a second return; Quebec is 5% GST plus 9.975% QST, combined 14.975%, both administered by Revenu Québec. [27] [28] [29] The administrative difference matters more than the rate, because sales tax is collected from customers rather than paid out of profit. The sales-tax regime comparison sets out the thresholds and the non-resident rules.

Names, and the one language rule that exists in only one of the four

Three of the four provinces treat a corporate name as a registry-confusion question, and only British Columbia publishes both a fee and a service standard for it. Ontario and Alberta both require a name-search report for a named corporation and neither publishes a price, because in both provinces the report is sold by private search houses rather than the government. [15] [16] For a founder abroad on a deadline, the numbered-company route removes the name from the critical path in all four. [11]

Quebec treats the name as a constitutional question instead. A French name is a precondition of juridical personality, and a non-French version may accompany it only where the French appears at least as prominently. [7] The obligations do not stop at the name: an enterprise with 5 to 24 employees declares its French-language capability to the Registraire on the registration or initial declaration, a duty in force since 1 June 2025, and francization registration with the Office québécois de la langue française arrives at 25 employees or more. [19] [7] That is not a reason to avoid Quebec. It is a reason to know before filing that a brand name already attached to a domain may not survive the Charter in its intended form, and that Quebec's employee-count thresholds arrive earlier than most founders expect. The Quebec guide works through both.

Registering a federal corporation in each of the four

A founder who incorporates federally still has to register in every province where the corporation conducts business; Corporations Canada says so directly and warns that each jurisdiction defines and administers registration differently. [17] The federal route does not escape these four provinces — it adds a layer on top of one of them, and the cost of that layer differs by an order of magnitude.

Ontario is free: a corporation from another Canadian jurisdiction files an initial return under the Corporations Information Act within 60 days, and there is no statutory fee. Ontario licenses only corporations incorporated outside Canada, so a federal corporation attracts neither a licence nor an Ontario agent for service. [22] Alberta charges $291.75 plus the uncapped agent charge, before or within 30 days, and still demands an Alberta agent for service. [4] [16] British Columbia charges $350 basic within two months and requires an attorney resident in British Columbia; BCBCA section 376(2) exempts a federal corporation from the name-reservation step, so the additional $30 shown on the registry's fee page should not apply — confirm which components are actually charged. [3] [12] Quebec charges $397 within 60 days of commencing activities and requires an attorney residing in Quebec where the enterprise has no Quebec domicile, business address or establishment — a requirement that applies even where an address for service has been declared. [6]

A pattern follows: going federal does not relieve a non-resident of the local-presence problem in three of the four provinces. Alberta still wants an Alberta agent, British Columbia an attorney resident there, Quebec an attorney residing there unless the enterprise has a Quebec establishment. Only Ontario admits a corporation from another Canadian jurisdiction without an appointee — an asymmetry invisible in comparisons that treat federal incorporation as a way around provincial rules.

Entrepreneur immigration, as at 6 September 2026

This row has changed most recently and is where superseded advice does the most damage. Two framing points: owning a Canadian corporation confers no immigration status in any of the four, and immigration should never gate a corporate filing — a founder can own a company in all four while an application proceeds separately, or never applies at all.

Ontario is closed. The province's own program page states: "The new Ontario Workforce Priority stream has now launched, and all other streams are now closed." The single open stream is employer-driven — a foreign worker with a qualifying job offer, or a self-employed physician — with no entrepreneur or investor route. [31] An entrepreneur category still exists in Ontario's regulation, which is why old guides still describe it, but a regulation is not an intake, and the Ontario guide records that no criteria or launch date for a replacement had been published.

British Columbia is open, with a pool. WelcomeBC publishes three business routes — Base, Regional, and Strategic Projects for foreign corporations establishing operations in the province. Registration costs $300 and the application $3,500, and a qualified registration "will be placed in a qualified pool where it will remain active for up to six months, or until you receive an invitation to apply". The province also publishes what it will not consider: bed and breakfasts, hobby farms and home-based businesses, real estate and insurance brokerage, and goods-trading businesses such as import/export "unless value add is demonstrated". [32] Per-stream net-worth, investment and job-creation commitments are on the British Columbia non-resident guide.

Alberta is open but rationed, and publishes its capacity. Three entrepreneur streams were accepting expressions of interest on the verification date. The 2026 entrepreneur allocation is 60, with 33 nominations issued, 27 remaining and 217 applications in process, and Alberta declines to publish a processing time. [33] Read those four numbers together before treating "open" as "available". The Alberta non-resident guide sets out each stream's thresholds and the rule, common to all of them, that remote management is not permitted and Alberta residence is required.

Quebec is open, uncapped, and gated on language. Quebec runs its own selection rather than a nominee program: the Programme des entrepreneurs has three streams, applications are accepted at any time with no maximum, and every stream requires oral French at level 7 or higher on the Quebec scale — a barrier with no equivalent in the other three. [34] Open intake is not a short queue; the Quebec non-resident guide covers the financial conditions and the sequencing.

Read plainly: on 6 September 2026, a founder choosing a province for immigration reasons has three live options among the four — British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec — and Ontario is not one of them, with the federal Start-up Visa paused behind it. [35] Verify each program's page before committing money, and take advice from a licensed immigration practitioner. This page is research, not immigration advice.

Founder profiles and what each should do

The matrix answers a different question for each kind of founder. These are defaults, and the fourth column is what would overturn each one.

When federal incorporation beats all four

Three situations, and only three. When the corporation needs a single name usable nationally, because provincial name approval has no reach beyond that province. When it will operate in three or more provinces from the start, so the extra-provincial registrations were unavoidable anyway. And when the founder wants the home jurisdiction to be independent of where the office happens to be. In all three the federal board still needs at least one resident Canadian on a board of fewer than four [8], so for a founder who has nobody, federal is not an option. The federal versus provincial comparison carries the full arithmetic.

Three-year government cost for one worked profile

Hold everything constant: a single non-resident, sole shareholder and sole director, incorporating a named company in one province, no employees, no second province, kept alive three years. Only government fees are counted; professional, registered-office, agent-for-service and registry-agent charges are excluded because no government publishes them.

Ontario is the cheapest of the four on published government fees, by a factor of more than two against Quebec. But the last row inverts the ranking: Ontario's and Quebec's unpriced item is an address, British Columbia's is a professional engagement for two attended offices, and Alberta's is a registry agent on every filing at a market-determined charge plus a person holding Canadian status. Alberta's $450.90 is the least complete number in the table and the only one no official source lets a founder complete.

The corollary: choosing on published fees favours Ontario, and choosing on total compliance cost for a founder with no Canadian presence favours Ontario or Quebec. Alberta's tax advantage has to outrun those charges, and for a company earning below the small-business limit — where a foreign-controlled company pays 8% rather than 2% anyway — it usually does not.

The Quebec-specific angle: a Montreal registered office

One fact here is specific to where 2727 Coworking is. A Montreal address can lawfully be the statutory office of a Quebec corporation, because the QBCA requires only that the head office be permanently located in Québec with the records kept there [5], and it can be the registered office of a federal corporation whose articles state Quebec. That is the whole of the claim, and it is what 2727 sells.

It follows, and matters more, that a Montreal address is not and cannot become an Ontario registered office, a British Columbia registered or records office, or an Alberta registered office: Ontario requires the office and records in Ontario [1], British Columbia requires both offices at British Columbia locations open to the public in business hours [13], and Alberta requires a physical Alberta location plus a resident-Albertan agent for service [4]. A founder who files a Montreal address into any of those three records has filed something the statute does not permit, and the remedy is to change the address rather than argue about it.

For a corporation in Ontario, British Columbia or Alberta a Montreal address remains a mailing and correspondence address, and a workspace where the plan includes one. It is not a registered office, a records office, an agent for service, a permanent establishment or anyone's residence.

Failure modes

What 2727 can and cannot support

2727 Coworking is in Griffintown, Montreal. A selected 2727 business-address service can provide a Montreal address, mail handling and workspace access on the terms stated in its agreement, and that agreement evidences the commercial relationship it actually describes.

For a Quebec corporation, and for a federal corporation whose articles name Quebec as the province of its registered office, a Montreal address can lawfully occupy the statutory office role — subject to the plan permitting that use and the records genuinely being kept where the corporation says they are. For a corporation in Ontario, British Columbia or Alberta it cannot, because those provinces require the office inside their own borders and Alberta additionally requires an agent for service holding Canadian status and living there.

2727 does not certify that any address is a valid registered office, records office, agent for service, attorney, permanent establishment, CRA physical address or personal residence. It does not appoint a Quebec attorney, act as an Alberta agent, complete extra-provincial registration, determine corporate residence or CCPC status, or guarantee any bank's or registry's decision. No registry, bank or government body is described anywhere on this page as accepting a 2727 document.

Founders abroad should start with the founder-outside-Canada track and the non-resident research, then read opening a business account from abroad before booking travel; founders already in Canada belong on the founder-inside-Canada track. The detail behind every row is in the Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec guides, with the non-resident sequence for each in the Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec non-resident guides. The cluster hub indexes all of it.

Research method and limitations

This page was verified on 6 September 2026. It is a synthesis rather than a fresh research pass: every fact on it comes from an official source that was fetched and recorded during this repository's own province and track research on the same date, and each claim is mapped back to the sibling evidence row it came from in research/non-resident-province-comparison-source-pack.md and research/non-resident-province-comparison-evidence.md. Sources are restricted to tiers one to five — statutes and regulations on official legislation sites, the four registries' own pages, the CRA, Revenu Québec and provincial finance ministries, IRCC and the provincial immigration programs. Law-firm, accountant and incorporation-service pages were not used to support any statement.

Because this is a synthesis, the sibling records were cross-checked for disagreement first. On the facts relied on here they agree: the fees, the four director-residency positions, the Start-up Visa pause date and the Quebec and Ontario small-business transitions are stated identically in the province research and in the federal versus provincial comparison. One conflict inside the official record is carried forward rather than resolved: British Columbia's fee page shows a $30 name-approval component alongside the $350 registration, while BCBCA section 376(2) exempts a federal corporation from the name-reservation step, so both are stated and the reader is told to confirm which components are charged.

Several items are absent because no official source publishes them: a price for the Ontario or Alberta name-search report, neither being a government product; an Alberta registry-agent service charge, that charge being unregulated and uncapped on corporate products; any end-to-end timeline from incorporation to a working bank account; and any bank's commitment to open an account for a non-resident-owned corporation. No official source states affirmatively that a person outside Canada may own or direct a Canadian corporation without immigration status either — the record is narrower, establishing only that none of these four provinces imposes a residency condition on a director or shareholder, and that immigration rules govern working in Canada rather than owning a Canadian company.

Nothing here was tested. No incorporation, name reservation, extra-provincial registration, tax account, immigration application or bank application was filed, so every timeline quoted is a registry's published service target rather than an observed result. Immigration positions are the most perishable content on the page and were true on the verification date only. This is educational planning material, not legal, tax, accounting, immigration or banking advice.

Frequently asked questions

Which of the four provinces is easiest for a non-resident to incorporate in?

Ontario and Quebec, on the two rows that matter most for someone with no Canadian presence: the statutory requirement inside the province is an address rather than a person, and the founder can file directly. Ontario is also the cheapest at $300 to create and $0 a year to maintain [10], while Quebec is the fastest to a decision at a two-business-day target [19].

Do any of the four require a Canadian director?

No. Ontario and Alberta repealed their requirements, British Columbia never had one, and Quebec's article 108 admits any natural person subject only to capacity [1] [4] [2] [5]. Federal incorporation is the one that does, requiring at least 25% resident Canadians and at least one on a board of fewer than four [8].

Why is Alberta harder than the others if it has the lowest tax rates?

Because Alberta is the only one of the four that requires a person rather than an address. ABCA section 20.1(1) requires an agent for service who is a resident Albertan, defined as a Canadian citizen or permanent resident ordinarily resident in Alberta [4]. It is also the only one where the founder cannot file: every corporate filing goes through a registry agent whose charge is unregulated [15] [16].

Can I use a mailbox as the registered office in any of the four?

No. Alberta prohibits a designated post office box for the registered or records office and requires public accessibility in normal business hours [4]. British Columbia states for both of its offices that the delivery address "must not be a post office box" and must be open to the public 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on business days [13]. Ontario requires the office in Ontario at the address in the articles and the records in Ontario [1], and Quebec requires the head office permanently in Québec with the records there [5].

Will I get the small-business rate as a foreign owner?

No. All four small-business rates require Canadian-controlled private corporation status, and the CRA's conditions include not being controlled directly or indirectly by non-resident persons [30]. A foreign-controlled company pays the general rate: 8% in Alberta, 11.5% in Ontario and Quebec, 12.0% in British Columbia [25] [23] [26] [24].

Does my company name have to be in French in Quebec?

Yes. The Charter of the French language requires an enterprise name in French and makes a French name a precondition of juridical personality; a non-French version may accompany it only where the French appears at least as prominently [7]. None of the other three provinces has a language rule.

If I incorporate federally, do I still have to deal with these four provinces?

Yes, wherever the corporation conducts business, and the local-presence problem does not disappear. Alberta still requires an Alberta agent for service, British Columbia an attorney resident in the province, and Quebec an attorney residing there where the enterprise has no Quebec domicile or establishment [4] [3] [6]. Ontario is the exception: a corporation from another Canadian jurisdiction files an initial return with no statutory fee and appoints nobody [22].

Which of the four should I choose if I want to move to Canada?

Not Ontario, on the verification date. Ontario states that every stream but the employer-driven Workforce Priority stream is closed, with no entrepreneur route [31], and the federal Start-up Visa was paused on 30 June 2026 [35]. British Columbia's entrepreneur routes are open with a six-month qualified pool [32], Alberta's are open but capped at 60 nominations for 2026 against 217 applications in process [33], and Quebec's are uncapped but require oral French at level 7 [34].

How much does an Alberta incorporation actually cost?

No official source permits a total. The Alberta government fee is $291.75 and the annual return $53.05, but every corporate filing carries an additional registry-agent service charge that the September 2026 catalogue lists under "Uncapped Products (service charge is market dependent)", and the NUANS report is not a government product and has no published price [16]. Get a written quote covering incorporation, annual returns and change notices before comparing Alberta to the other three.

Can a Montreal address be my registered office?

Only for a Quebec corporation, or a federal corporation whose articles state Quebec as the province of its registered office, because the QBCA requires only that the head office be permanently located in Québec [5]. It cannot be an Ontario registered office, a British Columbia registered or records office, or an Alberta registered office, because each of those provinces requires the office inside its own borders [1] [13] [4]. For those three it is a mailing and correspondence address only.

Official references

1. Ontario e-Laws: Business Corporations Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. B.16
2. BC Laws: Business Corporations Act, Part 5 — Directors and officers
3. BC Laws: Business Corporations Act, Part 11 — Extraprovincial companies
4. Alberta King's Printer: Business Corporations Act, RSA 2000 c B-9
5. LégisQuébec: Business Corporations Act, CQLR c. S-31.1
6. LégisQuébec: Act respecting the legal publicity of enterprises, CQLR c. P-44.1
7. LégisQuébec: Charter of the French language, CQLR c. C-11
8. Justice Canada: Canada Business Corporations Act, section 105
9. ServiceOntario: Ontario Business Registry
10. ServiceOntario: cost and time required to register, change or search for a business name, corporation or not-for-profit
11. BC Registries: incorporated companies
12. BC Registries: forms, fees and information packages
13. BC Registries: Form 1 incorporation application and notice of articles instructions
14. Province of British Columbia: transparency register
15. Alberta: incorporate an Alberta corporation
16. Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction: registry agent product catalogue, September 2026
17. Corporations Canada: register a federal corporation in a province or territory
18. Registraire des entreprises: Tarifs et modalités de paiement (RE-101), 2026
19. Québec: constituer une société par actions
20. Québec: renseignements à déclarer sur les bénéficiaires ultimes
21. Québec: pièces d'identité des administrateurs
22. Ontario: Notice — Corporations Information Act — filing an initial return and notice of change, extra-provincial corporations
23. Ontario Ministry of Finance: corporate income tax rates
24. BC Ministry of Finance: corporate income tax rates
25. Alberta: corporate income tax
26. Ministère des Finances du Québec: Information Bulletin 2026-3
27. Canada Revenue Agency: charge and collect the GST/HST
28. Province of British Columbia: provincial sales tax
29. Revenu Québec: basic rules for applying the GST/HST and QST
30. Canada Revenue Agency: type of corporation
31. Government of Ontario: Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program
32. WelcomeBC: BC PNP for entrepreneurs and businesses
33. Alberta: AAIP processing information
34. Québec: programme des entrepreneurs
35. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: Start-up Visa Program