How to Start a Business in Canada as a Non-Resident

Q: Can I complete the incorporation myself from another country?

The registries publish an online route but generally do not publish whether someone outside Canada can obtain the account or complete the identity verification each requires. Alberta is the clear exception in the other direction: filings go through a registry agent in person with valid identification [30]. Ask the registry before booking anything around a filing date.

Direct answer

A non-resident can own a Canadian corporation outright and, in most Canadian jurisdictions, sit on its board without ever moving to Canada. Only two of the fourteen corporate jurisdictions still require a Canadian-resident director: the federal regime, which requires twenty-five per cent of directors to be resident Canadians, and Manitoba, which requires the same proportion on a looser test. The real constraints lie elsewhere. Incorporating in Canada makes the corporation a Canadian tax resident permanently, and a treaty tie-breaker will not undo it. A corporation controlled by non-residents is not a Canadian-controlled private corporation, so it loses the small-business rate. Several provinces replaced their director rule with a requirement to appoint an agent or attorney resident in that province. Banks apply their own identification rules. And none of this creates any right to work in Canada: ownership and immigration status are separate questions with separate answers.

Who this page is for

This is the outside-Canada track of the start a business in Canada hub. If you live in Canada as a citizen, permanent resident, or work- or study-permit holder, the inside-Canada track answers a different set of questions: you have a Social Insurance Number, you can attend a branch, and your status is settled. None of that is true here.

Two profiles use it: the non-resident individual who wants a Canadian company and may never live in Canada, and the foreign company expanding into Canada, which faces a structural choice that drives the tax analysis, so it comes first. This is educational planning material, not legal, tax, accounting, immigration or banking advice.

Subsidiary, branch, or neither

	New Canadian corporation	Registering the foreign corporation (branch)	No Canadian entity
What exists in law	A separate Canadian legal person	The same foreign legal person, licensed in a province	Nothing new
Tax residence	Canadian by statute, because incorporated in Canada [35]	Stays resident where managed	Unchanged
Taxed on	Worldwide income under Part I	Taxable income earned in Canada, subject to treaty permanent-establishment protection [42]	Nothing, unless carrying on business in Canada anyway
Extra tax layer	Part XIII withholding when profits are paid out [39]	Part XIV branch tax of 25% on unreinvested branch earnings, treaty-reducible [40]	None
Corporate return	T2 yearly, even if inactive	T2 yearly even if profits are claimed treaty-exempt, with Schedules 91 and 97 [41]	None
Small-business rate	Lost — non-resident control defeats CCPC status [37]	Never available	n/a
Liability	Ring-fenced in the Canadian company	Sits with the foreign parent	n/a

The branch route is often described as simpler. It is not: it exposes the parent directly and drags it into the Canadian filing system, and a treaty exemption is a claim made on a return rather than a reason to skip one. The threshold is low — the Act extends "carrying on business in Canada" to a non-resident who merely solicits orders through an agent, far below the treaty permanent-establishment threshold, which is why the filing obligation bites even when the tax does not.

Director residency across all fourteen Canadian jurisdictions

This is the table most sources get wrong, usually by repeating a rule repealed years ago. Every row cites the section as it currently reads. Only two jurisdictions still require a Canadian-resident director.

Jurisdiction	Required?	Section	Notes
Canada (federal)	Yes — 25%	CBCA s.105(3) [1]	"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." A majority in prescribed sectors (s.105(3.1)); one third for a qualifying holding corporation (s.105(4))
Ontario	No	OBCA s.118(3), repealed [4]	Repealed by SO 2020 c.34 Sch.1 s.5, in force 5 July 2021. The registry states "the requirement for at least 25 percent of the directors to be resident Canadian has been eliminated"
British Columbia	No	BCA s.124 [5]	Never had one. Disqualification turns only on age, incapacity, undischarged bankruptcy and certain fraud convictions
Alberta	No	ABCA s.105(3), repealed [6]	Repealed by SA 2020 c.25 s.1(6), in force 29 March 2021 [7]. But s.20.1 requires a resident-Albertan agent for service
Quebec	No	QBCA s.108 [8]	"Any natural person may be a director of a corporation, except persons disqualified … under the Civil Code". No residency, citizenship or domicile condition
Saskatchewan	No	BCA 2021 s.9-6 [9]	The 25% rule died with the old Act when the rewrite took effect 12 March 2023. But s.9-6(3) requires a Saskatchewan-resident attorney if no director or officer resides there
Manitoba	Yes — 25%	Corporations Act s.100(3), (3.1) [10]	"at least 25% of a corporation's directors must be residents of Canada"; one, if the board is three or fewer. A looser test than the federal one
Nova Scotia	No	Companies Act ss.93–95 [11]	Silent on residency. A registered corporation must separately keep "a recognized agent resident within the Province" [12]
New Brunswick	No	BCA s.63 [13]	Never had one. Not a repeal — the 1981 Act departed from the federal model from the outset
Prince Edward Island	No	BCA s.80 [14]	But ss.81(2) and 88(2) require a certificate from a PEI-resident practising lawyer whenever no named director resides in PEI
Newfoundland and Labrador	No	Corporations Act s.174, repealed [15]	Was 25%. Repealed by SNL 2021 c.26 s.4, in force 1 April 2022 [16]
Yukon	No	BCA s.106 [17]	Unusually, a body corporate may serve as a director (s.106(1.1)). ⚠️ The consolidation's currency line is an unfilled template placeholder reading "is current to: currency date"; amendments run through SY 2020 c.10
Northwest Territories	No	BCA s.106 [18]	No residency subsection at all
Nunavut	No	BCA s.106 [19]	⚠️ Consolidation current only to 1 February 2015, with a registry warning naming five later amending Acts we could not retrieve: high-confidence on substance, unverified on currency

"Resident Canadian" does not mean "lives in Canada"

The federal definition is stricter than the phrase suggests: a Canadian citizen ordinarily resident in Canada, a citizen not ordinarily resident who belongs to a prescribed class, or a permanent resident ordinarily resident in Canada — excluding a permanent resident ordinarily resident for more than a year after first becoming eligible to apply for citizenship [2]. A foreign national living in Toronto on a work permit is not a resident Canadian.

Manitoba's test is much easier: only an individual "ordinarily resident in Canada", with no citizenship or permanent-residence condition [10]. The same board can pass in Winnipeg and fail federally.

Expect one trap: four jurisdictions still define "resident Canadian" in a statute that no longer uses it for directors — Alberta, PEI, Newfoundland and Labrador and the Northwest Territories retain it for constrained-share provisions only, and Ontario's is fully orphaned, its repeal enacted but never proclaimed. Finding the phrase is not evidence that a director rule survives.

The rules that replaced the director rule

Repealing a director rule did not always remove the need for someone on the ground.

Jurisdiction	Substitute obligation	Section
Alberta	Must appoint an agent for service who is a resident Albertan, for every corporation	ABCA s.20.1 [6]
Saskatchewan	If no director or officer resides in Saskatchewan, appoint an attorney as if extraprovincial	ss.9-6(3), 20-17 [9]
Prince Edward Island	Certificate from a PEI-resident practising lawyer at incorporation and on every director change	ss.81(2), 88(2) [14]
Nova Scotia	Registered corporations keep a recognized agent resident in the Province	Corporations Registration Act s.9(1) [12]

If you chose a jurisdiction to avoid needing a Canadian person: Alberta requires one regardless, Saskatchewan requires one on these facts, and PEI requires a lawyer repeatedly. Only British Columbia and Quebec impose neither on their own corporations.

One federal exception is worth flagging: in sectors subject to ownership restrictions such as airlines and telecommunications, and cultural sectors such as book retailing and film or video distribution, a majority of directors must be resident Canadians, so federal incorporation with a foreign-majority board is not available at all [3].

Corporate tax residency

A corporation incorporated in Canada after 26 April 1965 "shall be deemed to have been resident in Canada throughout a taxation year" [35]. Where you live, where the board sits and where customers are do not change this, and Canadian residence means worldwide income is taxable under Part I.

A treaty generally will not undo it. CRA states that "the tiebreaker rules (usually within Article IV) in tax treaties generally provide that if a corporation is a resident of both contracting states, it is deemed to be a resident of the state in which the corporation was created" [36]. For a Canadian-incorporated company that state is Canada. The deemed-non-residence rule is a tool for a foreign-incorporated company that has drifted into Canadian residence, not an exit for a Canadian one. CRA also notes a 25% departure tax if a corporation later emigrates.

Central management and control cuts both ways

The common-law test is separate. CRA's guidance is that "a company is resident in the country in which its central management and control is exercised", that this "usually … abides where the members of the board of directors meet and hold their meetings", and that what matters "is not where central management and control is exercised according to the articles of incorporation, but where it is actually exercised" [36].

The consequence is symmetrical: incorporate in Canada and you are Canadian-resident wherever you meet, but incorporate abroad and run the board from Canada — including from a co-founder's kitchen table — and you may become Canadian-resident anyway.

Why your corporation will not be a CCPC

CCPC status carries most of Canada's small-business tax advantages, and non-resident control defeats it. CRA's conditions require that the corporation "is not controlled directly or indirectly by one or more non-resident persons", and add a hypothetical test: if all shares held by non-residents were owned by one person, that person must not own enough to control the corporation [37].

That second limb matters more than founders expect. Splitting the cap table among several non-residents does not help, because the test aggregates all non-resident holdings into one notional person. Three non-resident co-founders holding a third each still fail.

The cost, on current federal rates: the basic rate of Part I tax is 38%, 28% after the federal abatement, and "after the general tax reduction, the net tax rate is 15%", while "for Canadian-controlled private corporations claiming the small business deduction, the net tax rate is 9%" [38]. The small-business rate applies to a $500,000 business limit, so losing CCPC status costs six federal points on the first half-million of active business income, before provincial differences.

There is a quieter second penalty: the three-month balance-due day is available only to a corporation that "is a Canadian-controlled private corporation (CCPC) throughout the tax year" and meets further conditions; otherwise tax is "due two months after the end of the tax year" [44]. A non-resident-controlled corporation always pays a month earlier. The T2 itself is due six months after year end, and an inactive corporation still files.

Getting money out: Part XIII withholding

Non-residents "have to pay a 25% tax on amounts that are taxable under Part XIII", reducible by treaty [39]. It reaches dividends, rents, royalties, management fees, and non-arm's-length or participating interest — but not ordinary arm's-length, non-participating interest, which falls outside the charging provision under domestic law without needing a treaty.

Three operational points. The obligation is the company's: if it fails to withhold, "you are liable for this amount even if you cannot recover the amounts", plus "a penalty of 10% of the required amount of Part XIII tax you failed to deduct". The deadlines are tight: remit "on or before the 15th day of the month following the month the amount was paid or credited", and file the NR4 return and slips "on or before the last day of March following the calendar year". And treaty rates must be substantiated with evidence of beneficial ownership, treaty-country residence and eligibility, on forms NR301, NR302 or NR303.

Treaty relief is country-specific and not analysed here per country. Under the Canada–United States treaty, dividend withholding is capped at 5% where the beneficial owner is a company owning at least 10% of the voting stock and 15% otherwise, and royalties at 10% [42] — though Finance Canada's consolidated text carries its own disclaimer that it "has no official sanction" and omits the 2007 protocol. Read your own treaty. Country starting points: founders resident in the United States, India, Singapore and France.

Permanent establishment means at least three different things

The treaty meaning is "a fixed place of business through which the business of a resident of a Contracting State is wholly or partly carried on", with a dependent-agent rule and exclusions for preparatory and auxiliary activity; usefully, a company controlling or controlled by a company in the other state does not thereby become its permanent establishment [42].

The provincial allocation meaning is different and contains a rule founders should know: "if, but for this paragraph, a corporation would not have a permanent establishment, the corporation is deemed to have a permanent establishment at the place designated in its incorporating documents or bylaws as its head office or registered office" [43]. That deeming rule exists only for allocating income among provinces. A third definition governs a listed set of Act provisions and a fourth governs GST/HST; they are not interchangeable.

What we could not verify: whether a mailing address, virtual office or registered-office address, standing alone, creates a treaty permanent establishment. No CRA, Justice or Finance source reviewed answers it either way, and we will not extrapolate from the provincial-allocation rule, which is limited to a different purpose. If it matters to your structure — and for anyone buying an address service it should — get a professional opinion or a ruling.

Registered office, records office and attorney for service

Jurisdiction	Registered office	Records	Agent or attorney
Federal	"A corporation shall at all times have a registered office in the province in Canada specified in its articles" [20]. It "cannot be a post office box" and is public [22]	At the registered office "or at any other place in Canada designated by the directors"; abroad only if inspectable from Canada by computer terminal [21]	None, but the 25% resident-director rule applies
Ontario	Must "at all times have a registered office in Ontario"; the registry adds it "must be a physical location in Ontario. A P.O. Box alone is not acceptable" [4]	At the registered office or elsewhere in Ontario (s.140(1))	None for an Ontario corporation; required for a foreign one
British Columbia	"a company must maintain a registered office and a records office in British Columbia" — both [27]	At the records office; the delivery address must be "accessible to the public during statutory business hours" and "does not include a post office box"	None for a BC company; required for an extraprovincial one
Alberta	Must "at all times have a registered office within Alberta"; a PO box may not be the registered or records office; both "accessible to the public during normal business hours" [6]	At the records office in Alberta (s.21)	Always. "A corporation shall appoint an agent for service who is a resident Albertan" (s.20.1)
Quebec	"The head office of a corporation must be permanently located in Québec" [8]	At the head office, or elsewhere if inspectable in Quebec	A registrant with no Quebec domicile or establishment "must designate an attorney residing in Québec" [32]

What you can file yourself

Registry	Can a founder abroad file directly?	Payment
Federal	The published route is the Online Filing Centre, but identity verification is "mandatory to access the majority of our services" and the accepted options are not published [23]	Amex, Mastercard, Visa or cheque; no issuer-nationality rule published
Ontario	Yes in principle, through a ServiceOntario account, or "through an intermediary acting on your behalf. Intermediaries charge an additional fee" [25]	Credit or debit card
British Columbia	Corporate Online is public; the paper alternative is to "ask a lawyer, notary or other service provider to submit it for you" [29]	Visa, Mastercard, Amex and debit variants
Alberta	No. "You need to take your forms to a registry agent or authorized Alberta service provider", bringing "valid ID" [30]	Taken by the registry agent
Quebec	Yes — filing and payment are contemplated without a clicSÉQUR account [34]	Credit card; combined credit-debit cards are not accepted

Alberta deserves emphasis. It is the only jurisdiction where the public cannot deal with the registry at all: filings go through private registry agents, in person, with identification, and those agents set their own charge on top of the government fee — the official catalogue lists corporate registry products as uncapped, with the "maximum service charge determined by registry agent" [31].

Three things the registries do not publish, which we will not guess at: whether federal identity verification can be completed from abroad, whether a non-resident can obtain the British Columbia credential for Corporate Online, and whether a non-resident can open an Ontario.ca login. Each states an account is needed without saying who may have one. Ask before planning a filing date.

Filing fees are set out per jurisdiction in the province guides, because they change independently and each registry publishes its own schedule. For orientation, federal incorporation is $200 online with a $12 annual return [23], Ontario $300 [25], British Columbia $350 [29], Quebec $397 [33], and Alberta a $291.75 government fee plus an uncapped registry-agent charge [31]. Note that the federal fee page carries an older date stamp than the pages quoting it.

Registering a foreign corporation instead

Province	Deadline	Local agent, and what else
Ontario	Licence before carrying on business; initial return within 60 days	Yes — "an individual … who is resident in Ontario or a corporation having its head office or registered office in Ontario as its agent for service". "No extra-provincial corporation within class 3 shall carry on any of its business in Ontario without a licence"; $330 [26]
British Columbia	"within 2 months after the foreign entity begins to carry on business in British Columbia"	Yes unless the charter puts the head office in BC — "an individual who is resident in British Columbia, or … a company". Proof of existence from the home jurisdiction, dated within the last year [28]
Alberta	"before or within 30 days after it commences carrying on business in Alberta"	Yes — an alternative agent must be "an individual who is a resident of Alberta". A verified copy of the charter, notarised in translation if not in English [6]
Quebec	60 days after the activity begins [32]	Yes where there is no Quebec domicile or establishment — "must declare a mandatary in the register … even if it declares an elected domicile address". A French version of a non-French name; $397 [34]

Note the Quebec presumption if you are buying an address: having a Quebec address, an establishment, a post-office box or a telephone line there, or performing any act for profit in Quebec, all count as indicators of carrying on an activity. An address service is relevant to the registration analysis, not a way to avoid it.

Identifiers, transparency and the bank file

Service Canada gates the SIN on work authorisation, and a temporary resident must provide "your valid work permit, study permit or visitor record from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) that authorizes you to work" [48]. A non-resident owner with no IRCC work authorisation has no route to one — a status to declare, not a problem to solve. Note also that no official source requires a director to hold a SIN: the qualification list is age, capacity, being an individual, and not being bankrupt [3]. See also opening an account without a SIN.

The business number route that exists for you

Business Registration Online will not work. CRA lists among the things you cannot do there: "Register a Canadian business with only non-resident owners" [45]. The correct path is the Non-Resident Business Registration form, which applies where "your business is incorporated outside Canada; your business is located outside Canada; your SIN starts with 0; you do not have a SIN", and opens the business number with the GST/HST, payroll and corporation income tax accounts. The fallback is Form RC1 by mail or fax to the Atlantic Tax Centre in Summerside [46].

The GST/HST security deposit nobody warns you about

Registering for GST/HST without a Canadian permanent establishment generally requires a security deposit: initially "50% of your estimated net tax", maximum $1 million, minimum $5,000, with an exception where annual taxable supplies are not more than $100,000 and net tax falls between $3,000 remittable and $3,000 refundable [47]. The guide is at revision 23 and directs readers to the Tax Centre for current requirements, so treat these as a baseline to confirm. It also stresses that carrying on business in Canada for GST/HST and for income-tax purposes are different tests.

Individuals with significant control

Since 22 January 2024 federal corporations must file beneficial-ownership information. An individual with significant control holds, individually or jointly, 25% or more of voting rights or of shares by fair market value, or has control in fact.

The point most often reported incorrectly: residential addresses are public by default. The published fields include the "residential address (will be made public if no address for service is provided)", while date of birth, citizenship and countries of tax residence are not [49]. Privacy is opt-in through an address for service, and applications arguing only that publication threatens the individual "generally will be refused".

Filing is required on incorporation or within 30 days of amalgamation or continuance, annually with the annual return, and within 15 days of a change — with the register itself updated within 15 days of the corporation becoming aware. The register must be kept in Canada, and sanctions run to administrative dissolution and fines up to $100,000. One trap: the federal Act aggregates only jointly held interests and interests under an agreement to act jointly or in concert, so there is no related-persons aggregation federally, unlike some provincial regimes.

What the bank does with all of this

Banks apply FINTRAC's rules, not the registry's. Beneficial owners are "the individuals who directly or indirectly own or control at least 25%", and they "cannot be other corporations, trusts or other entities" — so the chart must be traced through every layer to natural persons [50]. Where beneficial ownership cannot be established, the institution verifies "the chief executive officer or the person who performs that function" and applies special measures for high-risk clients.

Since 1 October 2025 reporting entities must also consult Corporations Canada's database for high-risk federal corporations and report a material discrepancy against the filed ISC information within 30 days. Your federal filing and your bank file now have to agree.

For identifying people abroad, foreign government photo identification works "if it is equivalent to a Canadian document", but municipal documents do not, and remote use requires "a process in place to authenticate the government-issued photo identification document" — FINTRAC states expressly that "it is not enough to only view a person and their government-issued photo identification document through a video conference" [51]. The credit-file method needs a Canadian credit bureau file at least three years old, so it is effectively unavailable to a newcomer.

Banking from abroad

Nothing above opens an account. Canadian banks decide independently, and no rule requires any of them to accept a non-resident-owned corporation. Start with the open-from-abroad research, the non-resident setup path, and the guides for RBC, TD, BMO, Scotiabank, CIBC and Desjardins. If your company is federal, the federal corporation scenario covers the document pack.

The most useful habit: ask which field the bank means — registered office, mailing, civic, operating or trading — and which document it accepts for it. A published online route describes how a conversation may start, not an approval.

Immigration paths that attach to a business

Owning a Canadian company does not let you work in Canada. This section is blunt because the landscape changed materially in December 2025.

The Start-up Visa is closed

IRCC's programme page reads "Status: Paused". To apply you must "have a valid 2025 commitment certificate" and "apply by June 30, 2026", and "the program is closed to all other applications" [52].

That deadline has passed. As at this page's verification date, no new Start-up Visa application can be made by anyone. The December 2025 notice stopped new applications at 11:59 p.m. on 31 December 2025 except for 2025 commitment-certificate holders, ended new applications for the optional SUV work permit on 19 December 2025, and extended the pause on the federal Self-Employed Persons Program "until further notice" [53]. A replacement is named in departmental planning as a "new high impact Start-up Visa pilot", with no published criteria, intake mechanism or launch date. Do not build a timeline around it.

Intake had already been capped in April 2024 at ten start-ups per designated organization, and the programme never covered Quebec.

A work permit for an owner: category C11

Where an owner genuinely needs to be in Canada temporarily, IRCC's instructions cover "business owners seeking only temporary residence". Issuance "should be considered only when the applicant controls at least 51% of the business in question"; below that the person is treated as an employee and may need a labour market impact assessment. "The period of work in Canada would normally not exceed 18 months", and "foreign nationals cannot reside permanently in Canada simply because they are business owners". IRCC also notes that for business owners "the foreign national is both employer and employee. They must meet the requirements for both roles" [54].

Intra-company transfer: C61, C62 and C63

The code widely cited as C12 is obsolete. Transfers now run under C61 (establishing a new Canadian enterprise, maximum one year), C62 (executives and managers, total stay not exceeding seven years) and C63 (specialized knowledge, not exceeding five years), and the transferee needs a year of continuous full-time employment in a similar position abroad within the previous three, not accumulated part-time [55]. Two limits matter enormously here and are usually omitted from commercial summaries.

Controlling owners are excluded from the start-up category. "Foreign nationals and/or their immediate family members who own a controlling interest of the foreign enterprise who are seeking entry to Canada to start a new business, are not eligible as an ICT unless they are able to demonstrate that their enterprise meets the requirements of an MNC" — a multinational with revenue-generating operations in at least one country beyond its home country. And "an enterprise outside of Canada cannot become an MNC by using the ICT work permit category to establish their first foreign enterprise in Canada". The route is for existing multinationals, not a founder's first expansion.

Premises are tested, and mail addresses fail. "Business operations with no physical commercial premises (i.e., businesses operating from a non-commercial/residential location or virtual businesses using a mailing address in commercial locations such as malls) are not eligible to transfer ICTs to Canada." For co-working space, officers weigh a shared receptionist, the company name in the building directory, a direct phone line answered by company staff, the address published on the website, a dedicated space where employees work and client meetings are held, a business licence, and public accessibility. The Canadian entity must be "doing business on a regular and systematic basis", which "does not include the mere presence or establishment of an agent or office in Canada".

The owner-operator LMIA category

The owner-operator labour market impact assessment stream appears nowhere in the current Temporary Foreign Worker Program pages, and its dedicated page returns an error. It is widely reported to have been eliminated on 1 April 2021, but we could not verify that date, or the elimination itself, from any surviving official source. Twelve current federal programme pages were checked and none mentions the category — an absence, not an announcement. Treat the category as unavailable in practice and plan around C11, but do not repeat the 2021 date as fact.

Business visitors

Short visits are the one thing that clearly works without a permit. A business visitor engages in international business activities "without directly entering the Canadian labour market", but the test is strict: the person qualifies "only if (a) the primary source of remuneration for the business activities is outside Canada; and (b) the principal place of business and actual place of accrual of profits remain predominately outside Canada" [56]. IRCC describes stays of "a few days or a few weeks", up to six months [58]. Attending a board meeting, negotiating a contract or going to a bank appointment can fall within this. Running your Canadian company from Canada does not.

On the central claim we are explicit about our reasoning. No IRCC page states in terms that owning a Canadian company confers no right to work in Canada; we searched for one. The conclusion follows from three sources together: "a foreign national may not work or study in Canada unless authorized to do so under this Act" [57]; the business-visitor test requires profits to accrue predominately outside Canada, which a person whose business is the Canadian company structurally fails; and IRCC's remedy for an owner who wants to work is a work permit with its own tests. C11 exists precisely because ownership alone is not enough.

Provincial and Quebec business immigration

Entrepreneur streams contracted sharply after the federal provincial-nominee allocation fell from 120,000 for 2025 to 55,000.

Programme	Status
Ontario entrepreneur	Closed. "The new Ontario Workforce Priority stream has now launched, and all other streams are now closed" [59]
British Columbia Entrepreneur Immigration	Open. The base stream is "open to any interested entrepreneurs who meet the criteria"; the regional stream needs a community referral [60]
Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories	Open, with Nova Scotia by invitation only
Alberta, New Brunswick	Appear open — inferred from the absence of a closure notice, not an affirmative statement
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, PEI, Yukon	Not verified. All four sites blocked automated access; check the programme page directly

Quebec runs its own selection, and its three business programmes are open, contrary to widespread reporting: the Entrepreneur Program in three streams, the Investor Program and the Self-Employed Worker Program each state an application may be submitted at any time with no maximum [61]. The paused programme people usually mean is the federal Self-Employed Persons Program. But "open" is not "available": Quebec's 2026 plan targets 100 to 200 selection certificates in the business category for the whole year, against 1,113 issued in 2023 [62].

Choosing a jurisdiction as a non-resident

The full comparison is in Ontario vs British Columbia vs Alberta vs Quebec for non-residents, and the federal question in federal vs provincial incorporation.

Dedicated non-resident guides: Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec. Every province guide also has a non-resident section: Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut. Sales tax is a separate axis: HST vs GST+PST vs QST.

Maintenance from abroad

When	What
Within 15 days of a change	Federal director or registered-office changes; ISC register update, then ISC filing within 15 days of recording
Within 30 days	Federal ISC filing after incorporation, amalgamation or continuance; a bank's discrepancy report where records disagree
Within 60 days of the anniversary	Federal annual return and ISC information [24]
Two months after year end	Corporate tax balance — always two, never three, for a non-resident-controlled corporation
Six months after year end	T2 return, even if inactive or treaty-exempt; Ontario annual return on the same clock
Monthly by the 15th, then 31 March	Part XIII remittance for anything paid or credited to a non-resident; then the NR4 return and slips
Annually	Quebec annual updating declaration, with a 50% penalty if late; provincial and extra-provincial filings
On any address or agent change	Registry, CRA and bank records, each under its own deadline; renew agent, attorney and mandatary appointments before they lapse

Failure modes

Failure	Why it happens	Instead
Relying on a repealed director rule	Four jurisdictions repealed theirs between 2021 and 2023; two never had one	Read the current section, not an old article
Assuming no director rule means no Canadian needed	Alberta, Saskatchewan and PEI substituted agent or lawyer requirements	Check the substitute obligation too
Incorporating to "test the market"	Deemed residence is permanent and a treaty will not reverse it	Decide the structure before filing
Splitting shares among non-residents to keep CCPC status	The test aggregates all non-resident holdings into one notional person	Model tax at the general rate
Paying a dividend without withholding	The obligation sits on the company; the penalty is 10% plus the tax	Build the Part XIII process before the first distribution
Trying to use Business Registration Online	It is closed to businesses with only non-resident owners	Use the non-resident form or RC1
Planning around the Start-up Visa	It is paused and the last window closed 30 June 2026	Treat immigration as a separate, uncertain project
Using a mail address as ICT premises	IRCC excludes virtual businesses using a mailing address	Meet the physical-premises criteria, or do not use ICT

Readiness checklist

What 2727 can and cannot support

2727 Coworking is a coworking space in Griffintown, Montreal. A business-address service provides the address, mail handling and workspace access set out in its agreement, and nothing beyond it.

What the address can be. A Montreal address can serve as the registered office of a federal corporation whose articles specify Quebec, and as the head office of a Quebec corporation, because both require an address in Quebec. It can be a mailing or correspondence address for anyone.

What it cannot be. It is not a registered office for a corporation of any other province or territory — Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon, Northwest Territories or Nunavut. Each statute requires the registered office to be in that jurisdiction, so no Montreal address satisfies them and no plan changes that.

What 2727 does not do. It does not act as your agent for service, attorney or mandatary — those are legal appointments of a person or firm resident in the relevant province. It does not supply a resident Canadian director, make a corporation a CCPC, change its tax residence, create or prevent a permanent establishment, issue utility or property-tax bills, or confer immigration status.

Two honest limits. First, whether a mail or registered-office address alone creates a treaty permanent establishment is a question no official source we found answers, and we will not claim it is settled either way. Second, IRCC expressly excludes "virtual businesses using a mailing address" from transferring intra-company transferees, and applies the co-working criteria quoted above. A desk or office membership may help evidence some of those facts if you genuinely use it that way; a mail-only plan will not, and describing one as the other is the failure mode IRCC screens for.

We never claim that any registry, bank, CRA or IRCC accepts a 2727 address. Ask the receiving body which field it means and which document it accepts, then choose a plan only if the real service matches that use.

Research method and limitations

This page was researched and verified on 6 September 2026. Discovery used Exa search and fetch; every landed claim was then checked against an official source actually retrieved — the statute or regulation on the official legislation site, the registry's own pages, the Canada Revenue Agency, the Department of Finance, Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada, Service Canada, provincial and territorial governments, and FINTRAC. Law-firm, accountancy and incorporation-service pages were used only to locate a rule, never to support one.

Access constraints shaped the sourcing. CanLII returned a bot challenge to every request, so no claim here rests on it; each statute is cited to its official legislature or government consolidation instead, which is a stronger source. Ontario's e-Laws returns only a shell to plain fetching and Quebec's legislation site rejects non-browser requests, so both were retrieved by other means. Four provincial immigration sites blocked automated access entirely, and those rows are marked unverified rather than guessed.

Four things could not be verified and are stated as such in the body rather than smoothed over: whether a mailing or registered-office address alone creates a treaty permanent establishment; the elimination of the owner-operator labour market impact assessment category and its widely repeated 2021 date; the currency of the Yukon and Nunavut consolidations; and the status of the Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island and Yukon entrepreneur streams. Separately, no official source states that owning a Canadian company confers no right to work in Canada — that conclusion is constructed from three cited provisions, and the body says so.

Nothing here was tested by filing: no incorporation, registration, tax account, bank application, identity verification or immigration application was submitted. Fees and processing times change, sometimes without a re-dated page. This is educational planning material, not legal, tax, accounting, immigration or banking advice, and a corporate lawyer, a cross-border tax adviser and a regulated immigration consultant answer different parts of it.

Frequently asked questions

Can a non-resident own 100% of a Canadian corporation?

No statute reviewed for this page imposes a general residency limit on who may hold shares, subject to sector-specific rules in regulated industries such as broadcasting, telecommunications and transport. The constraint that bites is on directors, not shareholders, and only federally and in Manitoba.

Do I need a Canadian director?

Only federally or in Manitoba. Federally at least 25% of directors must be resident Canadians, and where there are fewer than four, at least one must be [1]. Manitoba requires the same proportion on a looser test. Every other province and territory has no requirement.

Will my Canadian company pay the 9% small-business rate?

Not if non-residents control it. That rate belongs to Canadian-controlled private corporations, and the definition excludes a corporation controlled directly or indirectly by non-resident persons [37]. Expect the 15% general federal rate [38], plus provincial tax, and a balance-due day a month earlier.

No official source we found requires a director to hold one; the qualification list is age, capacity, individual status and not being bankrupt [3]. You cannot obtain a SIN without IRCC work authorisation [48], which is why CRA runs a separate non-resident business-number route.

Can I complete the incorporation myself from another country?

The registries publish an online route but generally do not publish whether someone outside Canada can obtain the account or complete the identity verification each requires. Alberta is the clear exception in the other direction: filings go through a registry agent in person with valid identification [30]. Ask the registry before booking anything around a filing date.

Does owning a Canadian company let me move to Canada or work here?

No. A foreign national "may not work or study in Canada unless authorized to do so under this Act" [57], and the business-visitor route requires profits to accrue predominately outside Canada [56]. Working in your own Canadian company needs a work permit on its own terms. IRCC does not say this in one sentence; the conclusion follows from those provisions and the existence of C11.

Can I still apply for the Start-up Visa?

No. IRCC's page reads "Status: Paused", and the final window — for holders of a valid 2025 commitment certificate — closed on 30 June 2026 [52]. A replacement pilot is named in departmental planning with no criteria or launch date [53]. Applications already filed continue to be processed.

Are Quebec's business immigration programmes still open?

Yes. The Entrepreneur, Investor and Self-Employed Worker programmes each state an application may be submitted at any time with no cap [61]. The paused programme people often mean is the federal Self-Employed Persons Program. Note the volume: Quebec plans 100 to 200 business selection certificates for all of 2026 [62].

Will a virtual or mail address cause problems?

It depends entirely on what you claim it is. As a mailing address it is unremarkable. As a registered office it works only where the address is in the right province. For intra-company transfers IRCC expressly excludes "virtual businesses using a mailing address" and assesses co-working space against specific criteria [55]. And whether such an address alone creates a treaty permanent establishment is a question no official source we found answers.

Start a business in Canada from abroad