Start a Business in Canada as a Resident

Direct answer

If you live in Canada, starting a business is two separate questions. Corporate law decides who may own and direct a company, and it imposes no citizenship test on shareholders. Immigration law decides who may work, and it defines work as an activity paid by wages or commission, or that competes with Canadians in the labour market. Citizens and permanent residents clear both. Work, study and refugee-claim permit holders must check what their specific permit authorizes, because owning shares and running a business day to day are different acts. The practical sequence is the same for everyone: choose sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation or co-operative; clear the name; incorporate federally or provincially; obtain a business number and only the CRA program accounts your activity triggers; register in every province where you conduct business; then payroll, workers' compensation, municipal permits and a bank account.

Three caveats govern everything below. Immigration status is decided by IRCC and by nobody else. Fees and thresholds change yearly, so each number here carries the official page it came from and the date it was read. And where official sources are silent — they are silent on more than you would expect — this page says so instead of guessing.

If you are outside Canada, the decision tree diverges enough to need its own pillar: see starting a business in Canada from abroad. For the whole cluster, start at the hub.

Who this track is for, and what your status permits

Canadian business law and Canadian immigration law are separate systems that ask different questions. Corporate law asks who may own a company and who may direct it. Immigration law asks who may work. A founder inside Canada needs an answer to both, and the answer to one does not settle the other.

Start with the immigration definition. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations define work as "an activity for which wages are paid or commission is earned, or that is in direct competition with the activities of Canadian citizens or permanent residents in the Canadian labour market" [1]. Two consequences follow: the definition captures commission and self-generated income, not only a salary, and its second branch reaches activity that competes in the labour market even where nobody is paid. Founder work before the first dollar of revenue can therefore still be work. The prohibition is equally plain — a foreign national "must not work in Canada unless authorized to do so by a work permit or these Regulations" [4].

Now the corporate side. The Canada Business Corporations Act disqualifies from being a director only those under eighteen, "anyone who is incapable", "a person who is not an individual" and "a person who has the status of bankrupt" — immigration status is not on that list. It separately requires that "at least twenty-five per cent of the directors of a corporation must be resident Canadians" and that "if a corporation has less than four directors, at least one director must be a resident Canadian" [6]. There is no residency or citizenship requirement on shareholders at all.

That is the structural point. Federal corporate law regulates ownership and direction; immigration law regulates activity; neither statute cross-references the other. Holding a share is not an activity the Regulations name. Running the company day to day is.

Status	May work in Canada?	May hold shares?	The constraint that actually bites
Canadian citizen	Yes, no permit needed	Yes	None from immigration law
Permanent resident	Yes — a PR can "live, work or study anywhere in Canada"	Yes	The 730-days-in-five-years residency obligation
Open work permit	Yes, for "any employer in Canada" subject to exclusions	Yes	Whether "any employer" includes being your own is not stated by IRCC
Employer-specific permit	Only as the permit says; it names "the employer, location and occupation"	Yes	Working in your own company sits outside the permit's terms
Study permit	Up to 24 hours per week in a regular session	Yes	The cap applies to self-employed hours too
Refugee claimant	Only with a work permit, after eligibility referral and a medical exam	Yes	The permit must actually issue before you trade
Visitor	No — a temporary resident must not work	No source found that prohibits it	Any operating activity is work; ownership alone is unaddressed

All statuses may be a CBCA director subject to the section 105 conditions above, since immigration status is not a disqualification and only the resident-Canadian ratio constrains board composition.

Citizens and permanent residents

For citizens and permanent residents the immigration question does not arise. IRCC states that a permanent resident can "live, work or study anywhere in Canada" and receives "a social insurance number to work in Canada"; the limits it lists are political, not commercial — a PR is "not allowed to vote or run for political office or hold some jobs that need a high-level security clearance". The obligation to watch is residency itself: "you must have been in Canada for at least 730 days during the last five years" [12]. A founder who spends most of the year abroad servicing foreign customers can put PR status at risk while doing nothing wrong commercially.

Work permit holders: open versus employer-specific

IRCC says there are "2 types of work permits: open work permits and employer-specific work permits" [9]. An employer-specific permit is bound to what is printed on it: its Additional Information section "includes the employer, location and occupation", and "You must comply with all the information listed on your work permit" [8]. An open work permit "lets you work for any employer in Canada", excluding non-compliant employers and certain sectors, and may still restrict "what type of work you can do" and "where you can work" [9].

Here honesty is required, because the internet is full of confident answers no official page supports. No IRCC page states as a general rule that an open work permit does or does not authorize self-employment — every such page is framed around working for "any employer", which is silent on being your own. Equally, no IRCC page states that self-employment is prohibited under an employer-specific permit; that conclusion is an inference from the permit's terms, a strong one, but IRCC never writes the sentence. Put the question to IRCC, or to an authorized representative, for your specific permit.

Study permit holders

The regulation is precise, and it is about hours rather than employers. A study permit holder may work without a work permit if they are a full-time student at a designated learning institution, in a programme "of a duration of six months or more that leads to a degree, diploma or certificate", and "although they are permitted to engage in full-time work during a regularly scheduled break between academic sessions, they work no more than 24 hours per week during a regular academic session" [2]. A separate paragraph permits on-campus work for a full-time student at that institution [2].

Two points founders get wrong. First, 24 is the current number, and it binds even where an older permit says otherwise: "If your current study permit says that you may only work 20 hours per week off campus (for example), you're allowed to work up to 24 hours per week" [7]. Exceeding it is not a technicality — "Working more than 24 hours per week is a violation of your study permit conditions. You can lose your student status for doing this" [7].

Second, IRCC expressly contemplates self-employed students and counts their hours the same way. Under a heading "Self-employed students" it says: "If you're a self-employed person, you're also responsible for keeping track of the hours you work off campus and proving that you're complying with the conditions of your study permit", with hours counted as time spent "earning wages; being paid wages for performing a service or selling a product; collecting a commission" [7].

The careful reading is this. IRCC's guidance plainly applies the 24-hour cap and a record-keeping duty to self-employment, and the regulation speaks only of hours worked, never requiring an employer. What no official page does is state in terms that a study permit authorizes being your own employer. Self-employment is contemplated and regulated; it is not expressly granted. That is the most a fetched official source supports, and less than most commentary claims in either direction.

One useful carve-out: "You can work remotely for an employer outside Canada … This type of work doesn't count towards your 24 hours per week off-campus work limit" [7]. A student maintaining foreign clients is in a materially different position from one building a Canadian customer base.

Refugee claimants

A claimant may request an open work permit inside the asylum claim rather than separately: "There is no separate application or extra fees to apply". Issuance is gated twice — "You will only be issued a work permit if: your claim was found eligible to be referred to the IRB; you have passed your medical exam" [11]. Until the permit issues, the ordinary prohibition applies.

Visitors: owning is not working

A visitor may not work; section 196 states the prohibition without qualification [4].

Whether a visitor may own shares is a different question, and it is the question official sources do not answer. The work provisions do not address ownership; the CBCA governs ownership and imposes no immigration condition on shareholders [6]. So a visitor holding shares is doing nothing the Regulations name and nothing the CBCA prohibits. We could not find any IRCC page addressing this directly, and we are not going to invent one. No IRCC Help Centre answer of the form "can I start or own a business in Canada as a visitor" was found; sources quoting one are quoting a commercial page, not the government.

What is documented is the moment ownership turns into activity. The business-visitor exemption cannot carry a founder building a Canadian business: a person qualifies only if "the primary source of remuneration for the business activities is outside Canada" and "the principal place of business and actual place of accrual of profits remain predominately outside Canada" [3]. A Canadian company whose profits accrue in Canada fails that test on its face. If your business is here, you are not visiting it.

The founder work permit: C11

For a founder who needs temporary status to run their own Canadian business, the live federal route is the exemption coded C11, which allows a work permit without a labour market impact assessment where the work would create significant benefit. IRCC's program delivery instruction covers foreign nationals "seeking only temporary resident status to enter Canada to run, including establishing, their own business" [10]. Four points from it are worth more than any commentary:

You are on both sides of the transaction. "Officers should be aware that for business owners, the foreign national is both employer and employee. They must meet the requirements for both roles" [10]. The founder submits an offer of employment to themselves.
Legal structure does not change the characterization. "Regardless of the ownership structure (for example, incorporated or sole proprietorship), if the business only employs the owner and family members, the foreign national is still considered self-employed" [10].
It is time-limited — "Duration — Maximum of 18 months" [10].
It does not build Canadian Experience Class eligibility. "Any period of self-employment is not calculated toward the period of work experience for the Canadian Experience Class" [10]. A founder planning to convert temporary status into permanent residence through the CEC should read that twice.

One correction to a widely circulated claim: the instruction assesses the application "regardless of what percentage of the business in Canada is owned" [10]. We found no 51 percent ownership threshold in the official text. Pages asserting one are not citing canada.ca.

As at the verification date the federal entrepreneur routes are largely shut: the Start-up Visa page requires "a valid 2025 commitment certificate" and states "The program is closed to all other applications" [13]. Immigration programs change without notice; re-check before relying on any of this.

A SIN is the practical gate to being paid. For temporary residents it "starts with '9'" and "expires on the same date your work permit, study permit or visitor record expires", and the application requires a document that authorizes work — "Email messages from IRCC are not accepted". Two useful facts: "You can start working as soon as you apply for a SIN", and if the SIN expires while an extension is pending "you can continue working with your expired SIN until IRCC makes a decision". A citizen's or permanent resident's SIN does not expire [15].

Choosing the structure

Four legal forms are available: sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation and co-operative. The choice drives liability, tax treatment and how much annual administration you carry forever.

	Sole proprietorship	Partnership	Corporation	Co-operative
Separate legal person	No	No	Yes	Yes
Liability	Personal; risk reaches personal assets	Personal, and each partner binds the others	Limited to what shareholders invested	Limited
Where profit is taxed	On your personal T1	Allocated to each partner	In the corporation, on a T2	In the co-operative
Ongoing filings	Lightest	Light, plus a partnership return above thresholds	Annual return, ISC filing, T2, minute book	Corporate filings plus member governance
Control	You	By agreement	By share ownership	One member, one vote

Sole proprietorship. CRA describes it as a business that "does not have separate legal status from the business", and is blunt about the consequence: "The risks extend even to your personal property and assets". Tax is simple — income is reported "on a T1 income tax and benefit return", attaching "Form T2125, Statement of Business or Professional Activities" [25].

Partnership. The risk founders underrate is mutual authority: "The partnership is bound by the actions of any member of the partnership". The partnership is a conduit rather than a taxpayer — it "by itself does not pay income tax on its operating results and does not file an annual income tax return. Instead, each partner includes a share of the partnership income or loss" on their own return. A separate information return falls due once the partnership "has an absolute value of revenues plus an absolute value of expenses of more than $2 million, or has more than $5 million in assets" [5]. Write the agreement before revenue arrives, not after the first disagreement.

Corporation. CRA states that "A corporation is a separate legal entity. It can enter into contracts and own property in its own name", and that "As a shareholder of your corporation, you have limited liability". Two qualifications matter more than the headline. Limited liability is routinely bargained away: where a lender asks for a personal guarantee, "you will be personally liable for that debt if the corporation does not pay it back". And directors are personally exposed for certain unremitted amounts — they "may also be liable to pay amounts owed by the corporation if it has failed to deduct, withhold, remit, or pay amounts" [26]. Incorporating does not make payroll or GST/HST arrears someone else's problem.

Co-operative. Federally a co-operative is created "under the Canada Cooperatives Act (Coop Act) by filing an application with Corporations Canada". Unlike a business corporation the filing is not online — "Cooperative applications must be filed by email or mail" — and it still requires "A Nuans name search report for the proposed name that is not more than 90 days old" [22], a rule that no longer applies to ordinary online incorporation.

CCPC status and the small business deduction

The tax reason most Canadian founders incorporate is the small business deduction, available to a Canadian-controlled private corporation. CRA's rate page states the structure plainly: "The basic rate of Part I tax is 38% of your taxable income, 28% after the federal tax abatement", "After the general tax reduction, the net tax rate is 15%", and "For Canadian-controlled private corporations claiming the small business deduction, the net tax rate is 9%" [28].

CCPC status is not automatic and is not about where you incorporated. Among the conditions a corporation must meet at the end of the tax year, it must be one that "is not controlled directly or indirectly by one or more non-resident persons" and "is not controlled directly or indirectly by one or more public corporations" [27]. This is precisely where Track A and Track B diverge: a Canadian-resident founder who owns and controls their own company is in the ordinary case a CCPC, while a company controlled from abroad may not be. A Canadian certificate of incorporation proves neither way.

The provincial business limit is not uniform: most provinces sit at $500,000, while Nova Scotia is $700,000 and Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan are $600,000. Quebec and Alberta do not have corporation tax collection agreements with the CRA and are excluded from that table [28].

When incorporation is premature

Incorporation is a permanent administrative commitment, not a status symbol: an annual return every year whether or not you traded, a separate T2, an ISC filing, and a minute book somebody maintains. Before incorporating, ask whether you have any of the things it buys — outside investors or co-founders needing defined share ownership, liability exposure insurance does not cover, profit you intend to retain, or a counterparty that will only contract with a corporation. If the answer is none of them, a sole proprietorship under a registered trade name does the same commercial work this year and can be incorporated later. The 9 percent rate only helps once profit stays inside the company.

Federal or provincial incorporation

You can incorporate under the CBCA with Corporations Canada or under a provincial statute with that jurisdiction's registrar. Federal incorporation gives national name protection and the right to carry on business anywhere in Canada, with no restriction on where the head office sits or where records are kept [24].

The critical qualification is that federal incorporation is not a nationwide registration. "Provincial and territorial legislation requires you to register your federal corporation in each province and territory in which it will conduct business" [21]. A federal corporation operating in one province therefore maintains two records rather than one. For a founder who will operate in a single province for the foreseeable future, that is a real cost against a name protection they may never need. There is also a director-residency dimension: the CBCA imposes a 25 percent resident- Canadian requirement [6], while most provinces no longer impose one at all — see the index below.

The full comparison has its own page: federal versus provincial incorporation.

The end-to-end sequence

Stage	What you do	Gate before continuing
0. Status	Confirm what your immigration status permits	For anything other than citizenship or PR, the answer comes from IRCC, not a registry
1. Structure	Choose sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation or co-operative	Liability and tax consequences understood, not assumed
2. Name	Search and clear the name; reserve or pre-approve where the registry requires it	Distinctive, not confusing, with a legal element if incorporating
3. Formation	Incorporate, or register the business name provincially	Certificate archived; registered office is a real address in the right province
4. Business number	Confirm the BN and the corporation income tax account	One BN only; no duplicate record created
5. Program accounts	Open only the accounts your activity triggers — RT, RP, RM	Each account opened because a rule requires it
6. Provincial scope	Register extra-provincially wherever you conduct business	Every province where you have an address, phone number or customers assessed
7. Payroll and coverage	Open payroll before the first remittance is due; register with the workers' compensation board	Withholding starts with the first payday
8. Permits	Check federal, provincial and municipal permits	Occupancy and zoning cleared before signing a lease
9. Bank account	Open the business account with the full corporate record	The bank has confirmed its own current checklist
10. Records	Minute book, ISC register, filing calendar	Somebody owns the calendar

Stage 2: the name

The federal naming process changed, and guides written before the change describe a step that no longer exists. Corporations Canada now states: "You don't need to order a Nuans report before incorporating online with a word name. The corporate name search is now part of the federal incorporation process" [16]. A separate report is still required for revival, amalgamation and "All services for cooperatives"; where one is used, "The Nuans search is valid for 90 days only", and obtaining it "does not mean that we automatically preapprove or approve your name". A name pre-approval is likewise "valid for 90 days". If you would rather not fight over a name, take a numbered one and "We will assign you a number" [17] — you can still trade under a registered business name.

For unincorporated businesses: "If you are a sole proprietor operating a business under your legal name (for example, Jane Doe), you generally do not need to register your business name. In all other scenarios, you will need to register." Trade names are provincial — "Registration of trade names is a provincial/territorial responsibility" — and skipping one "can result in significant fines and other legal consequences" [23].

Stage 3: formation and the registered office

Federal incorporation is online, fast and cheap: Corporations Canada publishes "$200" with a processing time of "1 day", plus "Add $100 for express service in 4 hours" [16].

The registered office is a legal address, not a mailbox of convenience. Form 2 instructions state it is "where you must keep your corporate records and where official documents will be served on the corporation", that it "cannot be a post office box", and that it "must be within the province or territory as indicated in the articles of the corporation". It is also public — the address "even if it is also a residential address, is corporate information that is public" [18]. Founders who do not want their home address in a public database should solve that at incorporation, not after.

Stages 4 and 5: business number and program accounts

There is only one business number per business. A CRA account number consists of "Your unique 9-digit BN", "A 2-letter program identifier" and "A 4-digit reference number", giving forms like "123456789 RT 0001" [29].

Identifier	Programme	When to investigate
RC	Corporation income tax — "If your business is incorporated"	Automatic on federal incorporation; confirm rather than re-register
RT	GST/HST — "If you need to collect GST/HST"	When you stop being a small supplier, or voluntarily
RP	Payroll deductions — "if you are an employer, trustee, or other payer"	Before the first remittance is due
RM	Import and export	Before commercial importing or exporting; administered by CBSA
RZ	Information returns — "for T5018, T5, T5013, or TFSA"	When a reportable payment type arises

Whether the BN arrives automatically depends on where you incorporate. In Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan "you will automatically receive a business number and corporation income tax program account". In Newfoundland and Labrador, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Quebec and Yukon "you will need to register for a business number" [24].

GST/HST: the $30,000 question

You must register "if both situations apply: You are not a small supplier; You make taxable sales, leases, or other supplies in Canada". The threshold is $30,000, tested two ways. If "You do not exceed the $30,000 threshold over four consecutive calendar quarters", you remain a small supplier. If "You exceed the $30,000 threshold in a single calendar quarter", you cease to be one immediately and "Your effective date of registration is no later than the day of the supply that made you exceed $30,000" [30].

That second rule catches founders: a single large invoice can make you a registrant mid-quarter, retroactive to that invoice, with tax owing whether or not you charged any. Track the running total rather than checking annually, and note that it counts worldwide taxable supplies of the business and its associates. Some businesses have no threshold at all — a "self-employed taxi driver or commercial ride-sharing driver … have to register for the GST/HST even if you are a small supplier" [30].

Which tax you charge depends on the province. HST is 13 percent in Ontario, 15 percent in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island, and 14 percent in Nova Scotia, which "decreased the provincial portion of the HST to 9%" on 1 April 2025. Elsewhere GST is 5 percent, with a provincial sales tax of 7 percent in British Columbia and Manitoba, 6 percent in Saskatchewan and QST of 9.975 percent in Quebec. Alberta, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut have no provincial sales tax [34]. The comparison has its own page: HST versus GST plus PST versus QST.

Stages 7 to 9: payroll, permits and the bank

CRA "generally considers you to be an employer if you: Pay salaries, wages (including advances), bonuses, vacation pay, or tips to your employees". The deadline is set by the remittance, not the hire: "You have to register for a payroll account before the first remittance due date. Your first remittance due date is the 15th day of the month following the month in which you began withholding deductions." Missing the account does not suspend the obligation — "you still need to calculate deductions and remit them by the due date." In Quebec, "in addition to registering for source deductions with the CRA, you may have to register with Revenu Québec" [31]. Workers' compensation is a separate provincial obligation with no federal registration page — it must be done through your province's own board, and coverage thresholds differ by province and were not verified here.

Permits sit at three levels and none announces itself. The municipal layer is the one founders skip, and it can stop you occupying premises: in Montreal "You must get an occupancy permit … to conduct a commercial or industrial activity in a building for purposes other than housing, or use part of your home for professional purposes", and a fresh one is required "if there is a change of operator or a change in the area spanned by the premises, if there is a change in the activities conducted, or if activities are added". The city's advice is to check first: "Before renting or purchasing a premises … make sure that the activity of your choice is permitted" [14]. Zoning is checked before the lease, not after.

Finally, no registry and no address provider can open a bank account for you. Banks run their own identity, ownership and address checks and each publishes a different document list — see the business address and banking research and the per-bank pages for RBC, TD, BMO, Scotiabank, CIBC and Desjardins. For a federal corporation the federal corporation scenario sets out the document pack in detail.

Province and territory index

Every jurisdiction runs its own registry, name rules, director rules and annual filing. The single most useful correction this research produced concerns director residency: Manitoba is the only province or territory that still imposes a resident-Canadian director quota. Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador have all repealed theirs, and British Columbia, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut never had one. The federal CBCA still requires 25 percent [6], which is often the deciding factor for a founder whose co-founders live abroad.

Jurisdiction	Sales tax	Business number on incorporation	Distinguishing facts
Ontario	HST 13%	Automatic	No director residency requirement. A federal corporation can register during online incorporation; if business starts later, register "within 60 days of the day on which that business commences"
British Columbia	GST 5% + PST 7%	Automatic	No director residency requirement; name approval is a separate step before incorporation
Alberta	GST 5%, no PST	Automatic	No director residency requirement. Filings must go through a registry agent or authorized service provider, whose service fee is unregulated — the total cost is not knowable in advance. Alberta administers its own corporate income tax
Quebec	GST 5% + QST 9.975%	Not automatic	No director residency requirement. "The name of an enterprise must be in French" under the Charter of the French Language. An annual updating declaration is due every year even with no changes. Quebec administers its own corporate income tax
Saskatchewan	GST 5% + PST 6%	Automatic	No Canadian residency requirement, but if no director or officer resides in Saskatchewan the corporation must appoint an attorney. Federal corporations register after incorporating, through MRAS. Business limit $600,000
Manitoba	GST 5% + RST 7%	Automatic	The only jurisdiction still requiring resident-Canadian directors — "at least 25% of a corporation's directors must be residents of Canada", and one of three or fewer [35]
Nova Scotia	HST 14%	Automatic	"There are no residency requirements for directors of a Nova Scotia company." Joint registration available at federal incorporation. Business limit $700,000, the highest in Canada
New Brunswick	HST 15%	Automatic	Director residency requirement repealed in 2023. Registry operates in English and French
Prince Edward Island	HST 15%	Automatic	No Canadian residency requirement, but where no director resides in PEI the incorporators must file a certificate completed by "a practising member of the Law Society of Prince Edward Island who is resident in the province". Business limit $600,000
Newfoundland and Labrador	HST 15%	Not automatic	Director residency requirement repealed, in force 2022. "In Newfoundland and Labrador there is no registration of trade names. Registration is only required for corporations and cooperatives"
Yukon	GST 5%, no PST	Not automatic	No director residency requirement
Northwest Territories	GST 5%, no PST	Not automatic	No director residency requirement. Annual returns are due by the end of the month following the anniversary date
Nunavut	GST 5%, no PST	Not automatic	No director residency requirement. There is no online incorporation portal; the registry accepts submissions by email

Sales-tax rates are from CRA's rates table [34]; the business-number split from one Government of Canada page covering all thirteen jurisdictions [24]; the joint-registration, Ontario and Saskatchewan facts from Corporations Canada [21]; the Newfoundland trade-name fact from federal naming guidance [23]; and the business limits from CRA [28]. Director-residency and registry-quirk facts were verified from each jurisdiction's own legislation and government sites, with the per-province citation in each province guide. Registry fees are deliberately not stated here — several official fee schedules carry stale or contested figures, and Alberta's total cost is unknowable in advance because the mandatory service provider's fee is unregulated.

Operating in more than one province

Two separate systems care about where you operate, and they use different tests.

Corporate registration. Provincial law compels it: "Provincial and territorial legislation requires you to register your federal corporation in each province and territory in which it will conduct business". The threshold is lower than most founders assume — "conducting business typically includes: having an address, a post office box or a phone number in a province or territory, or offering services or products in a province or territory", and "The registration requirements are different for each province and territory" [21]. A phone number and a customer list can be enough.

One widespread misconception deserves correcting. The New West Partnership Trade Agreement between British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba is not mutual recognition. Official provincial sources are consistent that a corporation must still complete extra-provincial registration in each member province; what the agreement removes is the registration fee and the extra-provincial annual report, not the registration itself. It does not remove every fee either. Manitoba's Companies Office prices the incoming NWPTA filing as "Name Reservation ($45.00)", "Register an Extra Provincial Business Corporation (No Fee)" and "Power of Attorney (No Fee)", and notes that "Annual Returns are filed in the home jurisdiction only" [36]. Read each destination province's own tariff rather than generalising one province's waiver to the other three. Do not plan on one registration covering the West.

Provincial corporate tax. This turns on permanent establishment, a defined term. Where a corporation has no fixed place of business, CRA states that "it is deemed to have a permanent establishment at the place designated in its incorporation documents or bylaws as its head office or registered office" [33]. That is why the registered-office province is a tax decision and not merely an administrative one: for a company with no other fixed premises, it sets the province that taxes its income. Where establishments exist in more than one province, taxable income is allocated between them using two factors — gross revenue attributable to each province and salaries and wages paid there. CRA collects provincial corporate tax for most of the country, but Quebec and Alberta run their own systems and require their own returns [28].

The error to avoid is treating a registered office as a substitute for either test. It does not create a permanent establishment where you have real premises elsewhere, and it does not excuse extra-provincial registration where you actually conduct business.

First-year maintenance calendar

The most common year-one failure is assuming the corporate filing and the tax filing are the same thing. Corporations Canada says otherwise: the annual return "is not your income tax return. This is a corporate law requirement. It is completely separate from any filing obligations you may have with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA)" [19].

When	Obligation	Detail
Within 60 days after each incorporation anniversary	Federal annual return	"The deadline for filing an annual return is within the 60 days following a corporation's anniversary date." You do not file for the year of incorporation [19]; the fee is $12 online [16]
With the annual return, and within 15 days of any change	ISC information filing	Required "Annually (at the same time as filing your annual return); Within 15 days of a change in your ISC register; and Upon incorporation or within 30 days" of amalgamation or continuance [20]
Six months after the fiscal year end	T2 corporation income tax return	"File your return within six months of the end of each tax year." [32]
Two or three months after the year end	Corporation tax balance	Due two months after year end generally; three months for a CCPC that claimed the small business deduction and meets the stated conditions [32]
By the assigned reporting period	GST/HST return	Reporting periods are assigned by size, with more frequent options available to smaller registrants [30]
15th of the following month, for a regular remitter	Payroll remittance	The first due date is "the 15th day of the month following the month in which you began withholding" [31]
Annually	Provincial annual return or updating declaration	Separate from the federal return, in every province where you are registered. Quebec's annual updating declaration is due even when nothing changed

Two consequences of missing the corporate filing. Corporations Canada's policy is that "while the law allows us to dissolve a corporation after one year of non-filing, it is our policy to only dissolve a corporation when it has not filed for two years", with "an additional 120 days to file" after a final notice [19]. Meanwhile the corporation's filings show as overdue and it "will not be able to obtain a Certificate of Compliance" [19] — exactly the document a bank or a large customer asks for.

The transparency obligations carry real penalties. A corporation that fails to file its ISC information "may be administratively dissolved", and "may be found guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $100,000" [20]. Directors and officers who knowingly permit a contravention face their own exposure under the Act.

Failure modes and how to correct them

Failure mode	Why it happens	Correction
Assuming a permit that allows work allows self-employment	The permit speaks of employers, not business ownership	Ask IRCC or an authorized representative about your specific permit before trading
A study permit holder losing track of hours	Self-employed hours are easy not to count	Keep the log IRCC expects; unpaid founder work can still be work
Treating federal incorporation as national registration	Name protection is national; registration is not	Assess every province where you have an address, phone number or customers
Assuming NWPTA means one registration covers the West	The agreement is loosely described as mutual recognition	Register in each member province; the registration fee and the extra-provincial annual report are removed, but a destination-province name reservation can still be payable [36]
Missing the GST/HST threshold mid-quarter	Founders check annually instead of continuously	Track worldwide taxable supplies of the business and its associates continuously
Creating a second business number, or opening every program account at once	Re-registering instead of locating the automatic BN	Confirm the BN issued on incorporation; open RC, RT, RP and RM only when a rule triggers each
Registering payroll after the first payday	The trigger is read as the hire date	Withhold from the first payday and register before the first remittance due date
Filing the annual return and thinking the T2 is done	The two filings sound alike	Calendar them separately; different dates, different recipients
Using a PO box or an out-of-province address as the registered office	It is treated as a mailing address	It cannot be a PO box and must be in the articles' province
Choosing a jurisdiction on director residency without checking	Founders assume the federal 25% rule is universal	Only Manitoba still has a provincial quota; most provinces have none
Signing a lease before checking zoning	Occupancy is assumed to follow from the lease	Confirm the activity is permitted at that address first
Letting the annual return lapse, or ignoring ISC updates after a share change	Nothing appears to break at first	File before the dissolution policy runs out; update the ISC register within 15 days

Readiness checklist

What 2727 can and cannot support

2727 Coworking is a coworking space in Griffintown, Montreal. What it supplies is a Montreal address, mail handling and workspace under the plan actually contracted, plus desks and meeting rooms for founders who need somewhere to work in Montreal.

Because that is a Montreal address, it can be a registered office only where a Montreal address is lawfully a registered office: a corporation incorporated under the CBCA whose articles name Quebec as the registered-office province, and a corporation constituted under Quebec law. Corporations Canada's rule is explicit that the registered office "must be within the province or territory as indicated in the articles of the corporation" [18]. For a corporation incorporated in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia or any other province, a Montreal address is not that corporation's registered office, records office or attorney-for-service address. There it is a mailing and correspondence address, and nothing more.

2727 does not decide whether an address satisfies a statute. It does not certify a registered office, a records office, a CRA physical address, a permanent establishment, a Quebec establishment, a director's address for service or a personal residence. It does not issue utility or property-tax bills, appoint an attorney for service, file a registration, determine CCPC status or corporate residence, or guarantee that any registry, bank or government body will accept any document. Ask the receiving body which field it is asking about and which document it accepts, then choose a plan only if the real service matches that stated use.

One boundary deserves emphasis. A mail address is not an operating establishment. Do not describe a mail plan as premises, staff or activity on a registry filing, a CRA account or a bank application; where a field means actual day-to-day activity, only actual activity belongs in it — and the address in your incorporating documents can determine which province taxes you [33]. Nor does a Montreal address create a Montreal occupancy permit: the city requires one for the activity actually conducted at a place [14].

For address roles generally, start at the business address research and the document guide. Founders not yet in Canada should read starting a business in Canada from abroad and the non-resident research first, because the address, banking and director-residency questions all change.

Research method and limitations

This page was researched and verified on 6 September 2026. Discovery used Exa semantic and keyword search to locate current official URLs, and every landed fact was then fetched directly from the publisher: the Justice Laws Website for the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations and the Canada Business Corporations Act; IRCC and ESDC for immigration status and social insurance numbers; Corporations Canada and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada for incorporation, naming, annual filings and transparency; the Canada Revenue Agency for structures, program accounts, sales tax, payroll and provincial allocation; each province's own legislation and government sites for director residency and registry practice; and the Ville de Montréal for the municipal layer. Four parallel research passes covered immigration, CRA registrations, federal incorporation mechanics and the thirteen provincial registries. The full fetch log, including every failure, is in the research pack for this page.

No fee, threshold, rate or deadline here was written from memory. Many URLs that looked correct from prior knowledge returned 404, and the current slug was located from each site's own navigation before anything was cited. Three findings contradict widely repeated guidance and were re-verified: an ordinary federal online incorporation no longer requires a Nuans report; the off-campus study permit limit is 24 hours per week rather than 20; and Manitoba is now the only province or territory with a resident- Canadian director quota, several provinces having repealed theirs between 2020 and 2023.

Several things could not be verified and are deliberately not asserted. No official page states whether an open work permit authorizes self-employment as a general rule, and none states that an employer-specific permit forbids it. No IRCC page addresses whether a visitor may own shares in a Canadian company; the conclusion that ownership and work are separate questions is drawn from the structure of two statutes that do not cross-reference each other, not from a government statement. The frequently repeated claim that C11 requires 51 percent ownership does not appear in the official instruction. Registry fees are not stated in the province index: several schedules are stale or internally contested, no Quebec dollar figure could be verified at all, and Alberta's total cost is unknowable in advance. CanLII was unreachable throughout (HTTP 403 on every attempt), so provincial statutes were read on each jurisdiction's own legislation site; Nunavut's consolidated Act is stamped current only to 2015. Workers' compensation thresholds, provincial name rules and provincial annual-filing deadlines were not individually verified and are left to each province guide. Innovation Canada's Business Benefits Finder returned no static text and is not cited. CRA's corporation tax rate page carries its own stamp of 30 May 2025; the rates quoted are what it showed on the verification date.

Nothing here was tested against a live application: no incorporation filed, no CRA account opened, no permit applied for, no bank approached. Immigration programs, registry fees and tax thresholds change without notice, and a page verified today can be wrong next quarter. This is educational planning material, not legal, tax, accounting, immigration or banking advice. Your immigration status is determined by IRCC alone.

Frequently asked questions

Can I start a business in Canada while on a work permit?

You can own shares regardless of permit type, because the Canada Business Corporations Act imposes no citizenship or residency requirement on shareholders [6]. Whether you may work in that business depends on your permit. An employer-specific permit names "the employer, location and occupation" and you "must comply with all the information listed" on it [8]. No IRCC page resolves the self-employment question for open permits either way, so ask IRCC about your specific permit.

Can an international student run a business in Canada?

IRCC has a "Self-employed students" section that applies the off-campus rules to self-employment, requiring you to keep "track of the hours you work off campus" [7]. The cap is 24 hours per week during a regular academic session [2]. IRCC contemplates and regulates self-employment for students; it does not expressly authorize it, so confirm your own situation with IRCC.

Can a visitor own a Canadian corporation?

Nothing in the work provisions addresses ownership, and the CBCA imposes no immigration condition on shareholders [6]. But a visitor may not work [4], and running the business is work. The business-visitor exemption cannot cover a Canadian business, because it requires that profits "remain predominately outside Canada" [3]. We found no IRCC page addressing ownership by a visitor directly.

Should I incorporate or stay a sole proprietor?

Incorporate when you have investors or co-founders, real liability exposure, profit you intend to retain in the business, or a counterparty that requires it. A sole proprietorship "does not have separate legal status from the business" and "The risks extend even to your personal property and assets" [25], but it costs nothing to maintain. A corporation's 9 percent small-business rate only helps if profit stays inside the company [28].

Do I still need a NUANS report to incorporate federally?

Not for an ordinary online incorporation. Corporations Canada states: "You don't need to order a Nuans report before incorporating online with a word name. The corporate name search is now part of the federal incorporation process" [16]. Reports are still required for revival, amalgamation and all co-operative filings, and remain "valid for 90 days only" [17].

When do I have to register for GST/HST?

When you stop being a small supplier and make taxable supplies in Canada. The threshold is $30,000, tested over four consecutive calendar quarters or in a single quarter — and if a single quarter takes you over, registration is effective "no later than the day of the supply that made you exceed $30,000" [30]. Taxi and ride-share drivers must register regardless of the threshold [30].

Does incorporating federally register me everywhere in Canada?

No. Name protection is national, but "Provincial and territorial legislation requires you to register your federal corporation in each province and territory in which it will conduct business", where conducting business "typically includes: having an address, a post office box or a phone number in a province or territory, or offering services or products" there [21].

Can all of my directors live outside Canada?

Not under the CBCA in the ordinary case: "at least twenty-five per cent of the directors of a corporation must be resident Canadians", and "if a corporation has less than four directors, at least one director must be a resident Canadian" [6]. Most provinces impose no such rule — Manitoba is the only one that still does, requiring that "at least 25% of a corporation's directors must be residents of Canada" [35]. That difference is a common reason to incorporate provincially.

Start a business in Canada as a resident