Start a British Columbia business from abroad as a non-resident

Direct answer

A non-resident can incorporate in British Columbia without a Canadian director, without a Social Insurance Number, and without any British Columbia digital identity. The Business Corporations Act requires one director and its disqualification list says nothing about residence or citizenship, and Corporate Online publishes a set of filings available with no login at all, paid by credit card. The constraint is not who you are, it is where your company's addresses are. A BC company must maintain both a registered office and a records office in British Columbia, each with a delivery address open to the public between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on business days and neither a post office box, so a founder abroad needs a real arrangement with someone in the province. Foreign control separately costs Canadian-controlled private corporation status, which can roughly double the combined tax rate on the first $500,000 of active business income.

Why founders abroad look at British Columbia

The real reason: nobody on the board has to live in Canada

Section 120 of the Business Corporations Act says a company "must have at least one director and, in the case of a public company, must have at least 3 directors". Section 124 then sets out who may not act: an individual is disqualified if under 18, found incapable of managing their own affairs, the subject of a certificate of incapability, an undischarged bankrupt, or convicted of an offence connected with the promotion, formation or management of a corporation or an offence involving fraud [2].

That is the entire list, read to the end of the subsection for this guide rather than taken from a summary, because the whole page depends on it: no residency condition, no citizenship condition, no requirement that any proportion of the board be Canadian. One person who has never set foot in Canada may be the sole shareholder, sole director and sole officer, and may attend board meetings "by telephone or other communications medium" unless the articles provide otherwise [2]. The comparison across all fourteen Canadian corporate jurisdictions, including the two that do impose a residency rule, is in the Track B pillar.

The mistaken reason is that a Pacific jurisdiction is somehow lighter. British Columbia is the strictest of the four provinces non-residents most often consider, because it requires two in-province offices where the others require one. Time zones and Asia-facing trade are real business considerations, but no official source consulted here describes a regulatory advantage flowing from them, so this page does not claim one.

The constraint that shapes everything else

Section 34 governs the rest of the article: "a company must maintain a registered office and a records office in British Columbia", and the two "may be located at the same place" [1]. The registry's incorporation-application instructions say what those addresses have to be. The registered office delivery address "must be for a location in British Columbia that is accessible to the public between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on business days for the delivery of records or notices. The address must not be a post office box." The records office carries identical wording, with "for inspection of records" in place of delivery [9].

The form makes the point more bluntly than the statute does: on both office blocks the province field is pre-printed "BC", while the director block is labelled PROVINCE/STATE and COUNTRY. A foreign person is contemplated by the design of the form; a foreign office is not. So the practical question for a founder abroad is never "may I incorporate in British Columbia?" It is "who in British Columbia will hold my registered office and my records, and on what terms?"

Structure choice: three routes into the province

A foreign founder or foreign parent has three genuine options, and they are not interchangeable.

A federal certificate is not a substitute for BC registration

Founders abroad frequently assume federal incorporation makes the provinces go away. It does not, and the clearest published illustration is a municipal licence counter. The City of Vancouver requires a licence of "any organization doing business in or from Vancouver", including an out-of-town business — "a business being carried on in the City of Vancouver, but with the business office located outside of Vancouver" — and where the business is incorporated outside British Columbia it requires a "BC Statement of Registration (as an Extraprovincial Company)", stating that "A federal certificate of incorporation issued by Industry Canada won't be accepted" [35].

That is a licence clerk applying a rule, not a lawyer's opinion, and it is the right mental model for the whole question: the federal certificate creates the company, the provincial registration is what lets it operate in the province, and third parties ask for the provincial document. The trade-offs in full are in the federal versus provincial comparison.

The advertising trap in section 375

A foreign entity must register as an extraprovincial company within two months after it "begins to carry on business in British Columbia" [4]. Section 375(2) then deems it to be carrying on business if its name is listed in a British Columbia telephone directory giving a BC address or telephone number; if its name "appears or is announced in any advertisement in which an address or telephone number in British Columbia is given"; if it has in British Columbia a resident agent, warehouse, office or place of business; or if it otherwise carries on business there [4].

Read the second limb again: a foreign company that buys a Vancouver phone number and puts it on its website has, on the face of the statute, done enough, and there are only three carve-outs — banks, businesses whose only BC activity is constructing and operating a railway, and holding a limited-partner interest in a BC limited partnership [4]. Treat a local presence in your marketing as a registration decision, not a marketing one.

The fourth route, and why it is closed to you

Founders abroad who have read about the New West Partnership sometimes plan to incorporate in a cheaper western province and slide into British Columbia on the back of it. That relief exists, and it is closed to a foreign entity. BC Registries describes the agreement as removing "the need to file multiple registrations and reports" between British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, so a participating business does not need to "Pay business registry fees in B.C." or "File annual reports in other provinces" [46]. The mechanism is B.C. Reg. 88/2009, and its section 2 lists the designated provinces exhaustively: "(a) Alberta; (b) Saskatchewan; (c) Manitoba" [45].

Three consequences for a founder outside Canada. A company you incorporate in Delaware, Singapore or Estonia is not "a foreign entity from a designated province" and gets none of this; it registers under Part 11 at the ordinary $350 with the ordinary attorney requirement. An Alberta or Saskatchewan corporation you own from abroad does get it, which is a real argument for incorporating in one of those three provinces first if you will operate in more than one western province — the registration is still mandatory ("Registration must be completed within 2 months of starting to do business in B.C."), only the BC fee and the separate BC annual report fall away. And the relief is registry-side only: it changes nothing about tax, PST, the attorney, or the two-office rule if you later incorporate in British Columbia itself.

What it costs, in government fees only

Every figure below is a published registry, ministry or program fee. None of it is what a British Columbia lawyer, notary, accountant or registered-office provider will charge you, which is a private commercial arrangement no official source publishes — and which, for a founder abroad, is normally the largest line in the budget.

Five-year government cost of a simple BC company owned from abroad

Assume one non-resident director who never changes address, a named company, no ULC, no priority service, no immigration application, and filing through the BC OnLine channel so the $1.50 service fee applies. The arithmetic is ours; every input is cited above.

Two honest observations about that table. First, it is trivially small next to the private cost of the two British Columbia offices, so a founder who chooses the province on registry fees is optimising the wrong number. Second, a single missed pair of annual reports converts a $44.89 obligation into a $350 restoration and a published 42-business-day wait [12], which is the real cost structure of this province: cheap to run, expensive to neglect from ten time zones away.

The remote filing sequence

Step 1 — the name request, or skipping it

A name request costs $30, online or on a paper form to a Service BC location with payment to the Minister of Finance. You may give up to "a maximum of three names which will be considered in the order provided", results are emailed immediately where an email address is supplied, an approved name "is reserved for 56 days", and priority service at $100 returns a decision in one to two business days [7].

Two details matter more for a non-resident than for a local. First, you need no account at all for this step: "you don't need an account to request a name and pay by credit card" [11]. Second, the 56 days are a real risk while you are still negotiating a BC registered office from another continent. The registrar may reserve a name for 56 days "or any longer period that the registrar considers appropriate", and may extend a reservation on a request "received before the expiry of that reservation" [1]. Ask before it lapses, not after — or skip the step, since a numbered company (0123456 B.C. Ltd.) needs no name approval and the number is assigned when the incorporation application is filed [6].

On timing, the province publishes two figures that do not match: "about 7 to 14 days to process a name request" on the incorporated-companies page, updated 10 June 2026 [6], against "Review and approval — 4 business days" on the processing-times page, updated 12 August 2026, which also tells readers to "go directly to Name Request" for the most accurate figure [12]. Neither is asserted here as the answer; check the live page before promising anyone a date.

Step 2 — identity: what a non-resident can actually use

This is the step that stops most people, and the answer is better than the internet suggests.

A BC Services Card is not available to you. The province is explicit: it "provides access to government services for B.C. residents", and it is typically issued alongside a driver's licence renewal [16].

A Basic BCeID is available to anyone: it is for "accessing a service in a personal capacity", "Registration is started and completed online", and its requirements are stated as "Requirements at a glance: None." A Business BCeID is different — you must be "an authorized representative of your organization" and "You may have to provide documentation to prove your business or organization's identity" [15] — and whether a non-resident can complete one from abroad is not stated on any page found for this guide.

It matters less than it seems, because of the third answer. Corporate Online publishes a set of filings that require no identity whatsoever: "The services listed under 'No Login Required' on the Services Menu are available to all of the Corporate Registry's customers without the necessity of logging in. When you access services without logging in, you must pay by credit card" [14]. That menu carries the Incorporation Application, Register an Extraprovincial Company, the BC and extraprovincial annual reports, and notices of change of address and of directors [13]. A customer profile is not a prerequisite for any of it — it cannot be, since creating one requires "the incorporation number and password for a BC company", which you do not have until after you incorporate [14].

So the payment card, not your identity, is the actual gate. Corporate Online accepts "Visa, Visa Debit, MasterCard, Debit MasterCard or American Express" [13], and the registry asks that "All payments to BC Registry Services should be made in Canadian dollars" [8]. Neither says anything about the country that issued the card, and no official page found addresses it — so have a fallback: a BC lawyer, notary or service provider filing on your behalf, which the registry itself suggests for anyone who "cannot file the application electronically" [6].

Two channel facts that waste a lot of time. The newer Business Registry application handles names, benefit companies, cooperatives and unincorporated businesses, and then states: "Note: You cannot use the Business Registry to make filings for limited companies" [11] — a B.C. Ltd. goes through Corporate Online. And everything runs on Pacific hours: filings are accepted "from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday, including statutory holidays and 1:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Sunday" [13], and the helpdesk answers 9:00 am to 4:00 pm [12].

Step 2a — the four identity options, and what is actually established about each

The practical reading is that the identity question is a distraction. The fourth row is the route, the first row is impossible, the second is available but unnecessary for the filings this page is about, and the third never has to be resolved. What replaces identity as the gate is the payment instrument and, after incorporation, the company password — which is why the next two subsections matter more than this one.

Step 2b — a walk-through of the Corporate Online channel

The registry does not publish a step-by-step screen guide, so this is assembled from the application's own front page, its help documentation and the incorporated-companies page, each cited at the point it is used.

1. Open the services menu without logging in. The menu separates services that require a login from those listed under "No Login Required", and the second group is the one a founder abroad uses [14].
2. Mind the clock, which is Pacific. Filings are accepted "from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday, including statutory holidays and 1:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Sunday" [13]. If you are in Central European Time, the Sunday window opens at 10 p.m. your time and the weekday window closes at 7 a.m. the next morning; a founder in Singapore files during their late evening or overnight. The helpdesk is narrower still — 9:00 am to 4:00 pm Pacific, Monday to Friday, on 1-877-526-1526 [12], which is the middle of the night in most of Europe and Asia. Plan to file when you can still call.
3. Enter the name reservation number, or elect a numbered company. Where the name is not reserved, the incorporation number becomes the name — the registry's own examples are 0123456 B.C. Ltd., 0123456 B.C. Community Contribution Company and 0123456 BC Unlimited Liability Company [6].
4. Enter both offices, then the directors. The province field on both office blocks is pre-printed BC; the director block offers PROVINCE/STATE and COUNTRY [9].
5. Save and come back if you need to. A partially completed filing sits in "Your Work" for up to six months, and an Incorporation Application may be future-dated [14]. Both features exist for administrative convenience; for a founder abroad they are how you get a document signed across a weekend without losing the filing.
6. Pay. Corporate Online accepts "Visa, Visa Debit, MasterCard, Debit MasterCard or American Express" [13] and the registry asks that "All payments to BC Registry Services should be made in Canadian dollars" [8]. Nothing published addresses the country that issued the card.
7. Collect four documents. On processing you receive, "by email or mail, depending on the method selected: The original Certificate of Incorporation; A certified copy of the Incorporation Application; A certified copy of the Notice of Articles; A cover sheet that includes the company's incorporation number and business number" [6]. That cover sheet is the single most useful page in the set for a non-resident, because it carries both the provincial number and the federal business number, and a bank will ask for both.

If any of this fails — a refused card, a browser the application will not accept, a filing type that is not on the no-login menu — the registry's published fallback is not a special non-resident process. It is a person: complete the paper form and "ask a law firm or registry agent to submit the forms for you" [6]. Since you already need a British Columbia relationship for the two offices, the sensible design is to have that same person able to file, and to agree it in advance rather than at 3 a.m. with a declined transaction.

Step 2c — the company password is the credential that actually matters

Identity gets you in once. The company password is what lets you file for the rest of the company's life, and it behaves badly for people abroad. The annual report requires "an access code or company password", and the access code arrives on the annual report reminder [6]. A forgotten password can be sent only "to the company email address or the registered office mailing address for the company", and where that mailing address is stale the registry's answer is that "you will have to submit a Notice of Change of Address on paper along with covering letter" [14]. A Corporate Online customer profile does not rescue you either: creating one requires "the incorporation number and password for a BC company", so it is downstream of the credential you have lost, and only one profile may exist per company [14].

The defence is two minutes of work on day one: set a company email address you will still control in five years — the registry lets you request a reminder email sent to "any primary email addresses provided" [6] — and store the password somewhere your co-founders can reach. A founder in another country who loses both the password and the address is filing paper into a nine-to-four Pacific office to recover the ability to file at all.

Step 3 — the documents you sign abroad and never file

British Columbia does not want your constitutional documents. The incorporation agreement and the articles are signed and retained, not submitted; a completing party examines them for original signatures, completes the statutory statement, and afterwards delivers the originals to the records office [6]. So the paper trail proving your company exists properly lives in British Columbia with whoever holds your records office — and that person holds what you will need at a bank, a licence counter or in a dispute. Get a written undertaking about scanning and forwarding.

Step 4 — the application, and the first week after it

The incorporation application is filed on Corporate Online with the name reservation number, the office addresses, the directors and the share structure, for $350 plus the $30 name request; priority service is $100 on top [8]. Two features help across time zones: applications may be future-dated, and a partially completed filing is retained in "Your Work" for up to six months [14].

Then three things need doing immediately. Deliver the signed originals to the records office [6]. Build the transparency register, discussed below. And set a company email address on the corporate record, which is a lockout defence: a forgotten company password can be sent "to the company email address or the registered office mailing address for the company", and where that mailing address is out of date, the registry's own answer is that "you will have to submit a Notice of Change of Address on paper along with covering letter" [14]. Paper, from abroad, to fix the address you needed in order to fix the address.

Step 5 — business number and CRA accounts

Incorporating in British Columbia produces a business number and a corporation income tax (RC) program account, so do not register a second time. Where a separate registration is needed — a foreign parent, or a GST/HST or payroll account added later — use the CRA's Non-Resident Business Registration online 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"; otherwise Form RC1 goes by mail to the Atlantic Tax Centre or by fax to 1-519-971-2011 [26]. No Social Insurance Number is required — the single fact that removes the obstacle most non-resident founders expect.

Step 6, only for a foreign entity — the three variant paths

Everything above describes incorporating a new British Columbia company. A founder who already owns a foreign entity faces one of three different sequences, and the differences are procedural rather than conceptual, which is exactly why they surprise people.

A foreign corporation registering extraprovincially. The name must be checked first, and where the entity's own name is unavailable in British Columbia it must "reserve and adopt an assumed name for use in B.C." and send a cover letter with a name undertaking attached [6]. Then proof of existence: a company formed outside Canada "need[s] to request proof of existence certified by the foreign entity's home jurisdiction (e.g. a certificate of status)", the certificate "must be dated within the last year and must be received by BC Registries before proceeding with online registration", and it is emailed with the name approval number to [email protected] [6]. Only then is the registration statement submitted through Corporate Online at $350. Budget for the home-jurisdiction certificate's own lead time and validity: a certificate obtained early in a slow process can age out of the one-year window before the BC filing goes in.

A U.S. limited liability company, which cannot file online at all. This is the single largest procedural trap on the page for American founders, and it is stated plainly by the registry. The LLC path runs the same name request at $30 — with the added rule that "The name must be the foreign entity's own name in its current jurisdiction" — and the same certified proof of existence, emailed for the LLC route to [email protected]. Then, instead of a Corporate Online filing, the registry says to "Submit the following items by mail: Extraprovincial Company Registration Statement (PDF, 149KB); Proof of existence from home jurisdiction; Business Number Request form (PDF, 137KB); Filing fee ($350) made payable to Minister of Finance", plus the assumed-name cover letter if one is needed [6]. A cheque payable to the Minister of Finance, sent by international post, is a materially different project from a card payment at midnight, and the published processing time for "Extraprovincial registration for limited liability companies (LLCs)" is 31 business days — roughly six calendar weeks — against one business day for an extraprovincial change of name [12]. In return you receive the original Certificate of Registration, a certified copy of the Registration Statement, a cover sheet carrying the registration number and business number, and an information sheet about maintaining the extraprovincial company [6].

Two things follow. If an American founder's plan depends on being registered in British Columbia by a particular date — a lease, a licence, a customer's vendor-onboarding deadline — the LLC route is the one that breaks it, and incorporating a new BC subsidiary online is often faster than registering the LLC that owns it. And the deemed-carrying-on-business rules in section 375(2) do not pause for the six weeks: the two-month clock runs from when the business begins, not from when the mail arrives [4].

A foreign corporation continuing into British Columbia. Continuation moves the company's home to British Columbia rather than giving a foreign company permission to trade here. It requires "a letter of authorization to continue operations in B.C. sent from the company's home jurisdiction", addressed to BC Registries, stating the corporation's name in its current jurisdiction, the corporate number assigned there, confirmation from an official of that jurisdiction that the corporation is authorized to continue into British Columbia, and the BC name reservation number; a company incorporated outside Canada also needs "a certificate of existence from the home jurisdiction". The letter goes to [email protected], and note the channel trap: a corporation continuing in as a numbered BC company "will not be able to file the Continuation Application electronically on Corporate Online" and must submit forms to the registry instead [6]. The tax consequence is the one to think about first, not last: a continuance "into" Canada is deemed by subsection 250(5.1) to be an incorporation in the new jurisdiction, so the company becomes a deemed Canadian resident from that point [22].

The transparency register

Every private BC company must take reasonable steps to maintain a transparency register of its significant individuals [3]. For a non-resident this regime has an unusual shape.

It is not public and not filed. The register is kept "in each company's own records office", inspection is limited to a closed list — directors, police and the RCMP, the CRA and BC tax authorities, the BC Securities Commission, the BC Financial Services Authority, FINTRAC and the Law Society of BC — during "9 am to 4 pm Monday through Friday", and "There is no requirement to send the transparency register anywhere" [17]. Bill 20 – 2023 would create a registrar-held register with a limited public search, but its relevant sections come into force only "By regulation of the Lieutenant Governor in Council", and no such regulation appears in the Business Corporations Act consolidation [5] [3]. Verify the status before relying on either state of affairs.

And because it is not filed, nothing chases it — no reminder, no rejection, no deadline notice. A foreign-owned company with layers of holding entities above it is the one most likely to have an incomplete register, least likely to be told, and most likely to be asked for it by a bank.

Building it when the ownership chain is foreign

The province publishes answers to the questions a layered foreign structure actually raises, and three of them decide how much work this is.

Indirect control is traced through, not stopped at, the foreign entity. Where a non-share corporation such as a society holds shares of a BC private company, "the rules of indirect control will need to be applied to determine if any person controls the society"; where no person or group acting in concert can replace a majority of its directors, the province's answer is that "no individual has indirect control" through it [51]. The same logic runs up a chain of foreign holding companies: you keep going until you reach individuals or you can show that no individual holds the relevant control.

Trust beneficiaries count, including children. Asked whether minor beneficiaries of trusts have to be listed, the province answers: "Yes. Any natural person identified as being a significant individual must be listed in the transparency register" [51]. Family structures that hold foreign shares through a trust do not get to stop at the trustee.

You need only one reason per person. Where an individual qualifies several ways at once — over 25% of votes, over 25% of shares, and as an associate of others who also own shares — "You are only required to list one reason an individual is considered to be a significant individual" [51]. That is a genuine simplification for a complicated cap table, and the only place on this page where the compliance burden turns out lighter than it looks.

The second, public register nobody warns you about

If the company will hold British Columbia real estate, a foreign owner has two beneficial-ownership obligations running in parallel on different tests, and only one of them is private. The Land Owner Transparency Registry, administered by the Land Title and Survey Authority, is "a registry of information about individuals who are deemed to have an indirect interest in land as defined in section 1 of LOTA (e.g. through corporations, trusts and partnerships) which is housed in a searchable, public database", and since 30 November 2020 the Land Owner Transparency Act "requires that when an application is made to register an interest in land as defined in section 1 of LOTA, a transparency declaration must be filed" [50].

Read the two regimes together and the asymmetry is stark. Your corporate transparency register sits in a records office in British Columbia and is seen by a closed list of authorities [17]; the moment the same company registers an interest in BC land, the individuals behind it become findable by anyone in a public database. Non-resident founders who chose British Columbia partly for the privacy of the corporate register should know that buying a building changes the answer.

What genuinely needs someone in British Columbia

The two offices in the statute: ss. 11, 34 and 35

Section 11 requires the notice of articles to identify the registered office by mailing and delivery address and, separately, the records office by mailing and delivery address. Section 34(1) then provides — "subject to section 40" — that "a company must maintain a registered office and a records office in British Columbia", and section 34(2) allows them to share a location [1]. Two addresses, in one province, from the first day of the company's life; section 34(3) fixes the opening addresses as the ones shown on the notice of articles at recognition. Changing either afterwards is a section 35 filing, $20 plus $1.50, taking effect at 12:01 a.m. Pacific on the following day [10].

Note the words "subject to section 40" in section 34(1). They are the tell that the Act contemplates a company existing with no registered office at all — and section 40 is how a company ends up there, usually without its directors in the room.

Three statutory exits your BC office provider has: ss. 39, 40 and 41

The Act gives the person holding your offices a way out, and the three routes have different destinations — a distinction that is easy to blur and that changes what you can do about it.

Section 39 — transfer of the registered office, decided by the registrar. An "applicant agent" is a person who is not a director or officer of the company but is authorized by it to maintain the registered office. Such an agent "may apply to the registrar … to transfer the location of the registered office to the British Columbia residence of a director or officer of the company". At least 21 days beforehand the agent must notify that director or officer in writing, saying the application will be made unless the company itself files a section 35 change within 21 days and naming the BC residence that will become the registered office. The application carries an affidavit confirming the notice, proposing the address as both a mailing and a delivery address, giving the agent's reasons for believing it is that person's residence, and proving receipt. An agent who cannot ensure receipt "may apply to the court for an order of substituted service", and the director or officer may apply to the court for an order that the transfer not proceed. If it proceeds, the office moves "at the beginning of the day following the date on which the application is filed" and the notice of articles is altered to match [1].

Section 40 — elimination of the registered office, decided by the court. Where an applicant agent "is unable to locate any of the directors or officers of the company", the agent may apply to the court to eliminate the registered office, supported by an affidavit "as to the steps taken to locate the directors and officers". Satisfied that no director or officer can be found after reasonable efforts, the court may order the elimination and must then set out "the manner in which records may be served on, and mailed, delivered, sent, provided and furnished to, the company". From the day after the notice of elimination is filed, every reference in the Act to serving the registered office is read as a reference to whatever the court ordered [1].

Section 41 — transfer of the records office, also decided by the court. The parallel provision for the records office runs the same 21-day notice, but the application goes to the court rather than the registrar, and if the transfer is ordered the agent must file a "notice of transfer of records … to confirm that the records kept at the company's records office have been physically transferred to the new location". The transfer takes effect when that notice is filed [1].

Now apply all three to a board that lives entirely outside Canada, which is the situation this page is written for. Sections 39 and 41 both aim at "the British Columbia residence of a director or officer"; a wholly foreign board offers no such target, so neither route has anywhere to point. What remains is section 40 — elimination by court order — leaving the company in existence but served only in the manner a judge specified in a proceeding the company was not present to argue. That reading of how the three sections interact for a foreign board is an inference from the statutory text rather than a quotation, and no official commentary on the point was found; it is set out here because it is the concrete downside of treating the BC office as a subscription rather than a relationship.

The lesson is commercial rather than legal. Pay the invoices, answer the emails, keep the provider's contact details somewhere your co-founders can also reach, and appoint a replacement before you end an engagement rather than after.

What the records office must actually hold: ss. 41.1, 42 and 46

A records office is not a mailbox, and the contents list is long. Section 42(1) requires the company to keep there its certificate of incorporation and any certificate of conversion, amalgamation, continuation, change of name or restoration; copies of every entered court order and registrar's order made in respect of the company; its central securities register, unless the directors designate another location, in which case a notice at the records office must say where it is; the register of directors; a copy of every consent to act as a director and every written resignation; the minutes of every shareholders' meeting, consent resolutions and the full text of resolutions passed; the minutes of every directors' or committee meeting with the list of directors present, and directors' consent resolutions; written records of conflict disclosures by current directors and senior officers; written dissents; and the audited financial statements and auditor's reports, or the most recent financial statements where there is no audit [1].

Two structural points a founder abroad should hold on to. The transparency register is deliberately carved out of that regime — section 41.1 provides that the records-office Division "does not apply to a transparency register except as specified in Part 4.1" — so the ordinary inspection rights in section 46 do not reach it [1] [3]. And every item on the section 42 list is something you will sign in one country and need to exist in another. The practical arrangement is a written undertaking with your provider covering custody, scanning, forwarding and what happens to the originals if the engagement ends — because "the minute book is in Vancouver and the person who had it stopped replying" is not a curable position from abroad in the week a bank or a buyer asks for it.

The filing that keeps it all alive: s. 51

The annual report is a section 51 obligation: a company "must annually, within 2 months after each anniversary of the date on which the company was recognized, file with the registrar an annual report" [1]. Note what the deadline is keyed to — the anniversary of recognition, not the fiscal year end and not the calendar year. A company recognized on 12 March files by 12 May every year regardless of when it closes its books, which is the single most commonly missed date on this page for founders whose accountants work to a December year end in another country.

Three worked founder profiles

These are constructed illustrations, not case studies of real companies, and they are here because the sequence only becomes concrete when it carries dates and amounts. Every fee, deadline and threshold in them is cited where it first appears above or below; the arithmetic is ours. Nothing in them was filed, paid or tested.

Profile 1 — Ana, a solo software founder in Madrid, incorporating a new BC company

Ana owns 100% of the shares, is the only director, has never been to Canada, and has arranged with a Vancouver accountant to hold both the registered office and the records office at the firm's downtown address, which is open to the public in business hours and is not a post office box [1] [9].

Her year-one government cost is $350, and $44.89 every year after. What is not in the table is the accountant's fee for the two offices and the records custody, which no official source publishes and which will exceed every registry line above. Her real exposures are the ones with no invoice attached: the PST location test, the loss of CCPC status, and the fact that a Vancouver firm she has never met in person holds the only complete set of her corporate records.

Profile 2 — Harbor Lane LLC, a Delaware company selling into British Columbia

Harbor Lane is a US limited liability company owned by two American residents. It sells physical goods online, has no BC premises and no BC staff, but holds stock at a fulfilment house in Richmond and lists a Vancouver telephone number on its website.

It has three separate problems, and they arrive on different clocks.

Registration is already required, and the trigger was the phone number. Section 375(2) deems a foreign entity to be carrying on business in British Columbia if its name "appears or is announced in any advertisement in which an address or telephone number in British Columbia is given", quite apart from the inventory; registration is due within two months of beginning to carry on business [4].

The registration cannot be filed online. As an LLC it takes the mail route: name request $30 in its own Delaware name, certified proof of existence dated within the last year emailed to the registry, then the Registration Statement, the proof of existence, a Business Number Request form and a $350 cheque payable to the Minister of Finance posted from the United States, against a published 31 business days of processing [6] [12]. Start the paperwork on 2 March and a mid-May completion is a realistic expectation, not a pessimistic one. It also needs an attorney in British Columbia: an individual resident there, or a company, reachable at a BC office during statutory business hours [4].

PST was due before the first sale, with no threshold at all. Holding goods "in inventory in B.C. at the time of sale (e.g. you use a B.C. fulfilment house)" puts the business into the scenario that requires registration before selling those goods to a BC customer, with no revenue limb to fall under [20]. Registration takes 15 to 25 minutes online but "up to 21 business days to be processed", and a company not incorporated in British Columbia must attach its certificate of incorporation [19]. On $400,000 of taxable BC sales at the general 7% rate that is $28,000 of tax the business was required to collect [47], and failing to register "does not remove your obligation to collect and remit PST" [19] — which means the exposure is the tax itself, not a filing penalty.

The design lesson: for a US business with Canadian inventory, incorporating a new British Columbia subsidiary online in an afternoon is frequently faster and cleaner than registering the LLC that owns it — at the cost of the two-office duty and a separate Canadian tax filer. Compare that against the Ontario and Alberta routes in the four-province comparison before deciding.

Profile 3 — Kwame, in Accra, who wants the company and the move

Kwame intends to run a manufacturing business in Kamloops and to immigrate with it. He is on the Regional stream of the BC PNP Entrepreneur Immigration category, which requires a personal net worth of $300,000, an investment of at least $100,000, ownership of at least 51%, three years of owner-manager experience in the last five, a business outside the Metro Vancouver Regional District, and both a community referral and an exploratory visit [29] [30].

Add the stages and the program's own published figures describe something in the order of three years from registration to a final report, before permanent residence processing. Three consequences Kwame should price in from Accra. His corporate filings are the easy part and can all be done from home; the immigration route cannot. Kamloops satisfies the Regional stream's geography, but the 50-km rule is measured "by the shortest available route by road", so the choice of town and the choice of home are the same decision [30]. And once he lands and lives in British Columbia, his own tax residence changes on the ordinary residential-ties analysis — a dwelling place, and a spouse or dependants who come with him, are the significant ties the CRA's folio names first [42], and that can change the company's CCPC position too, since the definition turns on whether control rests with non-resident persons [36] — the subject of the next section.

Tax: three residence tests, three different answers

British Columbia and Canada each ask "where is this business?" for different purposes and get different answers.

Corporate residence: you are Canadian the moment you incorporate

A corporation incorporated in Canada after 26 April 1965 is deemed to have been resident in Canada throughout the tax year; subsection 250(5) can deem a corporation non-resident under a treaty, and a continuance into another jurisdiction is deemed to be incorporation there [22]. Separately, the common-law test asks where central management and control is exercised, and the CRA's guidance is that what matters is where control is actually exercised, not what the constituting documents say; a treaty tie-breaker for a dual-resident corporation generally resolves in favour of the state in which it was created [23].

The practical upshot: a BC company managed entirely from abroad is still a Canadian taxpayer, and holding board meetings offshore is not a way out. It may create a second residence elsewhere, which is a treaty problem, not a solution.

CCPC status: the real cost of foreign ownership

Two of the CRA's conditions for Canadian-controlled private corporation status are fatal to a foreign-owned company: "it is not controlled directly or indirectly by one or more non-resident persons", and if all of its shares "were owned by one person, that person would not own sufficient shares to control the corporation" [24].

Losing that status has a price you can compute.

Federally, Part I tax is 38% of taxable income and 28% after the abatement before those reductions apply [25], and British Columbia states plainly that "The lower small business rate is applicable to Canadian-controlled private corporations (CCPCs)" [18]. The two combined figures are simple addition of separately published rates, not numbers either government publishes, and they ignore every other feature of a real return. Treat them as the order of magnitude: on the same first half-million of profit, foreign control is the difference between roughly eleven and roughly twenty-seven cents on the dollar. Model it before choosing a shareholding structure, not after.

The statutory chain behind those two numbers

The CRA's plain-language page is a summary of a definition, and for a foreign-owned company the definition is worth reading in the Act. Subsection 125(1) allows the small business deduction only to "a corporation that was, throughout the taxation year, a Canadian-controlled private corporation" [36]. Subsection 125(7) then defines that term by exclusion: a CCPC is a private corporation that is a Canadian corporation "other than (a) a corporation controlled, directly or indirectly in any manner whatever, by one or more non-resident persons … [or] (b) a corporation that would, if each share of the capital stock of a corporation that is owned by a non-resident person … were owned by a particular person, be controlled by the particular person" [36].

Three words in paragraph (a) do the damage: "in any manner whatever". This is not a share-count test you can engineer around with a nominee, a voting trust or a 49% cap; it reaches control in fact as well as in law. And paragraph (b) closes the obvious workaround of splitting the shares among several unrelated non-residents, because it asks whether one hypothetical person holding all the non-resident-owned shares would control the company. Four foreign founders at 25% each do not produce a CCPC.

Put numbers on it. Take a British Columbia company with $500,000 of active business income, no other income, and no association with other corporations.

The gap is $80,000 on one year's profit, and it recurs. Over five identical years it is $400,000 — roughly seven hundred times the entire five-year registry cost of owning the company. This is the number that should drive the shareholding decision, and it is the reason a foreign founder who is actually going to move to Canada should think hard about the sequence, because control by a Canadian-resident individual is what the definition turns on. The arithmetic is ours, applied to two separately published rates; neither government publishes the combined figure, and a real return has features this ignores.

Getting the money out: ss. 212 and 215

The second layer lands when profit leaves Canada. Subsection 212(2) is blunt: "Every non-resident person shall pay an income tax of 25% on every amount that a corporation resident in Canada pays or credits … as, on account or in lieu of payment of, or in satisfaction of, (a) a taxable dividend … or (b) a capital dividend" [37]. The rate is reducible by treaty where the recipient qualifies and files the right declaration — Form NR301, NR302 or NR303 — but the starting position is a quarter of the dividend [28].

Section 215 decides who is on the hook, and the answer is not the shareholder. Subsection 215(1) requires the payer, "notwithstanding any agreement or law to the contrary", to "deduct or withhold from it the amount of the tax and forthwith remit that amount to the Receiver General on behalf of the non-resident person". Subsection 215(6) then provides that a payer who fails to do so "is liable to pay as tax under this Part on behalf of the non-resident person the whole of the amount that should have been deducted or withheld" [38]. On the $365,000 of after-tax profit above, a full distribution with no treaty relief is $91,250 of Part XIII tax, remitted so that the CRA has it by the 15th of the month after payment, with the NR4 return due the last day of March and a penalty of "10% of the required amount of Part XIII tax you failed to deduct" if it is missed [28].

The structural point for a founder abroad: the company you own is the withholding agent for the tax on your own dividend, and if you forget, the liability sits in the company under section 215(6) rather than following you home.

Why the registered office decides which province taxes you

There is one more reason the two British Columbia addresses matter, and almost nobody looks for it in the Income Tax Regulations. Provincial income allocation runs on the regulatory definition of permanent establishment in section 400(2), which begins with "a fixed place of business of the corporation, including an office, a branch, a mine, an oil well, a farm, a timberland, a factory, a workshop or a warehouse". Then comes paragraph (e.1): "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" [40].

Section 402 then does the allocation. Where a corporation "had a permanent establishment in a particular province and had no permanent establishment outside that province, the whole of its taxable income for the year shall be deemed to have been earned therein"; where it has none in a province, none of its income is earned there; and where it has establishments in more than one province, the split is the average of two proportions — gross revenue attributable to the province, and salaries and wages paid to employees of that establishment [41].

Read together, that is why Ana's Madrid-run company pays British Columbia's rate on all of its income: with no fixed place of business anywhere, paragraph 400(2)(e.1) deems a permanent establishment at her registered office in Vancouver, and section 402(1) then deems the whole of her taxable income to be earned in British Columbia. The reading is ours, applied to the two cited provisions; the CRA does not publish a worked example in these terms. Two cautions follow. This is the provincial-allocation meaning of permanent establishment, not the treaty meaning that decides whether a foreign company is taxable in Canada at all — the treaty question is worked through on the Track B pillar, and no official source found answers whether a registered-office or mail service alone creates a treaty permanent establishment. And it cuts both ways: a company that later opens a real office in Ontario stops being taxed wholly in British Columbia and starts apportioning under section 402(3).

When a foreign parent is itself carrying on business in Canada

A separate trap for the foreign parent behind the BC subsidiary. Section 253 of the Act extends the meaning of carrying on business in Canada for a non-resident person to include, among other things, where the person "solicits orders or offers anything for sale in Canada through an agent or servant, whether the contract or transaction is to be completed inside or outside Canada or partly in and partly outside Canada" [39]. It is worth noticing how closely that mirrors the corporate-law trap in section 375(2) of the Business Corporations Act: both statutes treat selling activity conducted through someone in the jurisdiction as presence, and a foreign parent that puts a salesperson or an agent in front of Canadian customers can trip the tax rule while its lawyers are still discussing the registration one [4]. Whether Canadian tax is actually payable then depends on the treaty analysis, which is outside this page.

And your own residence, if you ever move

One further test applies to the founder rather than the company, and it becomes live the moment an entrepreneur route succeeds. The CRA's folio identifies the significant residential ties as "the individual's: dwelling place (or places); spouse or common-law partner; and dependants", with secondary ties including personal property, social and economic ties, a driver's licence and health insurance [42]. Separately, an individual who has not established sufficient ties "but who sojourns (that is, is temporarily present) in Canada for a total of 183 days or more in any calendar year, is deemed to be resident in Canada for the entire year, under paragraph 250(1)(a)" [42]. A founder who intends to stay non-resident while visiting a British Columbia business frequently should count the days deliberately, because crossing 183 in a calendar year is a deeming rule, not a judgement call.

PST: British Columbia may decide your business is not in British Columbia

For provincial sales tax the Ministry of Finance has its own test of where a business is located. A business is located in BC if it has physical presence there — a storefront, factory, branch, office or other place of business, excluding temporary space such as trade-show booths, or owned or leased real property, excluding a contract with a fulfilment house — or if it has "agents or employees physically located in B.C.", or if its "management and control is in B.C." The bulletin then explains that phrase: "the management and control of a corporation is generally in B.C. if the members of the board of directors meet and hold most of their meetings in B.C." [20].

So a British Columbia company whose directors all meet abroad and which has no BC premises or staff is, for PST purposes, not located in British Columbia — while being, for income-tax purposes, a Canadian resident by deeming. Same company, opposite answers, because the two governments are asking different questions. That is this author's reading of the two cited tests side by side, not a statement either publisher makes about the other.

Being "outside BC" is not relief. It moves you into the out-of-province scenarios, and two of them bite hard:

• Inventory in British Columbia — no threshold at all. A business located outside BC, in or outside Canada, that sells taxable goods to BC customers, accepts their orders and holds those goods "in inventory in B.C. at the time of sale (e.g. you use a B.C. fulfilment house)" must register, and "must be registered before you sell goods held in inventory in B.C. to a customer in B.C." Leasing goods into BC without a valid PST number is prohibited outright [20].
• Software and telecommunication services — a $10,000 threshold measured differently from abroad. For a business located outside Canada it counts gross revenue "from all sales and provisions of software and telecommunication services to B.C. customers" in the previous or next 12 months, rather than including goods [20].

And the small-seller relief is closed to you. That test begins "You are located in B.C. but do not maintain established business premises and do not regularly make retail sales from established commercial premises", before adding the $10,000 revenue limbs [21]. A business located outside British Columbia fails the first condition, so the escape hatch local micro-businesses use is unavailable to a non-resident seller.

Registering itself is not hard: online, "accessible 24 hours a day", 15 to 25 minutes to complete, "up to 21 business days" to process. A company "not incorporated in B.C." must attach its certificate of incorporation, a sole proprietor may identify with "a copy of your passport or other government-issued identification", and not registering does not help, since "If you're required to register, but you do not register, it does not remove your obligation to collect and remit PST". From 1 October 2026 Budget 2026 also extends PST to accounting, architectural, engineering and geoscience, security and non-residential real estate services supplied in BC [19]. Registering voluntarily from outside the province carries a caveat — "you may be required to enter into an agreement with us prior to your registration being approved" [20].

British Columbia has no HST; it is federal GST plus a separate provincial tax, at a general rate the province states as "7% on the purchase or lease price of goods and services, with some exceptions" [47]. The three Canadian sales-tax models are compared in the sales-tax guide.

Four numbers that decide your PST position

Run your own facts through these in order; the tests are independent, and passing one does not excuse the next.

Two worked figures. A company outside Canada with $9,000 of BC software sales in the trailing twelve months is below the software threshold and, with no BC inventory, premises or staff, has no registration duty — but the same company at $10,500 does, and the test looks forward as well as back, so a signed contract that will cross the line is enough to start the clock. And a business with even one pallet at a Richmond fulfilment house is registrable at $0 of revenue: on $50,000 of taxable BC sales that is $3,500 of PST at 7% it was obliged to collect [47], and non-registration "does not remove your obligation to collect and remit" [19]. Allow "up to 21 business days" for the account to be processed and start well before the first invoice [19].

GST/HST and the non-resident security deposit

The small-supplier test is $30,000 of worldwide taxable supplies "in any single calendar quarter and in the last four consecutive calendar quarters". What surprises non-residents is security, which a registrant without a permanent establishment in Canada is generally required to post. None is required where you estimate taxable supplies in Canada of "not more than $100,000 annually and your net tax will be between $3,000 remittable and $3,000 refundable annually"; otherwise the initial amount is "50% of your estimated net tax", minimum $5,000 and maximum $1 million [27]. RC4027 is at Rev. 23 and directs readers to the Tax Centre for current requirements, so confirm before budgeting.

Part XIII: the tax on getting the money out

Non-residents "have to pay a 25% tax on amounts that are taxable under Part XIII", treaty-reducible where the recipient qualifies, declared on Form NR301, NR302 or NR303. The payer must remit so the CRA receives the amount "on or before the 15th day of the month following the month the amount was paid or credited to the non-resident", the NR4 return is due "the last day of March", and failing to deduct attracts a penalty of "10% of the required amount of Part XIII tax you failed to deduct" [28].

That obligation lands on the BC company, not the foreign shareholder, and it lands the month after the first dividend. Branch tax, treaty permanent-establishment analysis and the provincial-allocation meaning of "permanent establishment" are worked through on the Track B pillar.

Banking from abroad

Account opening is the step that most often defeats an otherwise correct structure, and it is the step on which no official source promises anything.

What can be stated is the rulebook the bank works from. FINTRAC requires reporting entities to identify the individuals who "directly or indirectly own or control at least 25%" of a corporation, and is explicit that "Beneficial owners cannot be other corporations, trusts or other entities. They must be the individuals". The bank must then confirm accuracy by a means other than the one it used to obtain the information — "referring to official documentation or records, or consulting provincial or federal registries", among others — and if it cannot, it must verify the identity of "the entity's chief executive officer or of the person performing that function" and "apply the special measures for high-risk clients, including enhanced ongoing monitoring" [34].

Read that against British Columbia's transparency regime and the friction becomes predictable. Since 1 October 2025 a reporting entity must consult Corporations Canada's database for high-risk federal corporations and report a material discrepancy within 30 days [34]. There is no British Columbia equivalent, because British Columbia has no public register to consult [17] [5]. So the bank's "reasonable measures" rest on documents you supply and attestations you sign, and a complete transparency register with a coherent ownership chart is not paperwork for the registry — nobody there will ever ask for it — it is the file your bank builds its conclusion from.

No public source reviewed commits any bank to opening an account for a non-resident-owned British Columbia company without attendance, or to accepting any particular address document. Get a named person at a named institution to confirm in writing what they need and whether it can be done remotely. Institution-by-institution requirements are in the RBC, TD, BMO, Scotiabank, CIBC and Desjardins guides, with the remote mechanics in opening from abroad and the non-resident research.

Immigration tied to a British Columbia business

Three points are where plans break.

The Regional stream is not a pilot any more. Its program guide's own change log records: "Removed references to 'pilot' as the Regional stream is now an ongoing part of the BC PNP" [30]. Material describing it as a pilot with an expiry is out of date.

A nomination requires you to move, and to move close. The guide requires an intention "to reside within 50 kilometres of the business you intend to operate", measured "by the shortest available route by road", with no "ferry trip of more than 30 minutes", plus an intention to reside in BC while on the work permit [30]. No version of the entrepreneur route can be completed from abroad, and the sequence is long: 90 days from a Letter of Support to file the work-permit application, arrival within 12 months of receiving the permit, then up to 610 days — about 20 months — to implement, with a final report due 550 to 610 days after arrival [29] [30].

Owning a BC company does not let you work in it. No IRCC page says that sentence in terms, so this page draws a conclusion from two sources rather than quoting one. IRPR section 187(3) admits a business visitor only where remuneration and the principal place of business and accrual of profits remain predominately outside Canada — a test the owner-operator of a Canadian company structurally fails [33]. And IRCC's remedy for an owner who wants to work is a C11 work permit, with its own 51%-control condition and 18-month ceiling [32]. That category exists because ownership alone is not enough.

C11 and C60 are different doors, and people queue at the wrong one

Both are work-permit exemption codes for people who own businesses, and they answer different questions. C11 is for an entrepreneur seeking only temporary residence: it is considered "only when the applicant controls at least 51% of the business", officers "should not issue a work permit with a duration exceeding 18 months", and the applicant must show plans to leave Canada [32]. C60 is the code that goes with a provincial nomination: it runs off "the support letter from the province or territory indicating potential nomination or selection in an entrepreneurial stream", and the permit is issued "As per the offer of employment, to a maximum of 2 years" [52].

One caveat on the 51% figure. IRCC publishes both positions on that same instruction page: issuance "should be considered only when the applicant controls at least 51% of the business in question", and, where the page explains how significant benefit is assessed, that the application is considered "regardless of what percentage of the business in Canada is owned". Treat the threshold as the operative instruction and the tension as a reason to take advice, not as settled. [32]

The practical difference for a British Columbia founder is which document you are waiting for. C11 needs no province; C60 needs the BC PNP to have supported you, which means the registration, the score, the application and the Letter of Support have already happened. Note also that C60 still asks for the intention to leave: an applicant must demonstrate "the capacity and willingness to leave Canada should their employment end or they fail to obtain permanent residence" [52]. A nomination pathway is not a permanent status until it is.

Business types the BC PNP will not accept

Before designing a business around the entrepreneur streams, check it against the program's own exclusions. Ineligible types include home-based businesses, real estate and insurance brokerage, and "goods trading businesses (e.g. import/export), unless value add is demonstrated" [29]. Two of those exclusions catch exactly the businesses a non-resident finds easiest to start from abroad — a home office and a trading company — which is another instance of this page's recurring theme: the structures that are simplest to operate remotely are the ones the province's programs are least willing to reward.

Hiring in British Columbia from abroad

The moment a foreign-owned BC company hires its first person in the province, three provincial obligations attach that have nothing to do with the corporate registry, and a director abroad is the one legally responsible for them.

WorkSafeBC coverage comes first, and it is not optional. "All employers are legally required to have WorkSafeBC coverage unless the employer is exempt", and an employer for this purpose is "a person or firm that hires workers or unregistered subcontractors" and "can be a self-employed proprietor, partnership, corporation, society, or any other type of legal entity" [48]. Nothing in that definition turns on where the directors or shareholders live. A non-resident-owned company with one worker in Victoria is an employer on exactly the same terms as a local one, and the exposure for getting it wrong is a worker's claim costs rather than a filing penalty.

The employer health tax has a threshold most first hires sit under, and a registration deadline that catches people later. For the 2024 return onward, employers with BC remuneration "Of $1,000,000 or less are exempt from paying the employer health tax", and those "Between $1,000,000.01 and $1,500,000 have a tax rate of 5.85%"; employers with BC remuneration greater than the exemption "must register for the employer health tax" [49]. One or two salaries will not reach it. A company that grows to fifteen people will, and the registration is owed inside the first calendar year the tax is payable, not at the point someone reviews the file.

And the federal payroll layer runs in parallel. Source deductions belong to a CRA payroll (RP) program account, which a non-resident business obtains through the same non-resident registration route that produced the business number, with no Social Insurance Number required of the owner [26]. The resident's view of BC employer obligations — WorkSafeBC timing, EHT instalments, employment-standards records, minimum wage — is set out in full in the British Columbia guide and is not repeated here.

The point for a founder abroad is sequencing. Every one of these registrations assumes someone who can be reached in British Columbia during business hours, sign documents, and answer a regulator. If your only presence in the province is the firm holding your registered office, agree explicitly whether that engagement covers being contacted about a payroll matter — it usually does not.

Maintaining the company from abroad

The annual report is the one that ends companies rather than costing them money: "Failure to comply with the filing requirements of the Business Corporations Act may result in a company being dissolved and struck from the register" [10], the notice that precedes it goes to the registered-office mailing address after two consecutive missed years [9], and restoration costs $350 against a published 42-business-day processing time [12]. Every one of those notices travels through a British Columbia address you do not control.

The first 24 months, in order

The table above is organised by trigger. This one is organised by time, because a founder abroad is usually asking a different question: what is coming next.

Dissolution, restoration, and the ten-year myth

The end state is worth understanding before you need it, because for a company run from abroad the path to it is silent.

How the registrar dissolves you. Section 422(1)(a) lets the registrar dissolve a company that "fails, in each of 2 consecutive years, to file with the registrar an annual report required by this Act or a former Companies Act to be filed" [44]. The procedure is slower and more forgiving than that sentence suggests — a default letter, a month to cure, a published notice, a further month, and an available extension — but every step of it is addressed to the registered office. A founder in another country whose provider relationship has lapsed can complete the entire sequence without ever seeing a piece of it.

What dissolution actually does. Section 344(1) is categorical: when a company is dissolved under Part 10 or under section 422 or 423, "the company ceases to exist for any purpose", and an undistributed asset "vests in the government" unless one of the stated exceptions applies [43]. For a foreign owner that last clause is the sharp end: money left in a Canadian bank account of a company that ceased to exist is not simply waiting for you.

Restoration, and the error everyone repeats. It is commonly said that a British Columbia company must be restored within ten years of dissolution. That is not what the Act says. Section 356(4) provides that an application to the registrar "(a) must, if the dissolution of the company occurred before the coming into force of this Act, be made within 10 years after the dissolution, or (b) may, in any other case, be made at any time" [43]. The ten-year limit is a transitional rule for companies dissolved under the former legislation; for a company dissolved under the current Act there is no outside date at all. Getting this backwards either abandons a restorable company or wastes money chasing an unrestorable one. Restoration costs $350 against a published processing time of 42 business days [8] [12] — two calendar months of not being a company, in the middle of whatever transaction made you notice.

And an extraprovincial registration can be cancelled on a different ground. Section 422 also applies to extraprovincial companies, and the grounds include failing to comply with section 386 — the attorney requirement [44] [4]. Losing your BC attorney is therefore not a paperwork problem; it is a ground for losing the right to carry on business in the province. Voluntary exit, by contrast, is cheap and orderly: a voluntary dissolution filed through Corporate Online costs $20 [6]. If a BC company has served its purpose, closing it deliberately is materially better than letting the annual reports lapse.

Failure modes and corrective action

Glossary of the terms British Columbia uses

British Columbia's vocabulary differs from the federal one and from every other province's, and a founder abroad meets these words in forms and emails before meeting them in explanations.

Applicant agent — a person who is not a director or officer of a company but is authorized to maintain its registered office or records office. The defined term that makes sections 39 to 41 work, and the counterparty on the other side of your BC office arrangement [1].

Assumed name — the name an extraprovincial company adopts for use in British Columbia when its own name is unavailable here, supported by a name undertaking sent with a cover letter [6].

Attorney — not a lawyer in this context, but the person an extraprovincial company must appoint to receive service: "an individual who is resident in British Columbia, or … a company", reachable at a BC office during statutory business hours [4].

BC OnLine — the account-based billing channel through which many registry filings are paid, and the reason a $43.39 annual report is often quoted as $44.89 [10].

Business Registry — the newer provincial application for names, benefit companies, cooperatives and unincorporated businesses. Not the channel for a B.C. Ltd.: "You cannot use the Business Registry to make filings for limited companies" [11].

Company password / access code — the credential that authorises later filings. The access code arrives on the annual report reminder; the password can be re-sent only to the company email address or the registered-office mailing address [6] [14].

Completing party — the person who examines the signed incorporation agreement and articles for original signatures and completes the statutory statement, after which the originals go to the records office [6].

Corporate Online — the registry application through which limited companies are incorporated and maintained, including a set of filings available with no login at all [13] [14].

Designated province — for the New West Partnership registration route, exhaustively Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. An entity from anywhere else, including outside Canada, gets none of that relief [45].

Extraprovincial company — a foreign entity registered to carry on business in British Columbia. "Foreign" here includes another Canadian province, not only another country [4].

Full restoration / limited restoration — full restoration is available to a "related person"; a limited restoration runs for a defined period and ends in dissolution again unless converted [43].

Name request / name reservation number — the $30 pre-approval step and the number you carry into the incorporation application; an approved name "is reserved for 56 days" [7].

Notice of articles — the public constitutional document filed with the registrar, identifying both offices, the directors and the share structure. Distinct from the articles, which are signed, kept and never filed [1] [6].

Recognition date — the date the company came into existence, and the date every annual report deadline is measured from under section 51. Not the fiscal year end [1].

Records office — the British Columbia address where the section 42 records physically live and may be inspected. May share a location with the registered office, but is a separate statutory office [1].

Registered office — the British Columbia address where records and notices are delivered, publicly accessible 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on business days, never a post office box [1] [9].

Significant individual — the person who must appear in the transparency register, on tests including more than 25% of shares or votes, traced through corporations and trusts to natural persons [3] [51].

Small seller — a PST status available only to a business "located in B.C." that does not maintain established commercial premises. Closed to a business located outside the province [21].

Transparency register — the company's own private record of its significant individuals, kept at the records office and filed nowhere. Not the Land Owner Transparency Registry, which is a separate, public land regime [17] [50].

Unlimited liability company (ULC) — a British Columbia company form used in US-inbound structures, incorporated for $1,000 rather than $350 [6].

Readiness checklist

• A named British Columbia person or firm has agreed in writing to provide the registered office and records office, at an address publicly accessible 9 a.m.–4 p.m. that is not a post office box, with custody, scanning and forwarding of the minute book agreed [9] [6]
• Structure chosen deliberately between a new BC company, extraprovincial registration and a federal corporation, with the attorney requirement priced in where it applies [4]
• Name request submitted, or the numbered-company route chosen to avoid the 56-day clock [7]
• Payment route tested: a card among the accepted brands, in Canadian dollars, and a fallback BC filer if it is refused [13] [8]
• For a foreign corporation: proof of existence certified by the home jurisdiction, dated within the last year, sent to the registry before filing [6]
• Company email address set on the corporate record on day one as a lockout defence [14], business number obtained through the non-resident path rather than a duplicate registration [26], and the transparency register built at incorporation tracing every ownership layer to individuals [3]
• CCPC modelling done, the GST/HST security position estimated, and the PST position assessed against every out-of-province scenario with no reliance on small-seller relief [24] [27] [20] [21]
• A named person at a named bank has confirmed in writing what they need and whether it can be done remotely
• Immigration route chosen and its residency condition accepted, or deliberately deferred [29] [30]
• Municipal licence checked for every municipality where the business will actually operate [35]

What 2727 can and cannot support

2727 Coworking is a coworking space in Griffintown, Montreal, providing private offices, desks, meeting rooms and a business-address and mail service. For a British Columbia company owned from abroad, what that can do is narrow.

It can be a Montreal mailing and correspondence address for a company that genuinely uses it, and workspace for people actually working in Montreal. If the plan turns out to suit a Quebec or federal corporation better than a BC one, the same address becomes capable of a registered-office role under those regimes — the subject of the federal corporation scenario.

It cannot be the British Columbia registered office or records office of a BC company: section 34 requires both to be in British Columbia at a delivery address publicly accessible between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. that is not a post office box, no Montreal address satisfies that, and the form does not even offer a province field to try [1] [9]. It cannot act as an attorney for an extraprovincial company under section 386, which requires an individual resident in British Columbia or a company reachable at a BC office [4]. It cannot be the applicant agent contemplated by sections 39 and 40, hold your transparency register, determine your tax residence, CCPC status or PST "location of business", or obtain any approval from a registry, the CRA, IRCC, a municipality or a bank. No registry, bank or government body has stated that it accepts a 2727 address for any field, and nothing here should be read as such a claim.

Choosing a province from outside Canada starts with the Track B pillar and the four-province comparison for non-residents, then the sibling playbooks for Ontario, Alberta and Quebec. The resident's view of this province is the British Columbia guide; founders already in Canada should start with Track A. The cluster is indexed at the hub.

Research method and limitations

First verified 6 September 2026; expanded and re-verified 7 September 2026. Every fee, rate, threshold, deadline and processing time here comes from one of the 52 official sources listed below, each fetched for this guide: BC Laws — Parts 2, 4.1, 5, 10, 11 and 12 of the Business Corporations Act, B.C. Reg. 88/2009 and Bill 20 – 2023 — BC Registries pages plus the Form 1 instructions and INFO 36 read with pdftotext -layout, the Corporate Online application and its help documentation, BCeID, the BC Ministry of Finance and its PST bulletins, WorkSafeBC, the Land Title and Survey Authority, the CRA including Income Tax Folio S5-F1-C1, the Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Regulations on Justice Canada, WelcomeBC and the BC PNP program guide, IRCC and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, and FINTRAC. The expansion pass re-fetched the BC Registries incorporated-companies and processing-times pages on 7 September 2026 and read them directly rather than carrying the earlier session's extracts, which is where the $1,000 unlimited-liability-company fee, the document sets issued on incorporation and on LLC registration, the continuation letter-of-authorisation contents and the current processing-time table came from. Discovery came from the committed sibling research for British Columbia and Track B and from walking links out of known-good official pages; no search engine was used. CanLII was not used, because every statute is cited to the official consolidation, a higher-tier source. Section 124's disqualification list was read to the end of the subsection rather than summarised, because the no-director-residency finding is negative evidence that only exhaustive reading establishes.

Nothing here was filed, paid for or opened: no incorporation submitted, no card charged, no PST or CRA account created, no bank approached, no immigration application made. Two official figures for name-request timing coexist — "about 7 to 14 days" and 4 business days — and both are quoted with their dates rather than reconciled. Four things are stated as unknown rather than assumed, because no official page found answers them: whether Corporate Online accepts a card issued outside Canada, whether a non-resident can complete a Business BCeID registration from abroad, whether any bank will open an account for a non-resident-owned BC company remotely or accept a given address document, and whether a registered-office or mail service alone creates a treaty permanent establishment. The combined 27% and 11% rates, the $135,000 against $55,000 worked table, the five-year cost of ownership, the $91,250 withholding figure and the PST illustrations at $50,000 and $400,000 of sales are all arithmetic on separately published rates and thresholds, not figures any government publishes. Three readings are labelled as inferences rather than quotations: that a wholly foreign board leaves sections 39 and 41 with no British Columbia residence to target, so section 40 is the route that remains; that the PST "location of your business" test and the Income Tax Act residence rules point in opposite directions for the same company; and that section 400(2)(e.1) read with section 402(1) pins a foreign-run BC company's whole taxable income to British Columbia. The three founder profiles are constructed illustrations with invented names, dates and amounts, built only from cited rules. Reference 35, the City of Vancouver licence page, returned HTTP 403 to every attempt this session — plain curl, a Canadian residential-ISP egress, an automated fetcher, and a real headless Chromium which received a Cloudflare block page — so its quotations are the verbatim ones recorded in the committed British Columbia research pack, where they were retrieved through a different egress; the page is reachable in an ordinary browser. Most British Columbia publishers issue in English only, so the French twin of this page cites the same English URLs and says so.

This is educational planning material, not legal, tax, accounting, immigration or banking advice. Fees, processing times, thresholds and program statuses change without notice; verify every figure against the linked source on the day you rely on it, and take professional advice on your own facts.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a Canadian director to incorporate in British Columbia?

No. Section 120 requires one director, and section 124's list of disqualifications — minority, incapacity, undischarged bankruptcy, and certain fraud or corporate-management convictions — contains no residency or citizenship condition. A single non-resident may be the sole director, officer and shareholder, and may attend board meetings by telephone unless the articles say otherwise.

Do I need a BC Services Card or a Social Insurance Number?

Neither. The BC Services Card is for British Columbia residents. Corporate Online publishes filings, including the Incorporation Application, that require no login at all and are paid by credit card. And the CRA's non-resident business registration route works explicitly where "you do not have a SIN".

Can my registered office be a mailbox or an out-of-province address?

No, on both counts. Each of the registered office and the records office needs a delivery address at a British Columbia location "accessible to the public between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on business days", and the registry states that the address "must not be a post office box". The province field on the form is pre-printed BC.

What does a British Columbia company actually cost to set up and keep?

Published registry fees are $350 to incorporate plus $30 for a name request, then $43.39 for each annual report and $20 for each Notice of Change of Directors, with a $1.50 service fee on the BC OnLine channel. Priority service is $100 on top of the filing fee. None of that includes what a BC registered-office and records-office provider charges, which is a private commercial arrangement.

Is my ownership of a BC company public?

Your directors are, including their addresses. Your beneficial ownership is not: the transparency register is kept in the company's own records office, is open only to a closed list of authorities, and "There is no requirement to send the transparency register anywhere". Bill 20 – 2023 would change that, but its relevant sections come into force by regulation and no such regulation appears in the current consolidation.

Will foreign ownership change my tax rate?

Yes, materially. A corporation controlled directly or indirectly by non-residents is not a Canadian-controlled private corporation, so the small business deduction and British Columbia's 2.0% small business rate are unavailable. On the first $500,000 of active business income that is roughly 27% combined instead of roughly 11% — addition of separately published federal and provincial rates, and an order of magnitude rather than a calculation of your return.

If I have no office or staff in British Columbia, do I still register for PST?

Possibly, and the test is not about revenue. For PST purposes a business with no BC premises, no BC staff and a board that meets abroad is treated as located outside British Columbia, which moves it into the out-of-province scenarios. Holding inventory in BC — including through a fulfilment house — triggers registration with no threshold at all, and software or telecommunication services carry a $10,000 threshold. The small-seller relief is unavailable, because that test requires being located in British Columbia.

Is the BC PNP Regional stream still a pilot, and can I use it from abroad?

It is no longer a pilot: the program guide's change log records that references to "pilot" were removed because the Regional stream is now an ongoing part of the BC PNP. But it cannot be completed from abroad. The guide requires an intention to reside within 50 kilometres of the business by road, with no ferry crossing longer than 30 minutes, and to reside in BC while on the work permit.

Is the federal Start-up Visa an option for a BC company?

Not today. IRCC states that "The Start-Up Visa Program was paused on June 30, 2026" and that only applications accepted before that date continue to be processed. The documented routes tied to a British Columbia business are the BC PNP entrepreneur streams and, for temporary residence, a C11 work permit.

What happens if I stop paying my BC registered-office provider?

More than a service interruption. A provider who is not a director may apply to move the registered office to the British Columbia residence of a director or officer on 21 days' notice; where a wholly foreign board leaves no such residence, what remains is a court application to eliminate the registered office where the provider "is unable to locate any of the directors or officers". A stale registered-office address is also where the dissolution notice goes after two missed annual reports.

I own a U.S. LLC. Can I register it in British Columbia online?

No. The registry routes a U.S. limited liability company through the mail: the Extraprovincial Company Registration Statement, proof of existence from the home jurisdiction, a Business Number Request form and a $350 cheque payable to the Minister of Finance are posted, not filed. The published processing time for LLC extraprovincial registration is 31 business days, against one business day for an extraprovincial change of name. The two-month deadline in section 375(1) runs from when the business begins in British Columbia, not from when your envelope arrives, so start early or incorporate a BC subsidiary instead.

Does my British Columbia registered office affect which province taxes the company?

Yes, and this is the least-known consequence of the two-office rule. For provincial income allocation, section 400(2)(e.1) of the Income Tax Regulations deems a corporation that would otherwise have no permanent establishment to have one "at the place designated in its incorporating documents or bylaws as its head office or registered office", and section 402(1) then deems the whole of the taxable income of a corporation with a permanent establishment in only one province to have been earned there. A BC-registered company run from abroad with no fixed place of business anywhere is therefore taxed on all of its income at British Columbia rates. That is the provincial-allocation meaning of permanent establishment, not the treaty meaning, and no official source found answers whether a registered-office service alone creates a treaty permanent establishment.

Official references

1. BC Laws: Business Corporations Act, Part 2 — incorporation, names, registered and records offices
2. BC Laws: Business Corporations Act, Part 5 — directors and officers
3. BC Laws: Business Corporations Act, Part 4.1 — transparency register
4. BC Laws: Business Corporations Act, Part 11 — extraprovincial companies
5. BC Laws: Bill 20 – 2023, Business Corporations Amendment Act, 2023
6. BC Registries: incorporated companies, extraprovincial registration and continuation
7. BC Registries: request approval for a business name
8. BC Registries: forms, fees and information packages
9. BC Registries: Form 1 incorporation application and notice of articles instructions
10. BC Registries: Maintaining Your B.C. Company (INFO 36)
11. Province of British Columbia: BC Registry Services
12. BC Registries: check processing times
13. BC Registries: Corporate Online
14. BC Registries: Corporate Online frequently asked questions
15. Province of British Columbia: types of BCeID
16. Province of British Columbia: BC Services Card
17. Province of British Columbia: transparency register
18. BC Ministry of Finance: corporate income tax rates and business limits
19. Province of British Columbia: register to collect PST
20. BC Ministry of Finance: Bulletin PST 001, registering to collect PST
21. BC Ministry of Finance: Bulletin PST 003, small sellers
22. Justice Canada: Income Tax Act, section 250 (residence)
23. Canada Revenue Agency: residency of a corporation
24. Canada Revenue Agency: type of corporation
25. Canada Revenue Agency: corporation tax rates
26. Canada Revenue Agency: register as a non-resident doing business in Canada
27. Canada Revenue Agency: Guide RC4027, doing business in Canada — GST/HST information for non-residents
28. Canada Revenue Agency: Guide T4061, NR4 non-resident tax withholding, remitting and reporting
29. WelcomeBC: BC PNP for entrepreneurs and businesses
30. BC PNP: Entrepreneur Immigration program guide
31. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: Start-up Visa Program eligibility and status
32. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: business owners seeking only temporary residence, R205(a) C11
33. Justice Canada: Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, section 187
34. FINTRAC: beneficial ownership requirements
35. City of Vancouver: get a business licence
36. Justice Canada: Income Tax Act, section 125 (small business deduction and the definition of Canadian-controlled private corporation)
37. Justice Canada: Income Tax Act, section 212 (Part XIII tax on dividends paid to non-residents)
38. Justice Canada: Income Tax Act, section 215 (withholding, remittance and the payer's liability)
39. Justice Canada: Income Tax Act, section 253 (extended meaning of carrying on business in Canada)
40. Justice Canada: Income Tax Regulations, section 400 (meaning of permanent establishment for provincial allocation)
41. Justice Canada: Income Tax Regulations, section 402 (taxable income earned in a province)
42. Canada Revenue Agency: Income Tax Folio S5-F1-C1, determining an individual's residence status
43. BC Laws: Business Corporations Act, Part 10 — liquidation, dissolution, restoration and reinstatement
44. BC Laws: Business Corporations Act, Part 12 — administration, offences and penalties
45. BC Laws: Extraprovincial Companies and Foreign Entities from a Designated Province Regulation, B.C. Reg. 88/2009
46. BC Registries: New West Partnership Trade Agreement
47. Province of British Columbia: provincial sales tax
48. WorkSafeBC: who needs coverage
49. Province of British Columbia: employer health tax overview
50. Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia: Land Owner Transparency Registry
51. Province of British Columbia: transparency register questions
52. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: provincial business candidates approved for a selection certificate, R205(a) C60