Start an Ontario business from abroad as a non-resident

Direct answer

Ontario is one of the easiest Canadian jurisdictions for a non-resident to incorporate in and one of the hardest to immigrate to as an entrepreneur. Since 5 July 2021, when section 118(3) of the Business Corporations Act was repealed, a wholly non-resident board is lawful, so a founder abroad can own and direct an Ontario corporation with no Canadian-resident director — something the federal CBCA still does not allow. The real constraints are addresses, access and status. The registered office must be a physical location in Ontario and a post office box alone is not accepted. Filing online requires an Ontario.ca Login and an Ontario Business Account, and Ontario publishes no eligibility rule for either, so the documented fallbacks are an intermediary or a mail filing at the same fee. A corporation controlled by non-residents is not a CCPC, so Ontario's small-business rate does not apply to it. And on 6 September 2026, no Ontario entrepreneur immigration stream is open.

This page is the operational playbook. The Ontario province guide covers the general spine — fees, forms, name rules, municipal licensing, incentives. Track B covers what applies wherever in Canada you incorporate: the fourteen-jurisdiction director map, corporate tax residency, the CCPC problem, bank identification.

Why a non-resident chooses Ontario, and the one thing that will disappoint you

The corporate-law reason is genuine. The Business Corporations Act disqualifies four kinds of person from being a director — under eighteen, found incapable of managing property "by a court in Canada or elsewhere", not an individual, and bankrupt — none of which concerns citizenship, residence or immigration status, and a non-offering corporation needs only one director. [1] Subsection 118(3), which required a quarter of directors to be resident Canadians, now reads only "Repealed: 2020, c. 34, Sched. 1, s. 5", dated 05/07/2021 in the amendment table, [1] and the ministry says it plainly: "The requirement for at least 25 percent of the directors to be resident Canadian has been eliminated." [13] The federal Act still requires that "at least twenty-five per cent of the directors of a corporation must be resident Canadians", and at least one where there are fewer than four. [4] For a solo founder abroad, that means recruiting a Canadian onto the board of a company they do not own. Ontario asks for nobody.

Watch one textual trap: "resident Canadian" still appears in the OBCA's definitions, because that repeal was enacted in the same 2020 Act but marked "On a day to be named by proclamation of the Lieutenant Governor" and never proclaimed. [1] The phrase survives while governing nothing about directors, and the articles still ask you to indicate whether each director is one: a data field now, not a qualification.

The administrative reason is real too. Ontario is a single harmonized sales-tax jurisdiction: where the place of supply is Ontario, one 13% rate applies, [26] and its corporate income tax is administered by the CRA rather than a separate provincial body. [17] That is simpler than Quebec, with its second administration and second sales tax, and than the GST-plus-PST provinces; the sales-tax comparison sets the three regimes side by side.

The disappointment: there is no entrepreneur immigration route right now. Ontario's program page carries this banner: "The OINP is changing. The new Ontario Workforce Priority stream has now launched, and all other streams are now closed." [30] The one open stream serves skilled workers with an employer-initiated job offer in any NOC occupation, plus self-employed physicians — and searching its text for "entrepreneur" or "invest" returns nothing. [31] Federally the usual fallback is also shut: "The Start-Up Visa Program was paused on June 30, 2026." [32] So the honest framing is that Ontario will let you own and run a company from abroad, and will not, today, let you move here because you did.

Choosing a structure: three routes, one decision

Each route carries a different standing obligation, and two of the three can be lost for failing it.

For most foreign founders the new Ontario corporation is the answer: cheaper than the licence, no Canadian-resident director, no foreign-government paperwork, and a clean Canadian legal person to contract, bank and invoice through.

The Class 3 licence is for a foreign company that must itself be the contracting party — because a customer, lender, lease or regulator requires the parent, or because the parent must hold Ontario land, a power reserved to class 1 and 2 corporations, licensed class 3 corporations and those exempt. [2] Its price is section 19: an Ontario-resident agent for service must be kept in place "at all times", failing which the licence may be cancelled and — the sanction people miss — the corporation "is not capable of maintaining any action or any other proceeding in any court or tribunal in Ontario in respect of any contract made by it". [2] You can sign the contract; you cannot sue on it until you cure the default.

The federal route trades one obligation for another: no licence question, because a corporation created by an Act of Parliament is class 2, [2] but the resident-director rule Ontario dropped comes back, [4] and an Ontario initial return is still due once you carry on business here. [3] The federal-versus-provincial comparison works through it; for a wholly non-resident board the resident-director rule is usually decisive against federal.

When does a foreign company "carry on business in Ontario" at all?

This decides whether you need a licence. A corporation carries on business in Ontario if it "has a resident agent, representative, warehouse, office or place where it carries on its business in Ontario", holds a non-security interest in Ontario real property, or "otherwise carries on its business in Ontario" — but not "by reason only that" it takes orders for or sells goods, or offers or sells services of any type, "by use of travellers or through advertising or correspondence". [2] So selling into Ontario from abroad by post, advertising or visiting salespeople is not by itself carrying on business here; putting a person, office, warehouse or land here is. A resident agent sits in the inclusive limb — which is why appointing someone in Ontario to act for you can itself trigger the licence you were avoiding.

The remote sequence

Stage 1: reaching the registry with no Canadian identity credential

This is the step that stops people, and the one Ontario documents least. Filings run through the Ontario Business Registry, launched 19 October 2021, and to manage an entity you need four things: "an existing registered entity, a company key, an Ontario.ca Login, an Ontario Business Account". [10] The transaction index is blunter: "if you don't already have an Ontario.ca Login or an Ontario Business Account, you will be prompted to create these" — a gate covering both incorporation and a foreign-corporation licence. [11]

What Ontario does not publish is any eligibility rule for either account: no residency test, no accepted-document list, and no statement that a person outside Canada can or cannot complete the step. Three plausible URLs for a dedicated Ontario.ca Login page returned HTTP 404 during this research. So this guide will not tell you that a non-resident can complete account creation, and will not tell you that they cannot. Test it before buying a name search with a 90-day clock on it. Note too that the Ontario Business Account is not the ServiceOntario Account behind the same login, which handles driver's licences and health cards.

Two documented routes do not depend on you holding the credential.

1. An intermediary files for you. The ministry sets out exactly two online routes, and the second is "Through an intermediary acting on your behalf. Intermediaries charge an additional fee." [13] An intermediary is "a business or individual that you can give authority to complete transactions in the OBR on your behalf" — lawyers, accountants, filing and search businesses. The registry names licensed service provider organizations, among them Dye and Durham Corporation and ESC Corporate Services Ltd., while stating that the ministry "is not affiliated with nor endorses any specific service provider". [10] Their own fees are published by nobody: the government tables "only display the government fees". [12]
2. File by mail at the same government fee, trading speed for access: $300 on a 15-business-day standard instead of "immediate", or $330 in 10 business days instead of five for the licence. [12] You print Form 5351, sign it, and mail it — and even then, "when incorporation is completed, you will receive your documents by email". [13]

Payment is a real and partly unresolved constraint. Online you pay "by Debit, Visa or Mastercard", and both notices tell you to have "a valid credit or debit card ready". [14] By mail "you can only pay with a cheque or personal cheque made out to the Minister of Finance", pre-printed by the bank. [12] No Ontario page fetched here says whether a foreign-issued card or a foreign-drawn cheque is accepted — and before the company exists you probably have neither a Canadian card nor a Canadian chequing account. The intermediary route removes the problem, because the intermediary pays the ministry and bills you.

Stage 2: the name and the 90-day Nuans clock

A word name requires "an Ontario-biased or weighted Nuans name search report", which "must be obtained from a private name search company. The Ministry does not provide this search" — a second vendor to engage from abroad, at no officially published price. A federal-biased report "is not acceptable". It "cannot be dated more than 90 days prior to the filing", and you keep it at the registered office rather than filing it, the transaction collecting only its reference number, the name searched and its date. Drafts can be saved, but "it is your responsibility to ensure that time sensitive documents such as Nuans reports are filed before they expire". [13]

A number name removes this stage entirely, which is why founders in a hurry from abroad often incorporate numbered and register a trade name later. Federally there is no such vendor at all: "the corporate name search is now part of the federal incorporation process". [15] The licence route needs the same Ontario-biased Nuans and adds a hard rule — no licence "to a foreign corporation with a name that is identical to a corporate name already in use in Ontario", and where that name is no longer in use, only after ten years — though a foreign company may still identify itself in Ontario by another name where its charter permits. [14] [2]

Stage 3: the articles, and two addresses people conflate

The articles collect the corporate name; administrative information including an official email address for the corporation; a NAICS code; the registered office address; and for each director a full name and address for service. [13] Here is the distinction non-resident founders miss: the public filing takes an address for service, but the corporation's internal register of directors requires residence addresses. [1] A director abroad does not escape recording where they actually live; they record it in the book kept in Ontario. Filed addresses go on the public record; administrative contact details and the official corporate email do not. [10] Signatures may be manual or electronic, and a consent to act as first director is needed only for first directors who are not incorporators — so a single founder who is both needs no such document.

Stage 4: the registered office, the one rule you cannot design around

"A corporation shall at all times have a registered office in Ontario at the location specified in its articles", [1] and the ministry adds that it "must be a physical location in Ontario. A P.O. Box alone is not acceptable." [13] Corporate records — articles, by-laws, minutes, the register of directors, the securities register and the ISC register — must be kept there or "at such other place in Ontario designated by the directors". [1]

So an address elsewhere in Canada will not do; a post-office box will not do alone; and a contracted Ontario registered-office service can do, if it is real Ontario premises, the corporation is authorised to use it, and documents served there will be accepted. This guide names no providers and asserts of no arrangement that it satisfies section 14(1) — that is a question for the contract and for Ontario counsel. Moving the office later takes a directors' resolution within the same municipality and a special resolution to another, [1] reported within 15 days either way. [3] The licence route instead collects the foreign corporation's own head office address and, separately, "the principal office or place of business in Ontario, if applicable" — again a physical Ontario location, no PO box — plus the "chief officer or manager in Ontario, if applicable". [14]

Stage 5: the company key, and why your corporate email is load-bearing

The company key is "a 9-digit code that is unique to your business" and you need it to transact. For a founder abroad, delivery is the whole story. On a new incorporation the ministry emails the certificate, endorsed articles, receipt and company key — but the key "is sent only to the official corporation email address". [13] Set that field to a mailbox you control and will still control in three years.

Ask for it again and the registry sends it free by email, or by mail; but "if there is no email on file, it will be sent to the registered or head office address or principal place of business". A non-resident who lets the official email go stale has made their Ontario registered office the delivery point for the credential that controls their company. Sharing the key is also how you authorise an intermediary, so treat it as a signing credential, not a reference number. [10]

Stage 6: the initial return, due within 60 days

Every Ontario corporation files an initial return "within 60 days after the date of incorporation, amalgamation or continuation", and every extra-provincial corporation — federal and other-province corporations included, not only licensed foreign ones — files one within 60 days of beginning to carry on business in Ontario. [3] Both cost nothing. [12] Afterwards "you must report any changes within 15 days", [10] and a change of agent for service must be filed "forthwith".

Default is not costless: fines up to $2,000, or $25,000 for a corporation, reaching directors, officers and expressly "every person acting as his or her representative in Ontario" — so your Ontario agent sits inside the liability perimeter, worth disclosing to whoever you ask to be it. A corporation in default also cannot maintain an Ontario proceeding about its business "except with leave of the court", though contracts themselves stay valid. [3]

Stage 7: the internal ISC register, and a filing that is coming

Ontario's transparency regime is internal — a genuine advantage for a privacy-conscious foreign owner. The corporation maintains in Ontario a register of individuals with significant control showing each person's name, date of birth and latest known address, "the jurisdiction of residence, for tax purposes", the dates they became and ceased to be one, and a description of how they have control. [1] That information is kept at the registered or head office and provided "upon request by law enforcement, and regulatory and tax authorities", reviewed "at least once a year" — not published. [11]

Plan for an Ontario ISC filing, though, not just a book: the Corporations Information Act now contains a section 6.1, "Return re individuals with significant control", requiring prescribed ISC information to be filed with the Minister if the regulations require it — added by 2025, c. 15, Sched. 4, s. 1, and recorded as not in force. [3] The machinery is enacted and awaiting proclamation, with no published date. Federally the equivalent is already filed annually. [16]

Stage 8: the annual return, which is not part of your tax return

This is the commonest compliance failure among owners filing from abroad through an accountant, because it looks like something the accountant already did. "Corporations must file an Annual Return through the OBR each year within 6 months of their fiscal year-end", [10] under Corporations Information Act section 3.1, [3] at a fee of $0 for Ontario and foreign extra-provincial corporations alike. [12] And here is why it gets missed: "On May 5, 2021, the Canada Revenue Agency stopped accepting corporations' annual returns on behalf of the ministry." [11] It used to ride along with the T2; it is now a separate filing, in a separate system, needing the company key — and free, so no invoice reminds anyone it exists.

Tax: what changes because the owner is not in Canada

Your Ontario corporation is a Canadian tax resident from the moment it exists

A corporation is deemed resident in Canada throughout a taxation year if, "in the case of a corporation incorporated after April 26, 1965, it was incorporated in Canada". [5] There is no version where the company is a foreign taxpayer because you live abroad, and a treaty will not undo it: CRA says the common-law test is where "central management and control is exercised" and that what matters is "where it is actually exercised", but adds that treaty tie-breakers "generally provide that if a corporation is a resident of both contracting states, it is deemed to be a resident of the state in which the corporation was created". [20] A board meeting abroad can create dual residence and a home-country filing obligation; it does not remove the Canadian one. So the instruction is the reverse of what founders expect: do not try to look foreign. Keep clean minutes of where directors actually met, because a foreign authority may ask the same question and an inconsistent record is worse than either answer.

You are almost certainly not a CCPC, and that is the expensive part

The definition excludes you: a Canadian-controlled private corporation does not include one "controlled, directly or indirectly in any manner whatever, by one or more non-resident persons", and an aggregation test treats all non-resident-held shares as held by a single person. [6] Two non-resident founders with 50% each do not escape it.

Ontario's small business deduction, by its own terms, applies to "Canadian-controlled private corporations". [17] On the first $500,000 of profit the gap between 9% + 2.2% and 15% + 11.5% is on the order of a third of that profit, so model it before choosing your shareholder structure — noting that it is the same in every province and so no reason to prefer or avoid Ontario.

One live source conflict is worth naming: Ontario's Ministry of Finance, updated 27 April 2026, gives the lower rate as 2.2% from 1 July 2026, while CRA's provincial table, dated 2025-05-30, still shows 3.2%. [19] This guide follows the province that sets the rate. Neither figure applies to a non-resident-controlled corporation anyway — but it shows why a rate must be read from the body that sets it.

Getting a business number when nobody has a SIN

CRA is explicit that Business Registration Online cannot "register a Canadian business with only non-resident owners", and that where a temporary SIN begins with 9, "directors, partners, and trustees cannot use BRO and must register by [sending a form by mail] to the CRA". [24] The route that applies is CRA's Non-Resident Business Registration, for a business "incorporated outside Canada" or "located outside Canada", or an applicant whose "SIN starts with 0" or who does "not have a SIN"; it opens the business number plus GST/HST, payroll, corporation income tax and other accounts, with Form RC1 by mail to the Atlantic Tax Centre in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, as the paper fallback. [23] Incorporate first, then register: the province issues its own nine-digit identifier and the CRA issues a business number, and a bank will ask for both.

HST: registration, the 13% rate, and the security deposit

Registration becomes mandatory once you exceed "$30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters", with three different effective dates depending on how you crossed it, and then "you will have to register within 29 days of your effective date of registration". The item that surprises non-residents most: you may have to post security. "Generally, you have to provide a security deposit if you apply to be registered for the GST/HST and either: you do not have a permanent establishment in Canada [or] you make supplies in Canada only through another person's fixed place of business" — waived where estimated annual supplies are "$100,000 annually or less" and net tax falls between $3,000 remittable and $3,000 refundable. [25] A corporation with genuine Ontario premises is on the right side of that test; one whose only footprint is a registered-office arrangement should get CRA's requirement in writing before budgeting.

The rate follows the place of supply, not where you are: CRA's worked example has a Vancouver store charging 13% HST because the mattress is delivered to a customer in Toronto. [26] An Ontario registered office does not make every sale an Ontario sale.

Payroll taxes, if and when you hire

Employer Health Tax attaches to remuneration for employees who report for work at, are attached to, or "are paid from or through your Ontario permanent establishment" — that third limb catching a remote employee paid through Ontario. The exemption is $1 million, adjusted for inflation on 1 January 2029, with none at all above $5 million of annual Ontario payroll for you or your associated group; rates run from 0.98% to 1.95%, and the band is set on payroll "before you have deducted any exemption". [18] Workers' compensation follows fast: "you have 10 calendar days to register with us from the day you hire your first employee". [29]

Getting money out: Part XIII withholding

Paying a dividend, rent, royalty or certain interest to yourself abroad makes your Ontario corporation a withholding agent. Part XIII tax is 25%, treaty-reducible. Remit so CRA receives it "on or before the 15th day of the month following the month the amount was paid or credited", file the NR4 return by "the last day of March following the calendar year", and expect a 10% penalty for failing to withhold, 20% for a knowing or grossly negligent repeat. Treaty rates are substantiated by having the recipient complete NR301, NR302 or NR303. [27] The Canada–United States convention, for instance, caps dividend withholding at 5% where the beneficial owner is a company owning at least 10% of the voting stock and 15% otherwise — but read your own treaty, and note that Finance Canada's consolidated text "has no official sanction" and excludes later protocols. [28]

"Permanent establishment" means at least three different things

This is the question a non-resident most wants answered — does my Ontario address create a taxable presence? — and one definition cannot answer it. For allocating income among provinces, the Income Tax Regulations deem a corporation that "would not have a permanent establishment" to have one "at the place designated in its incorporating documents or bylaws as its head office or registered office" — but that Part applies expressly to "the definition taxable income earned in the year in a province" in subsection 124(4). [8] So it answers which province taxes the income — for an Ontario corporation with no other establishment, Ontario, at 11.5% — and no treaty question at all. Under a treaty, a permanent establishment is "a fixed place of business through which the business … is wholly or partly carried on", profits are taxable in the other State only through one, and controlling or being controlled by a company there "shall not constitute either company a permanent establishment" — so owning an Ontario subsidiary does not by itself give a foreign parent a Canadian one. [28] For Ontario provincial tax, the trigger is carrying on business "through a permanent establishment in Ontario". [17]

What no source fetched for this guide answers is whether a mail-handling or registered-office address, on its own, creates a treaty permanent establishment. No CRA, Justice or Finance page reviewed states it either way, and this guide will not generalise from Regulation 400(2)(e.1), which is confined to provincial allocation. If the question is commercially material, get an opinion rather than a brochure.

If the foreign company itself carries on business in Ontario

Take the Class 3 route and the analysis changes shape. A non-resident corporation "must file a T2 return … if the corporation carried on business in Canada", and "this requirement applies even if any profit(s) or gain(s) realized are claimed … to be exempt from Canadian tax due to the provisions of a tax treaty"; Schedule 91 claims the exemption, Schedule 97 adds non-resident information, Schedule 20 computes Part XIV tax, and everything is filed "in Canadian funds only". [22] On top of Part I, Part XIV charges a branch tax "equal to 25%", [7] which the Canada–US convention caps at 5% of earnings with a cumulative CAD 500,000 allowance. [28] A branch is not automatically cheaper than a subsidiary, and EPCA sections 19 and 21 sit on top of it. Model both.

Banking from abroad: the step no registry controls

Every source above is a government publishing its own rules. Your bank is not, and no page reviewed here promises a non-resident an account, remote onboarding, or any timeline. Read opening a business account from abroad and the non-residents guide before booking travel, and per-institution pages such as TD for what each publishes about its own process.

What the regulator requires is knowable, and it explains most of what a bank will ask. FINTRAC defines beneficial owners as "the individuals who directly or indirectly own or control at least 25% of a corporation", and insists they are people: "beneficial owners cannot be other corporations, trusts or other entities." Where a reporting entity cannot obtain or confirm that information it must instead 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". [35]

So ownership through another company or a trust does not end the enquiry, it lengthens it: document the chain to natural persons in the same terms as your section 140.2 register. [1] Failing that requirement does not fail the application outright — it reclassifies you as high risk, meaning slower, more document-hungry onboarding, which is a reasonable thing to ask about in advance. And your records must agree: the ISC register's tax-residence field, the registry's public addresses, your CRA account details and the bank's file all describe the same people.

Immigration, honestly

Owning an Ontario corporation and being allowed to work in Canada are unrelated legal facts, and conflating them is the most expensive mistake in this subject.

The baseline. "A foreign national may not work or study in Canada unless authorized to do so under this Act." [9] Note what this guide is doing: no IRCC page reviewed says in terms that owning a Canadian company confers no right to work. The conclusion is constructed from that prohibition, from IRCC's own statement that "foreign nationals cannot reside permanently in Canada simply because they are business owners", and from the existence of a work-permit category for owners at all — a category that would be unnecessary if ownership sufficed. [33]

What is closed, as at 6 September 2026. Every OINP stream except the Ontario Workforce Priority stream, the entrepreneur category included, [30] and the one open stream has no entrepreneur or investor route. [31] Federally, "the Start-Up Visa Program was paused on June 30, 2026", with existing applications still processed. [32] Ontario has published no criteria and no launch date for a replacement, so this guide quotes none — and it does not repeat net-worth or investment figures from closed streams, because a closed stream's requirements are not a forecast of a future one.

What remains, and its limits. C11 covers a foreign national "seeking only temporary resident status to enter Canada to run, including establishing, their own business", where "the period of work in Canada would normally not exceed 18 months", issuance "should be considered only when the applicant controls at least 51% of the business in question", and "for business owners, the foreign national is both employer and employee". [33] It is a temporary work permit, not a path to permanent residence. Intra-company transfer uses codes C61, C62 and C63 — not the obsolete C12 still quoted in commercial content — with maximum stays of one year without extension, seven years and five years. Two rules gut the "transfer myself" plan: "an enterprise outside of Canada cannot become an MNC by using the ICT work permit category to establish their first foreign enterprise in Canada", and people who "own a controlling interest of the foreign enterprise … are not eligible as an ICT unless they are able to demonstrate that their enterprise meets the requirements of an MNC". [34] A one-country company incorporating in Ontario to transfer its owner in is exactly the pattern those sentences exclude. Ontario's own remaining business-immigration help is employer-side, helping companies "get an expedited work permit and Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) processing" for skilled talent. [30]

The address rule inside the immigration rules. ICT instructions state that "business operations with no physical commercial premises (i.e., businesses operating from a non-commercial/residential location or virtual businesses using a mailing address in commercial locations such as malls) are not eligible" to transfer intra-company transferees, and list what officers assess in co-working space: a shared receptionist, the company name in the building directory, a direct phone line answered by company staff, a published address on the website, a dedicated space where employees work and client meetings are held, a business licence, and accessibility to the public. [34] The exclusion is not co-working as such but a virtual business using a mailing address. If an immigration route is part of your plan, that is the distinction to design around — with a licensed immigration practitioner, not this page. Verify both positions on their own pages before committing money: they changed twice in eighteen months, and most published advice on Ontario business immigration quotes a superseded page.

Maintaining an Ontario corporation from another time zone

The failure mode for remote owners is not a wrong filing but a missed one, because no invoice arrives and no Canadian in the room notices.

The two most easily missed items — the Ontario annual return and the initial return — are both free, which is precisely why they are missed. The calendar is anchored to your fiscal year end, not a fixed date, so build it in your own time zone with a named owner, and confirm each year that whoever files your T2 is not assuming the annual return is part of it.

Failure modes specific to filing from abroad

• Buying the Nuans report before testing registry access. It expires 90 days after its date. [13]
• Using a non-Ontario address as the registered office. The office and the records must be in Ontario. [1]
• Assuming the annual return travels with the T2. It stopped in May 2021. [11]
• Letting the official corporate email go stale. It is where the company key is sent; if the field is empty the key goes to your Ontario registered office instead. [10]
• Operating a foreign company in Ontario unlicensed, then trying to enforce a contract. A class 3 corporation without a licence, or out of compliance with section 19, cannot maintain any action on any contract it made — curable, but not while you are in court. [2]
• Appointing an Ontario agent and thinking it is neutral. A resident agent is one of the facts constituting carrying on business in Ontario, and a representative in Ontario sits inside the CIA's liability provisions. [3]
• Budgeting the small-business rate, or three months to pay. Both are CCPC-only. [6] [21]
• Trying to open a business number through Business Registration Online. It cannot register a Canadian business with only non-resident owners. [24]
• Paying a dividend home without withholding. Part XIII is 25% unless a treaty reduces it and the recipient has filed an NR301/302/303; the penalty is 10%. [27]

Readiness checklist

• Decide the route — new OBCA corporation, Class 3 licence, or federal — and write down why, using the table above.
• Test whether you can create an Ontario.ca Login and an Ontario Business Account from where you are. [10]
• If not, get a written quote from an intermediary, or plan the mail route and its payment method. [12]
• Secure a genuine Ontario registered office — physical, contracted, able to accept served documents. [1]
• Create the official corporate email address on a domain you will keep, and record who monitors it. [13]
• Only then order the Ontario-biased Nuans report and diarise its 90-day expiry — or take a number name and skip it.
• Licence route only: obtain a Certificate of Status, or a lawyer's legal opinion where your jurisdiction issues none, and appoint an Ontario-resident agent for service. [14] [2]
• Model the tax at non-CCPC rates and a two-month balance-due day. [19]
• Plan the business number through CRA's non-resident route, not BRO, and ask CRA in writing whether a GST/HST security deposit applies. [23] [25]
• Document the ownership chain to natural persons, with tax-residence jurisdictions, before approaching a bank. [35]
• Confirm the immigration position on the OINP and IRCC pages on the day you plan, and take licensed advice. [32]
• Build the maintenance calendar in your own time zone with a named owner for each row.

What 2727 can and cannot support

2727 Coworking is a coworking space in Griffintown, Montreal — private offices, desks, meeting rooms and a business-address service, in Quebec. Precision matters more here than on any other page in this cluster.

A 2727 address cannot be the registered office of an Ontario corporation. The Act requires a registered office "in Ontario" and the ministry requires a physical location in Ontario; a Montreal address is not in Ontario, and the same applies to corporate records. [1] [13] No contract or service level changes that; it is a geographic requirement in a statute. Nor can it be the Ontario agent for service of a licensed foreign corporation, who must be an individual resident in Ontario or a corporation with its head or registered office in Ontario. [2]

What it can be is a mailing and correspondence address, as it can for anyone, and a real workspace if your people are in Montreal. Nothing on this page claims that any registry, bank, tax authority or immigration officer "accepts" a 2727 address for anything.

2727 becomes relevant if Ontario turns out to be the wrong question. A non-resident whose Canadian activity will actually sit in Quebec faces different rules — a French-language name requirement, an NEQ, a separate sales-tax administration and different immigration programs — and for a federal or Quebec corporation a Montreal address can be a registered office: see the from-abroad Quebec guide and the business-address research. Compare the four main non-resident jurisdictions in the non-resident province comparison, and read the British Columbia and Alberta guides if their local-footprint rules suit you better. Already inside Canada with a permit? Track A is your pillar, and the hub indexes everything.

Research method and limitations

Date verified: 6 September 2026. Every fee, rate, threshold, deadline and quotation here was read from the instrument or the administering body's own page during this pass; the raw fetch log is in the source pack accompanying this article. Only statutes and regulations, registries, tax administrations, immigration authorities and FINTRAC are cited — no law-firm, accountant or incorporation-service page appears anywhere.

Tools and access. Ontario statutes were read in full from the e-Laws public JSON endpoint, because ontario.ca/laws is a client-rendered application returning only a shell to a plain fetch: the OBCA (consolidation period from 1 October 2025), the EPCA (from 19 October 2021) and the Corporations Information Act (from 27 November 2025), each marked current. Federal statutes and regulations came from the Justice Canada consolidation, "current to 2026-06-21", and the two ministry notices are PDFs read in full. www.canada.ca refused command-line requests throughout this session, so CRA, Finance Canada and IRCC pages were retrieved with a fetch tool. CanLII was not used: it blocks automated requests, and every statute here is cited to the official government consolidation anyway. No search-engine discovery was run; sources were reached from the committed sibling research and by following links on pages already fetched.

What was NOT tested. Nobody incorporated an Ontario corporation, applied for a Class 3 licence, created an Ontario.ca Login from outside Canada, opened a CRA business number, applied for a work permit or opened a bank account. Every statement is what the official source says, not what happened when someone tried.

Stated as unverifiable. Whether a person outside Canada can create an Ontario.ca Login or an Ontario Business Account — the accounts are required but no eligibility rule is published, and three plausible URLs for a login page returned HTTP 404. Whether a foreign-issued card or a foreign-drawn cheque is accepted: no payment page states an issuer-nationality rule. The price of an Ontario-biased Nuans report or of any intermediary's services. Whether a mail-handling or registered-office address alone creates a treaty permanent establishment: no source reviewed answers it. A realistic end-to-end timeline to a funded bank account. And when, whether or on what terms an Ontario entrepreneur stream will reopen, or the Start-up Visa resume: neither government has published anything beyond "paused".

A discrepancy worth naming. The ministry's February 2025 notices tell you to use "a valid and up-to-date ServiceOntario online account", while the registry page, updated August 2026, requires "an Ontario.ca Login" and "an Ontario Business Account". The branding changed between the two, so a reader following the PDF will look for something that no longer has that name. Follow the registry page.

This is educational planning material, not legal, tax, accounting, immigration or banking advice. Corporate law, tax rates, registry procedure and immigration programs all change, and three of them changed materially in the eighteen months before this page was written. Verify against the cited sources on the day you act, and take advice from an Ontario lawyer, a Canadian tax adviser and a licensed immigration practitioner before committing money.

Frequently asked questions

Can a non-resident own 100% of an Ontario corporation and be its only director?

Yes to both, as a matter of Ontario corporate law. A non-offering corporation needs at least one director, and the four statutory disqualifications concern age, capacity, being an individual and bankruptcy — not citizenship, residence or immigration status. [1] Ownership is a separate question from working in Canada, which requires authorization under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. [9]

Do I need to visit Ontario to incorporate?

No official source reviewed requires a visit, and the ministry describes online and mail filing with no in-person step. [13] But nothing published says whether the required Ontario.ca Login and Ontario Business Account can be created from abroad, and this guide will not guess. The documented workarounds are an intermediary and a mail filing at the same government fee. [10]

Can I use a mailbox or a Montreal address as my Ontario registered office?

No. The registered office must be "in Ontario" at the location in the articles, must be a physical location, and a post office box alone is not accepted. [1] [13] An address in another province, Montreal included, cannot fill the role however good the mail handling, and your corporate records are subject to the same geographic rule.

Should I incorporate in Ontario or federally?

Federal incorporation costs $200 online in a day, needs no separate Nuans report for a word name, [15] and needs no Ontario licence because a federal corporation is class 2. [2] But it requires at least 25% of directors — at least one below four — to be resident Canadians, which Ontario does not, [4] and still requires an Ontario initial return once you carry on business here. [3] For a wholly non-resident board, the resident-director rule usually decides it.

My company already exists abroad. Do I need an Ontario licence?

Only if it will carry on business in Ontario, in which case a licence is mandatory. You carry on business here if you have a resident agent, representative, warehouse, office or place of business in Ontario, or an interest in Ontario real property — and selling goods or services "by use of travellers or through advertising or correspondence" alone does not count. [2] The licence costs $330, five business days online, and needs a Certificate of Status or, where your jurisdiction issues none, a lawyer's legal opinion. [12] [14]

Is my Ontario company's beneficial ownership information public?

Not today. The register of individuals with significant control is kept in Ontario and disclosed "upon request by law enforcement, and regulatory and tax authorities" rather than published. [1] [11] Plan for change: the Corporations Information Act now has a section 6.1 requiring an ISC return to the Minister if the regulations require it, added in 2025 and recorded as not in force. [3]

Will my Ontario company pay the small-business tax rate?

Almost certainly not. Ontario's small business deduction applies to Canadian-controlled private corporations, [17] and a corporation "controlled, directly or indirectly in any manner whatever, by one or more non-resident persons" is not one. [6] Expect the 15% net federal rate and Ontario's 11.5% general rate, [19] and a two-month rather than three-month balance-due day. [21]

How does my non-resident-owned company get a CRA business number?

Not through Business Registration Online, which cannot "register a Canadian business with only non-resident owners". [24] Use CRA's non-resident registration route, which applies where the business is incorporated or located outside Canada, the applicant's SIN starts with 0, or there is no SIN; the paper fallback is Form RC1 to the Atlantic Tax Centre in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. [23] A GST/HST security deposit may also be required. [25]

Does an Ontario registered office give me a permanent establishment?

It depends which meaning you need. For allocating income among provinces, Regulation 400(2)(e.1) deems a corporation that would otherwise have none to have a permanent establishment at its registered office — but that Part applies only to the definition of taxable income earned in a province. [8] A treaty permanent establishment is "a fixed place of business through which the business … is wholly or partly carried on", and controlling or being controlled by a company in the other State does not by itself create one. [28] Whether an address alone creates a treaty permanent establishment is answered by no official source reviewed here. If your foreign company itself carries on business in Canada, expect a T2 even under a treaty claim, plus Part XIV branch tax. [22] [7]

Can starting an Ontario business get me permanent residence, or a work permit?

Not permanent residence, on 6 September 2026: Ontario states that "all other streams are now closed", [30] the one open stream is an employer-initiated job offer or a self-employed physician, [31] and the federal Start-up Visa "was paused on June 30, 2026". [32] A C11 work permit remains possible for an owner controlling at least 51%, normally for no more than 18 months, and IRCC's instructions say "foreign nationals cannot reside permanently in Canada simply because they are business owners". [33] Intra-company transfer under C61, C62 or C63 is generally unavailable if the Ontario company would be your first foreign operation. [34]

Official references

1. Government of Ontario e-Laws: Business Corporations Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. B.16
2. Government of Ontario e-Laws: Extra-Provincial Corporations Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. E.27
3. Government of Ontario e-Laws: Corporations Information Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C.39
4. Department of Justice Canada: Canada Business Corporations Act, section 105
5. Department of Justice Canada: Income Tax Act, section 250
6. Department of Justice Canada: Income Tax Act, section 125
7. Department of Justice Canada: Income Tax Act, section 219
8. Department of Justice Canada: Income Tax Regulations, section 400
9. Department of Justice Canada: Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, section 30
10. ServiceOntario: Ontario Business Registry
11. ServiceOntario: Ontario Business Registry — all services
12. ServiceOntario: cost and time required to register, change or search for a business name, corporation or not-for-profit
13. Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement: Notice – Business Corporations Act – Incorporating a Business Corporation
14. Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement: Notice – Extra-Provincial Corporations Act – Extra-Provincial Corporations Licences and Filings
15. Corporations Canada: services, fees and processing times
16. Corporations Canada: annual return for business corporations
17. Ontario Ministry of Finance: Corporations Tax — Corporate Income Tax
18. Ontario Ministry of Finance: Employer Health Tax
19. Canada Revenue Agency: corporation tax rates
20. Canada Revenue Agency: residency of a corporation
21. Canada Revenue Agency: balance-due day
22. Canada Revenue Agency: income tax information for non-resident corporations
23. Canada Revenue Agency: register as a non-resident doing business in Canada
24. Canada Revenue Agency: register as a resident with a Canadian business
25. Canada Revenue Agency: when to register for and start charging the GST/HST
26. Canada Revenue Agency: which GST/HST rate to charge
27. Canada Revenue Agency: Guide T4061, NR4 — non-resident tax withholding, remitting and reporting
28. Department of Finance Canada: Convention between Canada and the United States of America, consolidated
29. Workplace Safety and Insurance Board: how to register
30. Government of Ontario: Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program
31. Government of Ontario: Ontario Workforce Priority stream
32. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: Start-up Visa Program eligibility
33. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: business owners seeking only temporary residence — R205(a), C11
34. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: intra-company transferees — R205(a), C61, C62, C63
35. FINTRAC: beneficial ownership requirements