Start a business in British Columbia

Direct answer

British Columbia incorporates companies through BC Registries and Online Services under the Business Corporations Act. The sequence is a Name Request, then signed articles and an incorporation agreement that you keep rather than file, then an incorporation application filed electronically. The published fees are $30 for the name and $350 for the incorporation, and a standard name request takes about 7 to 14 days. Two features make British Columbia unusual. There is no director-residency requirement anywhere in the statute, so a board composed entirely of non-residents is lawful. And the company must maintain two addresses inside British Columbia, a registered office and a records office, each with a delivery address open to the public between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on business days, and neither of which may be a post office box. Sales tax is GST at 5% plus a separate provincial sales tax at 7%; there is no HST.

British Columbia at a glance

A worked example, end to end

Abstract rules are easy to agree with and hard to act on, so here is a single company carried from an idea to its first annual report. Every figure and deadline below is the published one, cited where it first appears; the names, dates and business are invented to make the sequence concrete. Treat the day counts as the published processing estimates they are, not as guarantees — BC Registries publishes current processing times separately and they move [37].

The founder. Priya is a permanent resident living in Vancouver. She will consult on data engineering, initially alone, hiring one employee in the second year. She wants a BC limited company, a name rather than a number, and a business account at a Canadian bank.

Monday 2 March 2026 — decide the form, then the name. She confirms from the province's own list that a "BC corporation" is the right vehicle rather than a sole proprietorship, a benefit company or a cooperative association [14]. She drafts three candidate names in the registry's three-part shape — a distinctive element, a descriptive element and a corporate designation — because the Name Request lets her submit "a maximum of three names which will be considered in the order provided", and a weak first choice simply wastes the first slot [9].

Monday 2 March — submit the Name Request. Cost so far: $30. She files it online and pays $30. Standard processing is "about 7 to 14 days"; priority service is $100 for approval in 1 to 2 business days, which she declines because nothing is time-critical [8]. Had she needed to incorporate the same week, the numbered-company route would have removed the name request from the critical path entirely: "If you wish to incorporate using an incorporation number as the company, name approval is not required" [9].

Tuesday 10 March — approval, and a 56-day clock starts. Her first choice is approved and she receives a reservation number. "Once a name request is approved, it's reserved for 56 days", which the statute frames as 56 days "or any longer period that the registrar considers appropriate", with an extension available on a request made before the reservation expires [9] [1]. Her outside date to incorporate on this reservation is therefore Friday 5 May 2026. She notes it.

Wednesday 11 March — settle the two BC addresses before drafting anything. This is the step founders skip and then have to redo. The company will need a registered office and a records office, both in British Columbia, each with a delivery address "accessible to the public between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on business days" and neither a post office box [11]. Priya works from home and her landlord permits business use, so she uses her Vancouver residence for both, which the Act expressly allows: "The registered office and the records office may be located at the same place" [1]. A founder without a suitable BC address has to arrange one — usually with a lawyer or an accountant who will accept service and hold the minute book — and that arrangement is a real engagement to negotiate now, not a box to tick at filing time.

Wednesday 11 March — draft the articles and the incorporation agreement. Neither is filed. The articles set the company's internal rules and must state every restriction on its business and powers and the special rights or restrictions attaching to each class and series of shares; the incorporation agreement records each incorporator's agreement to take shares, with a signature line, the date of signing and the number of shares taken [1]. Priya authorizes an unlimited number of common shares without par value and takes 100 of them.

Thursday 12 March — sign, then have the completing party examine. Priya is the sole incorporator and also the completing party. Before filing she must "examine the articles and incorporation agreement to ensure that both are endorsed", designate as incorporators "all of those persons who have endorsed both the articles and the incorporation agreement and no other persons", and complete the completing party statement in the application [1]. A record is endorsed only if it "contains a signature line for each signatory with the name of that signatory set out legibly under the signature line", an original signature sits on each line, and the completing party has no reason to doubt the signature [1]. A scan of an unlabelled signature block fails this test.

Thursday 12 March — file the incorporation application. Cost so far: $380. She goes to Corporate Online and files without creating an account: the services on the "No Login Required" menu "are available to all of the Corporate Registry's customers without the necessity of logging in", and in that mode "you must pay by credit card" [39]. The site accepts "Visa, Visa Debit, MasterCard, Debit MasterCard or American Express" and takes filings between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. Monday to Saturday and 1:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Sunday [38]. She pays $350. The company exists at that moment: it is incorporated on the date and time the application is filed unless a later date is specified, and the registrar then issues the certificate [1].

Thursday 12 March, an hour later — the housekeeping that has no deadline and no reminder. She saves the certificate of incorporation and the notice of articles. She delivers the originally signed articles and incorporation agreement to the records office, which is the completing party's second statutory duty and is owed "after the company is incorporated" [1]. She actually issues her 100 shares and opens the central securities register and the register of directors, because a company that never issues shares has no shareholders and a transparency register with nothing in it is wrong rather than empty.

Friday 13 March — the transparency register. Priya holds 100% of the shares, so she is a significant individual on both statutory bases at once: 25% or more of the issued shares, and the ability to elect or remove a majority of the directors [3]. She records her full name, date of birth, last known address, citizenship, Canadian tax residency, the date she became a significant individual, and a description of how she is one, and files the register in the records office. It goes nowhere else: "There is no requirement to send the transparency register anywhere" [42].

Friday 13 March — find the business number, do not request one. Incorporating in British Columbia produces a federal business number automatically, and with it "a CRA corporation income tax (RC) program account as a part of that process" [27]. Priya locates the assigned BN rather than registering afresh, which is how companies end up with two identities in CRA systems.

April to June — the tax registrations, each on its own trigger. She does not register for GST/HST on day one: she stays a small supplier while worldwide taxable supplies are "$30,000 or less in any single calendar quarter and in the last four consecutive calendar quarters" [28]. She does register for PST, because she is located in British Columbia and will sell software services; online registration takes "approximately 15 to 25 minutes" but the account itself "can take up to 21 business days to be processed", so she starts it well before her first invoice [43]. She has no employees yet, so there is no payroll account, no WorkSafeBC registration and no employer health tax.

Year two, before the first hire. WorkSafeBC coverage has to be in place before the worker starts, and the board recommends "submitting your application 30 days before starting your business or hiring a worker" [48]. Priya, as an owner-shareholder working in her own company, is not automatically covered by the company's account and buys Personal Coverage separately [26]. Her payroll is far below $1,000,000, so no employer health tax is payable and no EHT registration is required [22].

By 12 May 2027 — the first annual report. The recognition date is 12 March 2026, and a company "must annually, within 2 months after each anniversary of the date on which the company was recognized, file with the registrar an annual report" [1]. The fee is $43.39 plus a $1.50 BC OnLine service fee [12]. Note what the deadline is keyed to: the anniversary of recognition, not the fiscal year end and not the calendar year. A company incorporated on 12 March files by 12 May every year regardless of when it closes its books.

Total cash to the registry in year one: $380. In every later year: $44.89. What that number conceals is everything with no fee attached — the records office that must exist, the register that must be accurate, the two-month window that nobody will chase, and the municipal licence, which is a separate authority with its own calendar.

Choosing the legal form

The province publishes a fixed menu, and the fee, filing route and governing statute all follow from which one you pick. The official list covers the sole proprietorship, general partnership, limited partnership, limited liability partnership, BC corporation, federal corporation, benefit company, community contribution company and cooperative association — the last two respectively "a hybrid entity that bridges the gap between for-profit and non-profit organizations" and "an incorporated membership organization owned and operated by the people who use and benefit from its services" [14].

Two structural points are worth extracting from that table.

The unincorporated forms are name registrations, not entities. A sole proprietorship or general partnership registration buys you the right to trade under a name and nothing else — no separate legal person, no limited liability, and, notably, no exclusive right to the name: only "incorporated companies, cooperatives and societies" get exclusive name use in British Columbia [9]. A proprietor who registers "Pacific Data Works" has not stopped a company from later incorporating something confusingly close to it.

The filing channel is not one system. British Columbia runs several portals and they are not interchangeable. The Business Registry account handles name requests, sole proprietorships, general partnerships, benefit companies and cooperative associations, and the province states plainly: "You cannot use the Business Registry to make filings for limited companies." Ordinary limited companies file through Corporate Online instead [36]. Choosing the benefit-company form therefore changes which website you file on, which surprises people who have already learned Corporate Online.

A federal corporation is on the province's list because the Canada Business Corporations Act is a real alternative for activity that will not stay in one province. It is not a way around British Columbia: a federal corporation carrying on business here registers extraprovincially on the same terms as an Alberta or Ontario one, and the City of Vancouver will not license it on the federal certificate alone. The trade-off is set out in the federal-versus-provincial comparison.

Stage 1: the Name Request

British Columbia separates naming from incorporating. You obtain an approved Name Request first, and the incorporation application quotes its reservation number [1].

What the registry is actually assessing

The registry expects a three-part name: a distinctive element, which "is what sets it apart from other names"; a descriptive element, which "describes the nature of the business"; and a corporate designation, because "incorporated companies, cooperatives and societies must have a corporate designation" [9]. "Fraser Loop" is distinctive, "Analytics" is descriptive, "Inc." is the designation. A name that is all description — "Vancouver Data Analytics Inc." — is the most common rejection shape, because it has nothing to distinguish it from every other record with those words.

Published rejection categories include obscene wording, slurs, the word "government", a well-known trademark used without consent, and anything implying a Crown connection [9].

The mechanics, and the two clocks

Submission accepts up to three names, and the order matters: the registry considers "a maximum of three names which will be considered in the order provided", so the list is a ranked preference and not a set of alternatives weighed together [9]. The fee is $30 standard, and the registry says processing takes "about 7 to 14 days"; priority service costs $100 for approval within 1 to 2 business days [8]. BC Registries publishes a separate live processing-times page that a founder planning a hard date should check on the day rather than relying on the general estimate [37].

Then the second clock. "Once a name request is approved, it's reserved for 56 days", which the statute frames as 56 days "or any longer period that the registrar considers appropriate"; an extension is available, but the request has to be made before the reservation expires [9] [1]. Letting it lapse means paying $30 and waiting again, with no guarantee the name is still free.

When to skip the name entirely

If a deadline matters — a signing date, a funding close, a licence application — the numbered-company route removes the name request from the critical path: "If you wish to incorporate using an incorporation number as the company, name approval is not required", and a trade name can be adopted later [9]. The company becomes "1456789 B.C. Ltd." and can trade under a registered business name afterwards. This costs nothing except the aesthetics of the first bank statement.

Two limits on what approval means. Name approval is a registry decision about confusion between records; it is not a trademark search and confers no trademark rights. And approval binds only the corporate registry — it says nothing about whether a municipality, a professional regulator or a domain registrar will let you use the same words.

Stage 2: articles, incorporation agreement and the application

The Act builds a company from three documents, only one of which is filed. Getting this wrong is not fatal but it is expensive to unwind, because two of the three are the documents nobody ever asks you for until a purchaser's lawyer does.

The three documents

Section 10 forms a company by entering into an incorporation agreement, filing an incorporation application, and complying with Part 2 [1].

• The incorporation agreement records each incorporator's agreement to take shares in that incorporator's own name, with a signature line, the date of signing and the number of shares taken. It is signed and kept, never filed.
• The articles set the company's internal rules and must state every restriction on its business and powers, and the special rights or restrictions attached to each class and series of shares [1]. Also signed and kept, never filed. The registry confirms the agreement "must be signed by each person (incorporator) forming the company" and is kept in the company's records [8].
• The incorporation application, containing the notice of articles, is the only public document. It sets out the company name, each director's full name and prescribed address, the registered office and the records office each by mailing and delivery address, and the authorized share structure [1].

The consequence is worth stating plainly: the public record shows your directors, your two BC addresses and your share structure, and shows nothing about who owns the shares. Ownership lives in the central securities register and the transparency register, both of which are private records held by the company.

Field by field through the notice of articles

The registry's Form 1 instructions are the operative guide to what each field will and will not accept [11].

The completing party carries a real duty

A named individual, the completing party, must, before the application is filed, examine both the articles and the incorporation agreement to confirm each is "endorsed", designate as incorporators exactly those signatories and no others, and complete the completing-party statement; and after incorporation, deliver the originally signed documents to the delivery address of the records office, or mail them there by registered mail [1]. "Endorsed" is defined: a signature line for each signatory with the name set out legibly underneath, an original signature on each such line, and no reason to believe a signature is not that person's [1].

The registry adds that the completing party is "also the individual who files the Incorporation Application electronically on Corporate Online" [11]. In practice this means one person is personally attesting to the state of documents that nobody at the registry will ever see.

The filing channel, and what a non-resident does not need

The company is incorporated on the date and time the application is filed, unless a later date is specified, and the registrar then issues the certificate [1]. British Columbia therefore has no meaningful processing time for incorporation itself; the delay lives in the name request. Nor does it funnel filings through intermediaries — founders are told to "Apply using Corporate Online" directly [8], which is materially different from Alberta, where an incorporation must be filed through an authorized registry agent whose service fee is not regulated [61].

Three practical points about the channel itself.

No account is needed to incorporate. The incorporation application sits on Corporate Online's "No Login Required" menu, and in that mode payment is by credit card [39]. There is no identity check, no BC Services Card and no in-person step. That matters most to founders abroad: the BC Services Card, the province's strongest login credential, is explicitly for residents — "The BC Services Card provides access to government services for B.C. residents" [41] — while a Basic BCeID is completed entirely online with "Requirements at a glance: None." [40]. Neither is a prerequisite for the no-login incorporation path.

The customer profile can only come afterwards. A Corporate Online customer profile requires "the incorporation number and password for a BC company", so it cannot exist before the company does, and "There can only be one customer profile for a company" [39]. The company access code is sent to the company email address or the registered office mailing address — and if that address is out of date, recovering access means filing "a Notice of Change of Address on paper along with covering letter" [39]. A stale registered-office mailing address is therefore not only a dissolution risk; it can lock you out of your own filings.

Filings can be future-dated, and drafts do not live forever. Incorporation applications may be given a later effective date, and drafts are held in the "Your Work" area for up to six months [39]. Future dating is the clean way to align an incorporation with a fiscal year or a closing.

Stage 3: directors and the residency question

The claim that British Columbia imposes no director-residency requirement is correct, and it can be verified without trusting any incorporation service. It is also the single most consequential fact on this page for a founder outside Canada, so it is worth seeing how the verification works rather than taking the conclusion.

How the statute establishes it, by exhaustion

Section 120 states the whole quantitative rule: "A company must have at least one director and, in the case of a public company, must have at least 3 directors." Section 124 then gives the complete list of disqualifications — under 18, judicially found incapable of managing one's own affairs, subject to an uncancelled certificate of incapability, an undischarged bankrupt, or convicted of certain business or fraud offences [2]. Residency and citizenship appear nowhere in it.

This is a negative finding, and negative findings are only as good as the reading behind them. The way to establish "there is no rule" is to read the provision that would contain the rule if it existed and confirm the list is closed, rather than to search for the phrase and conclude from silence. Section 124 is drafted as an exhaustive list of who is disqualified, so a condition absent from it is not a condition. One non-resident individual may be sole director, sole officer and sole shareholder of a British Columbia company.

Compare the two provinces founders usually weigh against BC, both of which reached the same place recently but by repeal rather than by never having had the rule. Ontario's Business Corporations Act subsection 118(3), which required that at least 25% of directors be resident Canadians, is now marked "Repealed: 2020, c. 34, Sched. 1, s. 5", in force 5 July 2021 [57]. Alberta's equivalent, section 105(3) of its Business Corporations Act, reads "Repealed 2020 c25 s1" [60]. British Columbia never imposed one, which is why its statute has no repeal note to find — and why searching a BC consolidation for "repealed residency" produces nothing and proves nothing.

Two qualifications that survive the absence of a residency rule

A director must give a real address. It is either the office where the individual "can usually be served with records between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on business days" or the individual's residence, and in either case "the delivery address must not be a post office box" [11]. The Form 1 director block carries province/state and country fields, so a foreign address is plainly contemplated. But it must be somewhere records can be served in those hours, and it goes on the public record. A director who does not want a home address published needs a real office, not a mail drop.

Corporate-law residency and tax residency are different questions. A corporation incorporated in Canada after 26 April 1965 is deemed resident here under paragraph 250(4)(a) of the Income Tax Act, while the common-law test separately asks where "central management and control" is actually exercised, and subsection 250(5) can deem a corporation non-resident where a treaty tie-breaker so provides [54] [29]. A board meeting entirely abroad is lawful — section 140 allows participation "by telephone or other communications medium" unless the articles say otherwise [2] — and still raises a question worth professional advice, because the CRA's test looks at where control is exercised rather than at what the constituting documents say.

There is a second, quieter tax consequence. Canadian-controlled private corporation status requires, among other conditions, that the corporation "is not controlled directly or indirectly by one or more non-resident persons", tested with a hypothetical single person holding all the shares held by non-residents and public corporations [50]. Lose CCPC status and you lose both the 9% federal small-business rate and the 2.0% BC small-business rate, and the refundable half of the BC SR&ED credit with them. Nothing in BC corporate law prevents that structure; the cost simply lands on the tax return instead.

Keeping the director record current

A change in the directors, or in a director's address, must reach the registrar within 15 days, for $20 plus a $1.50 BC OnLine service fee, with "a separate notice … required for each date of change" [12]. The "separate notice for each date of change" rule catches companies that clean up a year of board changes in one sitting: three resignations on three different dates are three filings and three fees, not one.

The company must also keep, in its records office, the register of directors, a copy of each consent to act as a director, and a copy of each written resignation [1]. Filing the notice with the registrar does not discharge the record-keeping duty; they are separate obligations with separate homes.

Stage 4: two offices, both inside British Columbia

This is what surprises founders arriving from Ontario or Quebec, and it decides whether an out-of-province address service can be used at all. British Columbia is one of the few provinces that requires two statutory offices rather than one, and the Act devotes eight sections to what happens to them.

The requirement

Section 11 requires the notice of articles to identify the registered office by mailing and delivery address and — in a separate paragraph — the records office by mailing and delivery address. Section 34(1) then provides that, subject to section 40, "a company must maintain a registered office and a records office in British Columbia", and section 34(2) permits them to share a location [1]. Section 34(3) fixes the first addresses as those shown on the notice of articles applying to the company on its recognition.

The registry's form instructions supply the operative constraint in near-identical terms for each office:

• Registered office: "The delivery address must be for a location in British Columbia that is accessible to the public between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on business days for the delivery of records or notices. The address must not be a post office box."
• Records office: "The delivery address must be for a location in British Columbia that is accessible to the public between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on business days for inspection of records. The address must not be a post office box." [11]

Read the two purposes side by side, because they are different jobs. The registered office is where things are delivered to the company: service of legal process, registry notices, the annual report reminder. The records office is where members of the public with a statutory entitlement come to look at the company's records. One receives, the other exhibits. A single address can do both, but an arrangement that satisfies one does not automatically satisfy the other — a lawyer who agrees to accept service has not thereby agreed to host inspections of your minute book, and vice versa.

Three things follow. The offices are legally distinct even when co-located. Each address must be in British Columbia, which rules out an address anywhere else in Canada — Montreal included. And the public-access window is not decorative: it is how service and inspection actually happen, and the Act builds real remedies on the assumption that someone is there.

The registered office's mailing address does separate work: it receives the annual report reminder and "any notice of dissolution from the Corporate Registry should the company fail to file its annual reports for two consecutive years" [11]. A company that lets it go stale can be struck without seeing the warning — and, as noted above, can also lose the ability to recover its Corporate Online access code [39].

Moving an office: ss. 35 to 38

Changing either office is a $20 filing plus the $1.50 service fee [12]. The statutory machinery around that small filing is more interesting than the fee.

• Section 35 — the company moves its own office. The company files a notice of change of address, and it may do so only if the change has been authorized "in any manner required or permitted by the articles" or, if the articles are silent, "by a directors' resolution". Subsection (3) then adds a protection for third parties: the change takes effect "whether or not the change of address has been authorized". An unauthorized filing is still effective against the world, which is why the address field is a governance question and not an administrative one.
• Section 36 — the agent moves. A person who maintains the registered office or records office of one or more companies at their own place of business or residence must file a notice of change of address when that place changes — before the change if possible, and "promptly after" if not. And if that person is not the company's only director, they must send a copy of the notice to a director who is not themselves. This is the provision that protects a company whose lawyer relocates: the lawyer, not the company, carries the filing duty.
• Section 37 — when it bites. A change takes effect "at the beginning of the day following the date on which the notice of change of address is filed", or on a later specified date if one is given. So the change is never same-day, and it can be scheduled.
• Section 38 — undo. At any time after filing and before the change takes effect, the company or another appropriate person may withdraw the notice by filing a notice of withdrawal. That one-day window is the only clean way to reverse a mistaken address filing. [1]

What happens when the agent wants out: ss. 39 to 41

These sections are rarely read and they are the ones that decide what actually happens when a founder abroad stops paying, or stops answering, the person holding their BC offices. Note that the three routes have different destinations, which is easy to blur.

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

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

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

Two inferences a founder should draw, and they are inferences rather than statutory statements, so they are labelled as such.

First, sections 39 and 41 both target "the British Columbia residence of a director or officer". A company whose entire board lives abroad offers no such target. The route that remains open to an abandoned agent is therefore section 40 — elimination of the registered office by court order — which leaves the company existing but with service effected only in whatever manner a judge specified in an order the company was not present to argue about. That is a materially worse position than simply appointing a new agent, and it is the concrete downside of treating the BC office as a subscription rather than a relationship.

Second, section 34(1) is expressly made "subject to section 40". A company that has had its registered office eliminated is not in breach of the two-office requirement; it is in the statutory state section 40 creates. Which is not comfort — it is the reason the elimination route exists at all.

The records office is not a mailbox: s. 42

The records office has a defined contents list, and it is long. Section 42(1) requires a company to keep there its certificate of incorporation (and any certificate of conversion, amalgamation, continuation, change of name or restoration); copies of every entered court order and registrar's order made in respect of the company; its central securities register, unless the directors designate another location, in which case the records office must hold a notice identifying where it is; its register of directors; a copy of each consent to act as a director and each written resignation; the minutes of every shareholders' meeting; consent resolutions of shareholders; the complete text of resolutions passed at shareholders' meetings; the minutes of every directors' or committee meeting with a list of directors present; directors' consent resolutions and resolution texts; written records of disclosures of conflict by current directors and senior officers; written dissents; the audited financial statements and auditor's reports, or the most recent financial statements where there is no audit; and, for a community contribution company or a benefit company, each community contribution report or benefit report [1].

Section 42(2) adds the constitutional documents: the set of articles that applied on recognition, any table adopted as articles, a replacement set where the articles have been wholly replaced together with a copy of what they replaced, every resolution altering the articles, and — for a company incorporated under the Act — "the signed copy of the incorporation agreement referred to in section 15 (1) (b)". A company continued into British Columbia must additionally keep the records its former jurisdiction required of it for the period before continuation [1].

Two escape valves exist and both are narrow. Under section 43(1), the meeting minutes, resolutions, dissents and financial statements may be kept elsewhere after seven years, provided they can be produced from that other location by the person who maintains the records office "on 48 hours' notice, not including Saturdays and holidays". Under section 43(2), any of the records may sit elsewhere so long as they remain available for inspection and copying at the records office "by means of a computer terminal or other electronic technology" [1]. That second provision is what makes a cloud-hosted minute book workable — but note what it requires: a terminal at the records office through which the records can actually be inspected, not merely a link the company could email if asked.

Section 44 then imposes duties of care on the company, on the person who maintains the records office, and on any other agent with a record-keeping duty: keep the records "in a complete state", "avoid loss, mutilation and destruction", "avoid falsification of entries", and "provide simple, reliable and prompt access". Records must be deposited "promptly after the company's preparation or receipt" of them, and the person maintaining the records office must date- and time-stamp certain deposited records on receipt [1].

Section 45 is the cure for the common disaster. Where the court is satisfied that a record "has been destroyed, is lost, was never created or is otherwise not accessible", it may on the application of an interested person declare what the record should have contained and "declare the record to have existed with full legal effect" from the date of recognition or another date. That is the statutory answer to a minute book that was never actually written — and it is a court application, which is a great deal more expensive than having kept the book.

Who may inspect, and what happens if you refuse: ss. 46 to 50

Inspection rights are graduated rather than binary [1].

Inspection "may be conducted during statutory business hours", and a company may by ordinary resolution restrict the times at which anyone other than a current director inspects — but only within limits the section itself preserves. A person entitled to inspect may also require a copy on payment of a copying fee capped at the prescribed amount, delivered promptly, or within 48 hours where the record is one kept off-site under section 43(1); and a shareholder is entitled without charge to a copy of the notice of articles and the articles [1].

The enforcement path in section 50 is the part worth knowing before you decline a request. A person refused a list, an inspection or a copy applies in writing to the registrar. If it appears to the registrar that access was wrongly refused, the registrar notifies the company that an order will issue unless, within 15 days, the company provides either the record or "a signed statement of a director or officer of the company setting out why the applicant is not entitled" to it. If the company provides neither, the registrar must order it to provide one or the other, and the company must comply "within 10 days after the date of the order". Only then does the matter reach the court [1]. The design is deliberate: ignoring a records request escalates to a registrar's order automatically, on a 15-day clock, without the requester having to sue anybody.

Section 49 sits alongside as a separate right: any person may apply for a list of shareholders' names, addresses and shareholdings, on an affidavit stating that the list will be used only for one of five permitted purposes — influencing a shareholder vote, acquiring or selling the company's securities, effecting an amalgamation or reorganization, requisitioning a meeting, or identifying the shareholders of an unlimited liability company. The list must be current to a date no more than 14 days before the application was received [1]. So although the registry does not publish who owns a BC company, the company itself can be compelled to disclose its shareholders of record to a stranger with one of those five purposes. That is a meaningfully different privacy position from the one people assume when they read "ownership is not public".

Stage 5: the transparency register

British Columbia's beneficial-ownership regime is a records-office obligation, not a filing. Part 4.1 requires a private company to take reasonable steps to maintain a transparency register of its significant individuals [3]. The Act keeps it deliberately outside the ordinary records regime: section 41.1 provides that the records-office Division "does not apply to a transparency register except as specified in Part 4.1" [1], so the general inspection rights in section 46 do not reach it.

Who is a significant individual, and what goes in the register

An individual is significant on either of two independent bases: holding 25% or more of the issued shares or of the votes at general meetings, or being able to elect or remove a majority of the directors [3]. The two limbs are alternatives, which matters for structures where control and economics are deliberately separated — a shareholders' agreement giving one party the right to appoint the board makes that party significant even below 25% of the equity.

Each entry records full name, date of birth, last known address, citizenship, Canadian tax residency, the dates of becoming and ceasing to be significant, and a description of how the individual is significant — recorded within 30 days of the company becoming aware of it [3] [15].

The obligation is to take reasonable steps, not to achieve certainty. Where shares are held through a holding company, a trust or a foreign entity, the duty is to trace through those layers to the individuals behind them, and to record what the steps produced. A register that stops at "held by 1234567 B.C. Ltd." has not discharged the duty; it has recorded the obstacle.

Access is narrow, and nothing is filed

Inspection is limited to current directors, police and the RCMP, the CRA and BC tax authorities, the BC Securities Commission, the BC Financial Services Authority, FINTRAC and the Law Society of British Columbia, "between 9 am to 4 pm Monday through Friday" — which is precisely why the records office has to be a place open in those hours [15]. And nothing is submitted: "There is no requirement to send the transparency register anywhere. The transparency register is a document that will be kept in the company's records office" [42].

That is the trap. There is no filing deadline, no reminder, no fee and no rejection notice — nothing in the system will ever tell you the register is missing or wrong. The first party to ask for it is usually a bank, an acquirer's lawyer or an auditor, at the point where not having it is most expensive.

Note also that the register serves an audience outside the Act. A Canadian financial institution onboarding your company has its own FINTRAC obligation to obtain beneficial-ownership information — the individuals "who directly or indirectly own or control at least 25%" — and to take reasonable measures to confirm its accuracy that "cannot be the same as the measures you used to obtain the information"; where it cannot obtain or confirm the information it must instead verify the identity of the entity's chief executive officer and "apply the special measures for high-risk clients, including enhanced ongoing monitoring" [55]. A company that cannot produce a coherent ownership trace does not merely fail a formality; it gets onboarded as a higher-risk client, if at all.

The penalties are not nominal

Section 427.1 makes it an offence for a private company's register to name someone who is not a significant individual, omit one who is, or contain materially false or misleading information, and extends liability to directors and officers who authorize, permit or acquiesce. Section 428(2.1) sets the maximum at "$100 000" for a person other than an individual and "$50 000" for an individual [5]. A register that overstates is an offence on the same footing as one that omits, which is worth knowing before anyone "just puts everyone on it to be safe".

What is and is not public today

Two claims circulate and both need care.

The first is that British Columbia now operates a public register of company owners. It has legislated toward one, and the detail of what was legislated is worth reading, because it tells you what will change if and when the provisions commence.

Bill 20 – 2023, the Business Corporations Amendment Act, 2023, would add section 119.52, requiring a private company that must maintain a transparency register to file that information with the registrar "within 6 months after the date the company is … recognized under this Act", again "within 15 days after the date the company becomes aware … of any information that is new or different", and "annually within the prescribed period". It would shorten the company's own internal update window from 30 days to 15. It would add the significant individual's social insurance number and CRA individual tax number to the fields the company records. And it would create a public search under a new section 399.44, under which "a member of the public may search in the registrar's transparency register" the individual's full name and year of birth, whether they are a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, and if not, every country of citizenship — with the express restriction that "the registrar must not make the information … available … until 90 days after the date that the company filed that information". A companion section 399.45 would prohibit a searcher from using the results to solicit or harass. [6]

None of that is in force. The Bill's own commencement section provides that "Sections 1 to 14" and "Sections 16 to 23" come into force "By regulation of the Lieutenant Governor in Council", with only the residue commencing on Royal Assent [6]. The filing duty and the public search both sit inside those blocks. And the Business Corporations Act consolidation current to 1 September 2026 contains no in-force filing obligation and no public central register [3]. The text on BC Laws is also the First Reading version, which is a further reason not to read any of it as the current law.

So: treat the public register as pending, verify its status before advising anyone either way, and keep the internal register regardless — the internal duty is in force now and does not depend on the Bill at all. A company that maintains an accurate register today will find the eventual filing to be a data-entry exercise; one that has never built it will be reconstructing ownership history against a six-month clock.

The second claim is that the Land Title and Survey Authority administers the corporate transparency register. It does not. The LTSA administers the Land Owner Transparency Registry, "a registry of information about individuals who are deemed to have an indirect interest in land", under the Land Owner Transparency Act; its public search opened on 30 April 2021 and pre-existing interests had to be reported by 30 November 2022 [16]. That regime is real, public, and will catch a BC company that buys land — but it is a land registry, not a companies registry, and neither obligation substitutes for the other. A BC company that acquires an interest in land therefore has two beneficial-ownership obligations running in parallel, on different tests, with different audiences, one of them public.

Stage 6: business number, program accounts and corporate income tax

British Columbia is wired into the federal business number. The CRA states that "You will receive a BN when you register or incorporate with the following provinces: Alberta, British Columbia, …", and that incorporating in one of them also produces "a CRA corporation income tax (RC) program account as a part of that process" [27].

Two habits follow. Locate the assigned BN and RC account before contacting the CRA, because attempting a fresh registration is how a company acquires duplicate identities. And do not read the automatic RC account as registration for anything else: GST/HST (RT), payroll (RP) and import/export (RM) are separate accounts opened when the activity requires them. A founder outside Canada whose company was not incorporated in Canada — an extraprovincial registrant, say — uses the CRA's Non-Resident Business Registration online form instead, which applies where "your business is incorporated outside Canada; your business is located outside Canada; your SIN starts with 0; you do not have a SIN", and requires no SIN at all [53].

The rate stack, and a worked calculation

British Columbia's rates are only half of what a company pays. Federally, "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%" [49]. Provincially, the general rate has been 12.0% since 1 January 2018 and the small business rate 2.0% since 1 April 2017, and "The lower small business rate applies to active business income up to the B.C. business limit of: $500,000 effective January 1, 2010" [18]. CRA's own provincial table reproduces British Columbia at a 2% lower rate, a 12% higher rate and a $500,000 business limit, which is a useful cross-check [49].

The arithmetic is simple and the consequence is not. On $200,000 of active business income, a CCPC pays roughly $22,000 combined; the same company on the same profit, if control passes to non-residents and CCPC status is lost, pays roughly $54,000. The difference is not a BC rule and cannot be fixed in British Columbia — it is the federal CCPC definition, which requires among other things that the corporation "is not controlled directly or indirectly by one or more non-resident persons", tested by asking whether a hypothetical single person holding all non-resident- and public-corporation-held shares would control the company [50]. Founders who choose British Columbia specifically because it has no director-residency rule need to model this before they incorporate, not after their first year end.

Sales tax: GST plus PST, no HST

British Columbia is a non-participating province, so a vendor here deals with two taxes, two registrations, two returns and two sets of rules that do not align. The CRA's own rate table gives British Columbia as GST 5% with a separate provincial sales tax of 7% [52]; the province confirms that "Generally, the rate of PST is 7% on the purchase or lease price of goods and services, with some exceptions" [19].

GST/HST: the threshold and the clock after it

A person remains a small supplier while the "total amount of all revenues (before expenses) from your worldwide taxable supplies" is "$30,000 or less in any single calendar quarter and in the last four consecutive calendar quarters" [28]. The threshold counts worldwide supplies, not British Columbia sales, which catches founders who assume a small local turnover keeps them out.

Crossing it starts two different clocks depending on how you crossed:

• Exceed $30,000 in a single calendar quarter and you are no longer a small supplier immediately: "You have to charge GST/HST on the supply that made you exceed $30,000 within the calendar quarter", and the effective date of registration is "no later than the day of the supply that made you exceed $30,000".
• Exceed it over the previous four or fewer consecutive quarters without breaching in any single one, and you cease to be a small supplier "at the end of the month following the quarter in which you exceed $30,000", with the effective date being the day of the first supply made after that.

In both cases, "You will have to register within 29 days of your effective date of registration" [51]. The 29-day window is the part people miss: the obligation to charge tax can begin before the registration exists, which means either registering early or reissuing invoices.

PST: a separate test, a separate registry, a separate return

PST registration has its own trigger set, and none of it keys off the GST threshold.

The inventory rule deserves emphasis because it is absolute. A seller anywhere in the world who places stock in a British Columbia fulfilment warehouse "must be registered before you sell goods held in inventory in B.C."; for leasing, the bulletin goes further and says the business is "prohibited from leasing goods in these circumstances unless you have a valid PST number" [20].

Where is your business located, for PST purposes?

The bulletin sets out its own location test, and it is not the same as any other test on this page. A business is located in British Columbia if it has a physical presence here, or has "agents or employees physically located in B.C.", or if "management and control is in B.C." — and it adds that "the management and control of a corporation is generally in B.C. if the members of the board of directors meet and hold most of their meetings in B.C." Temporary trade-show space and a contract with a fulfilment house are expressly excluded from "physical presence" [20].

Read that against the corporate-law position and the tax-residency position and you get three different answers to what looks like one question. A company incorporated in British Columbia with a wholly foreign board is: a British Columbia company for corporate law; deemed resident in Canada for income tax under paragraph 250(4)(a) [54]; and quite possibly not located in B.C. for PST, because its board does not meet here. Each rule is answering a different question and none of them controls the others.

The small-seller exception, and why it is narrower than it sounds

The small-seller relief has a premises test as well as a revenue test: "$10,000 or less in gross revenue from all retail sales of eligible goods, software and services in the previous 12 months" with the next 12 estimated the same, and the seller must "not maintain established business premises and … not regularly make retail sales from established commercial premises". A small seller does not collect PST but is "ineligible for certain PST exemptions, such as the exemption for goods obtained solely for resale" [21]. A storefront ends small-seller status regardless of revenue, and the lost resale exemption means it is not automatically the cheaper answer — a small seller pays PST on its own inventory purchases and cannot recover it.

The bulletin's test also opens with the words "You are located in B.C. but do not maintain established business premises", so the relief is unavailable to a business located outside British Columbia in the first place [21]. An out-of-province seller caught by one of the scenarios above cannot claim to be a small seller.

Registering, mechanically

Online registration "is accessible 24 hours a day" and takes "approximately 15 to 25 minutes", but the account itself "can take up to 21 business days to be processed", with further delay "if any documentation is missing from your application" [43]. Plan around the 21 days, not the 25 minutes.

Two documentary points matter. A company incorporated outside British Columbia must attach its certificate of incorporation: "if your business is not incorporated in B.C., you'll need to attach your Certificate of Incorporation". And registering locations separately produces separate numbers and separate returns — "you'll file multiple PST returns each reporting period – one for every location you register" [43]. The PST number arrives in the format PST-1234-5678.

Finally, one change is imminent rather than hypothetical. Budget 2026 expands PST to certain professional services effective 1 October 2026: businesses that "provide, on or after October 1, 2026, accounting services, architectural services, engineering or geoscience services, non-residential real estate services or security services in B.C." fall inside the registration rules [21] [43]. A professional-services firm incorporating this month should plan for that date rather than discover it.

Employees: four separate provincial obligations

Hiring triggers a federal payroll (RP) account and, separately, up to four provincial items. None of them is created by incorporating; each has its own trigger.

WorkSafeBC

"All employers are legally required to have WorkSafeBC coverage unless the employer is exempt", and a business hiring workers "full-time, part-time, casual, or contract" needs to register [24]. Non-registration is not a paperwork risk: it "is against the law", and an unregistered employer "could be responsible for both the worker's claim costs and your unpaid premiums" if a worker — including a shareholder — is injured [25]. That is unlimited exposure to a single claim, which is a different order of risk from a late-filing penalty.

On timing, no source states a hard statutory deadline measured from the first hire. What the board publishes is a recommendation and a service level: "We recommend submitting your application 30 days before starting your business or hiring a worker", and "It can take approximately 10 business days for us to review your application, gather information, and notify you of our decision"; the online application itself "will take approximately 20 minutes" [48]. Read together with the "against the law" statement, the safe reading is that coverage must exist before the worker starts, and the 30-day recommendation is how you make that true.

Personal Coverage for working owners

Owners are the gap. A sole proprietor, a partner, or an owner-shareholder working in their own company is not automatically covered, and buys Personal Coverage — the current name for what older material calls Personal Optional Protection — as separate insurance paying "health care, wage-loss, and rehabilitation benefits if you're injured at work" [26]. Founders who assume the company account covers them are frequently wrong, and discover it at the worst moment.

Employer health tax

The EHT "is an annual tax on an employer's B.C. remuneration paid to employees and former employees in a calendar year beginning on January 1, 2019", and it "is separate and distinct from remitting source deductions or MSP premiums" [44]. The reference to MSP is historical rather than live: "Medical Services Plan (MSP) premiums were eliminated as of January 1, 2020", and the EHT is what replaced them at the employer level [45]. An employer budgeting for BC payroll should not carry an MSP line at all.

Note the shape of the top band: above $1,500,000 the rate applies to the whole payroll, not only the excess. The notch is worth arithmetic. At exactly $1,500,000 the notch rate yields 5.85% × $500,000 = $29,250. At $1,500,001 the top rate yields 1.95% × $1,500,001 ≈ $29,250 — the two formulas meet, so the cliff people expect is not there. But the effective marginal rate between $1,000,000 and $1,500,000 is 5.85%, three times the rate that applies above it, which is the band where an extra hire is most expensive.

Registration is required of "Employers with B.C. remuneration greater than the exemption amount in a calendar year", through eTaxBC, "by December 31 of the first calendar year you're required to pay the employer health tax." The return is "due March 31 of the following calendar year", with instalments on 15 June, 15 September and 15 December where the previous year's tax exceeded $2,925 [23]. A first-year company with one or two founder salaries usually sits under the exemption, but the threshold has to be monitored as headcount grows — and the registration deadline is the 31 December inside the first year you cross it, not something you attend to when you file.

Employment standards

The Employment Standards Act obligations apply from the first employee and are the ones most often discovered late.

• Minimum wage. "As of June 1, 2026, minimum wage is $18.25 per hour", and it "applies to most employees regardless of how they're paid – hourly, salary, commission or on an incentive basis. If an employee's wage is below minimum wage for the hours they worked, the employer must top up their payment" [65]. Since 1 June 2021 liquor servers are paid the regular minimum wage in addition to tips.
• Pay frequency. "Employees must be paid twice per month", pay periods "cannot be longer than 16 days", and all money earned "must be paid within 8 days after the end of the pay period". An employee who reports for work "must be paid for at least 2 hours, even if they work less than 2 hours" [66].
• Wage statements. A written or electronic pay stub is required "on every payday", separate from the cheque, showing the employer's name and address, hours worked, wage rate, overtime hours, entitlements, each deduction and its purpose, how wages were calculated, gross and net wages and time-bank movements [67].
• Payroll records, and where they live. This one interacts with the records office and is easy to get wrong. Employers must keep, for each employee, name, date of birth, job title, phone number and residential address, the start date, wage rate, hours worked each day, benefits, gross and net wages per pay period, every deduction and its reason, statutory holidays and vacation taken and owed, and time-bank movements — and must keep them "in English at their principal place of business in B.C. for 4 years after each record was created" [67].

That last requirement is a third in-province location obligation, alongside the registered office and the records office, and it is not satisfied by either of them. The registered office is where things are served; the records office holds the corporate records listed in section 42, which do not include payroll; the Employment Standards Act separately requires payroll records at the principal place of business in British Columbia, in English, for four years. A company that outsources payroll to a provider outside the province should confirm in writing where the records live and that they can be produced in that form.

Provincial incentives

British Columbia's published corporate credits are narrow and rate-specific, which makes them easy to overstate. Three are worth naming precisely.

Scientific research and experimental development. The SR&ED credit gives a qualifying Canadian-controlled private corporation, or an eligible Canadian public corporation, "a refundable tax credit of 10% of the lesser of: The corporation's SR&ED qualified BC expenditure for the tax year, or The expenditure limit". The limit is $6 million; eligibility was extended to eligible Canadian public corporations for tax years beginning on or after 16 December 2024; "Budget 2026 made the scientific research and experimental development (SR&ED) tax credit permanent"; and a non-refundable 10% component covers qualified BC expenditures beyond the refundable claim, carried forward 10 years or back 3 [30]. The credit rewards work already carried out in British Columbia by people paid there, and the refundable portion turns on CCPC status — exactly what foreign control removes.

Interactive digital media. For companies developing interactive digital media products, "The tax credit rate is 25% of eligible salary and wages incurred after August 31, 2025, and 17.5% of eligible salary and wages incurred before September 1, 2025." It must be claimed "no later than 18 months after the end of the tax year in which the eligible salaries and wages are incurred", it "is fully refundable, but it is first applied against total income tax payable", and there are "no carry-back or carry-forward provisions". Registration with the Ministry of Finance and payment of an application fee come first, and since 1 September 2024 products enabling gambling with currency do not qualify [46]. The absence of carry-forward is the planning point: a loss year wastes the credit.

Training tax credit for employers. For employers of apprentices in SkilledTradesBC programs, the basic credit is "20% of eligible salary and wages up to $4,000" for the first 24 months of a non-Red Seal apprenticeship; the completion credit is "15% of eligible salary and wages up to $2,500" at level 3 and "up to $3,000" at level 4, for both Red Seal and non-Red Seal programs; and an enhanced credit of 50% of the basic or completion amount applies for apprentices registered as Indians under the Indian Act or qualifying for the federal disability tax credit. Both the basic and completion eligible periods must fall before 1 January 2028, so the programme has a stated end date [47].

Operating across borders

British Columbia's rule for entities formed elsewhere is statutory and short. Section 375(1): "A foreign entity must register as an extraprovincial company in accordance with this Act within 2 months after the foreign entity begins to carry on business in British Columbia." The Act then deems a foreign entity to carry on business here if its name is listed in a telephone directory or appears in an advertisement giving a British Columbia address or telephone number, if it has in BC "a resident agent, or a warehouse, office or place of business", or if "it otherwise carries on business in British Columbia" [4].

Note how low the deeming threshold sits. Advertising a British Columbia phone number is enough on the face of the section — no premises, no employee, no revenue. "Foreign entity" here means formed outside British Columbia, so an Ontario or federal corporation is as much a foreign entity as a Delaware one.

Two further obligations attach. The company "must ensure that (a) it has one or more attorneys, or (b) under its charter … its head office is in British Columbia", and each attorney must be "an individual who is resident in British Columbia, or … a company", with a BC office address "at which the individual can usually be reached during statutory business hours"; and it files an annual report "within 2 months after each anniversary of the date of its registration" [4]. Registration costs $350 plus the $30 name approval, though section 376(2) exempts a federal corporation from the name-reservation step [10] [4].

Extraprovincial registration is also where BC's published processing times bite hardest: "Extraprovincial registration for limited liability companies (LLCs)" is given as 31 business days, extraprovincial amalgamation 26, an application to continue out of BC 34 [37]. A US LLC planning to be operational in British Columbia in three weeks is planning against the registry's own published estimate.

The mirror image matters as much: a BC company beginning to carry on business in Alberta, Ontario or Quebec meets that province's regime on that province's definition. Do the analysis province by province and keep the reasoning even where the answer is "not yet".

What the New West Partnership actually changes

British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are parties to the New West Partnership Trade Agreement, which BC Registries says "removes the need to file multiple registrations and reports between B.C., Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan", so businesses "don't need to: Pay business registry fees in B.C.; File annual reports in other provinces" [17].

Read that carefully, because it is routinely overstated into "you do not have to register". You do: search and reserve the name, "fee required"; then "Submit registration through the appropriate province's registry (no fee)"; and "Registration must be completed within 2 months of starting to do business in B.C." The mechanism is B.C. Reg. 88/2009, which designates Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, has the registrar receive the registration statement electronically from the other province's registrar, and exempts the resulting extraprovincial company "from section 380 of the Act and items 2, 4, 5 and 15 of the Schedule to the Act" — the annual report and the associated fees [7]. Alberta describes the reciprocal position for a BC corporation registering there in the same terms [63].

What NWPTA does not touch matters too. The attorney requirement survives: BC Registries tells NWPTA registrants to "Have an attorney represent them in each province where they do business", and warns that if one resigns and is not replaced "the corporation's extraprovincial registration could be cancelled". Municipal licensing sits outside the agreement entirely, and sole proprietorships and general partnerships "doing business in other provinces not need to register", though "They do need to have licenses and permits required by local governments where they operate" [17]. Nor does it reach the federal corporation: NWPTA relief is keyed to a home jurisdiction of Alberta, Saskatchewan or Manitoba, and a CBCA corporation is not from one of those provinces.

How British Columbia compares with Alberta and Ontario

These are the three provinces a founder without a fixed location usually weighs. Every figure below comes from the province that sets it.

Three conclusions a founder can actually act on.

On address burden, British Columbia is the strictest of the three. It is the only one of the three requiring two statutory offices, both inside the province, both publicly accessible in fixed hours. Alberta needs one registered office plus a resident agent for service; Ontario needs one registered office and lets the directors designate any Ontario location for the records. If the plan is to run a Canadian company with no physical presence, that difference is the single biggest practical distinction between them — and it is a reason to weigh Ontario or a federal corporation, not a reason to pretend a BC office can be somewhere else.

On filing autonomy, British Columbia and Ontario are alike and Alberta is not. Alberta routes every incorporation through an authorized registry agent whose service fee is unregulated, so the province's own $291.75 is not the price you pay [61] [62]. British Columbia's $350 and Ontario's $300 are the full government cost, payable directly.

On disclosure, the three provinces make opposite trade-offs. Alberta puts the top five shareholders on the annual return, which reaches the registrar; British Columbia asks for far more detail in the transparency register but keeps it in the records office where the registrar never sees it; Ontario asks for neither, except for corporations owning land. "Ownership is private in BC" is true of the registry and false of the company's own records, and an Alberta corporation is the one whose shareholders are actually filed.

Licences: a municipal layer, not a provincial one

British Columbia issues no general provincial business licence. The operative licence is municipal, and it is not optional. Vancouver's position is categorical: "Any organization doing business in or from Vancouver must have a business licence" [35].

Four details matter more than the fee.

The licence follows activity, not premises. Vancouver defines an "out-of-town business" as "a business being carried on in the City of Vancouver, but with the business office located outside of Vancouver", and it needs a licence like anyone else [35]. A company based in Burnaby serving Vancouver clients on site is inside the by-law.

Vancouver will not accept a federal incorporation on its own. Where "the business is incorporated outside of BC" the city requires a "BC Statement of Registration (as an Extraprovincial Company)", and adds bluntly: "A federal certificate of incorporation issued by Industry Canada won't be accepted" [35]. That is the clearest practical proof anywhere in this guide that federal incorporation does not substitute for British Columbia registration — skip the extraprovincial filing and you are stopped at the municipal counter, holding a valid federal certificate that the clerk is entitled to refuse.

The licence expires on a fixed date rather than an anniversary. "Your business licence expires on December 31 each year. Renewal notices are sent out in November". The published one-time application fee is $74 and the annual fee "depends on the business type", pro-rated in the first year [35]. The web page and the city's own by-law schedule do not agree to the dollar on that application fee, so confirm it before budgeting precisely. Note the calendar consequence: a company incorporated in March has a registry anniversary in March and a licence renewal in December, so the two never coincide and neither reminds you of the other.

One licence rarely covers Metro Vancouver. The Metro West Inter-Municipal Business Licence covers six cities with one licence, but only for construction and trades businesses and for health care providers who visit clients at home [35]. An ordinary consulting or software company operating across Metro Vancouver gets several licences, not one. Sector licences — liquor, cannabis, financial services, health professions, trades, childcare — sit on top. Incorporation authorizes none of them.

Immigration streams tied to British Columbia

This is the row most province guides skip, and the answers changed materially in 2026.

BC PNP Entrepreneur Immigration is open. WelcomeBC describes three business routes: entrepreneurs "can choose to apply to one of the following streams: Base stream or Regional stream", while foreign corporations "can apply to the program's Strategic Projects stream" [31]. The Regional route is no longer a pilot: the program guide's revision log records that on 27 May 2024 the BC PNP "Removed references to 'pilot' as the Regional stream is now an ongoing part of the BC PNP" [32].

There is one requirement that a founder planning to keep a foreign base should read before anything else. The program guide requires the applicant to "demonstrate your intention to reside within 50 kilometres of the business you intend to operate", measured "by the shortest available route by road", and travel "must not require a journey across a body of water that would require a ferry trip of more than 30 minutes" [32]. This is an entrepreneur-immigration programme for people who will live beside the business, not for absentee owners.

An FTE job means "a position of at least 30 hours per week on average and 1,560 hours per year", and "Independent contractors will not be considered as part of your job creation requirement" [32]. Registration does not guarantee an invitation: a qualified registration "will be placed in a qualified pool where it will remain active for up to six months, or until you receive an invitation to apply". Fees are $300 to register and $3,500 to apply, with $500 for a request for review and $1,000 per additional key staff member. Some business types are ineligible outright, including "bed and breakfasts, hobby farms and home-based businesses", real estate and insurance brokerage, and "goods trading businesses (e.g. import/export), unless value add is demonstrated". The Strategic Projects stream requires "a minimum equity investment of at least $500,000 CAD directed towards the corporation's operations in B.C." and three new full-time jobs per key staff member, to a maximum of five [31].

The sequence after an invitation is long, and its published milestones are worth calendaring: 90 days to submit the work-permit application after a Letter of Support, arrival in BC within 12 months of receiving the permit, then up to 20 months to implement the plan, with the final report due between 550 and 610 days after arrival [31] [32]. From registration to nomination is realistically a multi-year project.

The federal Start-up Visa is paused. IRCC's status line reads: "Status: Paused — We're not currently accepting new applications. The Start-Up Visa Program was paused on June 30, 2026. We'll continue to process applications we accepted before this date" [33]. The associated work permit closed earlier, on 19 December 2025. Any plan built on the Start-up Visa needs rebuilding.

You cannot hire yourself through a skilled-worker nomination. IRCC records that "in accordance with the Federal-Provincial/Territorial Agreements, self-employed people are not eligible for nomination"; the entrepreneur streams exist to fill that gap. The sequence also runs the other way from what founders expect: the applicant "must have a paragraph R205(a) work permit support letter" from the province, then implements the business plan and meets provincial requirements "usually for 2 years" before a confirmation of nomination, and only then moves to a work permit under R204(c). The pre-nomination permit runs "As per the offer of employment, to a maximum of 2 years" [34].

Owning a British Columbia company therefore grants no immigration status at all. The company can be incorporated, banked, taxed and operated by a non-resident; coming to run it is a separate application on separate criteria, and the corporate steps do not shorten it.

If you are outside Canada

British Columbia is one of the easier Canadian jurisdictions in which a non-resident can own and direct a company, and one of the harder ones in which to do it entirely by remote control. The distinction is worth holding precisely.

What the corporate law permits. There is no director-residency requirement. Section 120 requires one director for a private company, and section 124's disqualification list — age, incapacity, undischarged bankruptcy, certain convictions — says nothing about residence or citizenship [2]. A single non-resident can be sole shareholder, sole director and sole officer, and directors may meet "by telephone or other communications medium" unless the articles say otherwise [2]. No Canadian intermediary is required to file, and no provincial identity credential is needed: the incorporation application sits on Corporate Online's "No Login Required" menu, paid by credit card [39]. The BC Services Card, which would otherwise be the natural login, is "for B.C. residents" and is therefore not available to you — and not needed [41].

What you cannot do from abroad. The two statutory offices must exist in British Columbia. Each needs a delivery address that "must be for a location in British Columbia that is accessible to the public between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on business days", and neither may be a post office box [11]. A foreign founder therefore needs a real arrangement with someone in British Columbia — commonly a law firm or an accountant — who will accept service and hold the records. That is a substantive engagement, not a mailbox, and sections 39 to 41 explain why it has to be a relationship you maintain: an agent who wants out can move the registered office to a BC director's residence, or, where no director or officer can be located, ask the court to eliminate the registered office altogether [1]. A board living entirely abroad offers no BC residence to transfer to, so elimination is the route that remains.

The registered-office mailing address does two further jobs that a stale foreign address will break. It is where the registry sends the notice that begins dissolution after two years of unfiled annual reports [11]; and it is where Corporate Online sends the company access code, with the recovery route being a paper filing if the address is out of date [39]. A director's own address may be foreign, but it must be a residence or an office where records can be served in those hours, it cannot be a post office box, and it is public.

Registering an entity you already own is harder than incorporating a new one. A company formed outside Canada that registers extraprovincially must first send BC Registries "proof of existence certified by the foreign entity's home jurisdiction (e.g. a certificate of status)", "dated within the last year", which "must be received by BC Registries before proceeding with online registration"; only then does the registration statement go through Corporate Online for $350. For a US limited liability company the whole filing is by mail — registration statement, proof of existence, Business Number Request form and a $350 cheque "made payable to Minister of Finance" [8]. BC Registries' published processing time for an LLC extraprovincial registration is 31 business days [37]. Incorporating a fresh BC subsidiary is often faster than registering the parent.

Tax follows differently from corporate law. A corporation incorporated in Canada after 26 April 1965 is deemed resident for income-tax purposes under paragraph 250(4)(a), the common-law test independently asks where central management and control is exercised, and subsection 250(5) can deem a corporation non-resident under a treaty [54] [29]. Separately, foreign control costs Canadian-controlled private corporation status, which both the 2.0% small business rate and the refundable SR&ED credit depend on [50] [30]. A non-resident-owned BC company pays a combined 27.0% where a resident-owned one pays 11.0% on the same first $500,000 of active business income [18] [49]. Model that before incorporating, not after.

Sales tax has its own non-resident layer. For GST/HST, security is generally required from a registrant without a permanent establishment in Canada; none is required where estimated Canadian supplies are "not more than $100,000 annually and your net tax will be between $3,000 remittable and $3,000 refundable annually", and otherwise the initial amount is "50% of your estimated net tax … during the 12-month period after you register", subject to a $5,000 minimum and a $1 million maximum [28]. For BC PST, an outside seller can be caught with no revenue threshold at all if it holds inventory in the province, and a business located outside British Columbia cannot use the small-seller relief at all [20] [21]. Voluntary registration is possible for a business outside Canada, but "you may be required to enter into an agreement with us prior to your registration being approved" [20].

Coming to run the business is a separate application. Ownership does not grant entry. The realistic routes are the BC PNP entrepreneur streams with their net-worth, investment, job-creation and 50-kilometre residency commitments, reached through a provincial work-permit support letter [31] [34], or an intra-company transfer where a genuine foreign parent already employs the person. The Start-up Visa is not available [33].

Banking is the last gate and the least documented. No public source reviewed for this page commits any bank to opening an account for a non-resident-owned BC company without attendance, or to accepting any particular address document. What is documented is the bank's own obligation: FINTRAC requires it to obtain and confirm beneficial-ownership information, and to treat a client whose ownership it cannot confirm as high-risk with enhanced monitoring [55]. Arriving with a complete transparency register is therefore the one preparation entirely within your control. Confirm a remote opening in writing with a named person at a named institution before booking travel. The mechanics are in the open-from-abroad guide and the non-resident research; the province-by-province version of this decision is in the British Columbia from abroad guide and the Track B pillar.

The annual compliance calendar

British Columbia's recurring obligations key off five different dates, and no two of them line up: the recognition date, the fiscal year end, the calendar year, the licence year and the event date. A single reminder system that assumes one anniversary will miss most of this.

Event-driven — the clock starts when something happens

Anniversary-driven — keyed to the recognition date

"Recognition date" is defined: it "is the company's date of incorporation, amalgamation or continuation into the province" [12]. A company that amalgamated has a new anniversary, which is the most common reason a long-standing company suddenly misses a report.

Calendar-year and fiscal-year driven

What happens if the annual report is missed

The annual report deserves its own treatment, because the consequence is terminal rather than financial. BC Registries states it plainly: "Failure to comply with the filing requirements of the Business Corporations Act may result in a company being dissolved and struck from the register" [12]. The statute behind that sentence is section 422, and its procedure is worth knowing because it is slower and more forgiving than the summary suggests — and because every step of it depends on an address you may not be watching.

The registrar may dissolve a company that "fails, in each of 2 consecutive years, to file with the registrar an annual report required by this Act". Before doing so, the registrar "may furnish to the company … a letter informing it of its default". The registrar may then publish a notice unless, "within one month after the date of the letter", the default is remedied or the registrar receives a satisfactory response. The published notice must state that the company may be dissolved unless, "within one month after the date of the publication", cause is shown, the registrar is satisfied, or a court order is filed. Only after that second month may the registrar dissolve. A company may file one application for extension, which buys "a period of 6 months", or longer if the registrar allows in writing [5].

The same section applies to extraprovincial companies. Cancellation grounds include failing to comply with section 386 — the attorney or BC head office requirement — and after cancellation "a foreign entity must cease carrying on business in British Columbia" [5]. Losing your attorney is therefore not a paperwork problem; it is a ground for losing the right to trade in the province.

Dissolution is not merely administrative. "When a company is dissolved … the company ceases to exist for any purpose", subject to the Act's preservation provisions, and "a legal proceeding may be brought against the company within 2 years after its dissolution as if the company had not been dissolved" [56]. A dissolved company cannot hold its bank account, sign a contract or sue — but can still be sued.

Restoration, and a widely repeated error about it

Restoration costs $350 [10] and BC Registries' published processing time for it is 42 business days, the longest on its list [37].

The statute offers two forms — a full restoration, available to a "related person", and a limited restoration for a defined period, available to any person, after which "the restored company is dissolved on the expiration of the limited period" unless converted to a full restoration during that period. Either may be sought from the registrar under section 356 or from the court under section 360; the court route requires notice to the registrar and the registrar's consent. Where the application goes to the registrar, the registrar "must not restore the company until 21 days after" publication in the Gazette and the mailing of notices, unless the application is filed "no later than one year after the date of dissolution" [56].

Now the error. It is commonly said that a British Columbia company must be restored within ten years of dissolution. That is not what the Act says. Section 356(4) provides that an application "must, if the dissolution of the company occurred before the coming into force of this Act, be made within 10 years after the dissolution, or may, in any other case, be made at any time" [56]. The ten-year limit is a transitional rule for companies dissolved under the former legislation. For a company dissolved under the current Act there is no outside date at all. This matters in exactly the situation where people repeat the ten-year figure — an old family company someone wants to revive — and getting it backwards either abandons a restorable company or wastes money chasing an unrestorable one.

Failure modes and corrective action

Complete fee table

Every published government fee this guide relies on, in one place. Amounts are Canadian dollars and exclude any professional or agent fee; BC Registry Services asks that "All payments to BC Registry Services should be made in Canadian dollars" [10]. Most Corporate Online transactions attract a BC OnLine service charge of $1.50 plus GST [38].

Glossary

Terms British Columbia uses in a particular way, or that mean something different here than in another province.

Annual report — the yearly filing to BC Registries confirming registry information, due within two months after each anniversary of recognition. It is not a financial statement, and it is not Ontario's "annual return", which is filed on a taxation-year cycle [1].

Applicant agent — a person who is not a director or officer of a company but is authorized to maintain its registered office or records office. The defined term that makes sections 39 to 41 work [1].

Attorney — for an extraprovincial company, an individual resident in British Columbia, or a company, appointed to receive service; required unless the company's charter puts its head office in BC [4]. Nothing to do with a power of attorney.

Benefit company — a for-profit BC company committing to promote one or more public benefits, which must keep a benefit report in its records office and files through the BC Registry application rather than Corporate Online [14].

Completing party — the individual who examines the articles and incorporation agreement before filing, designates the incorporators, signs the completing-party statement, and afterwards delivers the originals to the records office [1].

Delivery address — the physical address at which records may be delivered or inspected. Distinct from the mailing address, required for both statutory offices, and never a post office box [11].

Endorsed — a defined standard for a signed record: a labelled signature line for each signatory, an original signature on it, and no reason to doubt the signature [1].

Foreign entity — under Part 11, any entity formed outside British Columbia, including a federal or another province's corporation, not only one formed outside Canada [4].

Full restoration / limited restoration — full restoration is available to a "related person"; a limited restoration lasts a defined period and ends in dissolution again unless converted [56].

Incorporation agreement — the signed record of each incorporator's subscription for shares. Kept, never filed [1].

Notice of articles — the public part of the incorporation application: name, directors and their addresses, both offices, and the authorized share structure. Not the articles themselves [1].

Recognition date — the date of incorporation, amalgamation or continuation into British Columbia; the date the annual-report anniversary runs from [12].

Records office — the second mandatory BC office, where the section 42 records are kept and where those entitled come to inspect them. May share a location with the registered office but is a legally separate designation [1].

Registered office — the mandatory BC office at which records and notices are delivered to the company, including registry notices and service of process [1].

Significant individual — a person holding 25% or more of the shares or votes, or able to elect or remove a majority of the directors; the trigger for a transparency-register entry [3].

Small seller — a PST status, not a GST one: under $10,000 of retail revenue and no established commercial premises, located in BC. Does not collect PST and loses the resale exemption [21].

Small supplier — a GST/HST status: worldwide taxable supplies of $30,000 or less in a quarter and over four consecutive quarters. Unrelated to small-seller status [28].

Transparency register — the internal register of significant individuals kept in the records office. Not filed, not public, and outside the ordinary records-inspection regime [1] [3].

Readiness checklist

• Legal form chosen from the province's own list rather than a generic template, and the right filing portal identified for it [14] [36]
• Name Request submitted with three ranked candidates, or the numbered-company route deliberately chosen, and the 56-day expiry calendared [9]
• A real British Columbia registered-office delivery address and a records office arranged, each with the occupant's agreement, someone holding custody of the records, and a written understanding of what happens if the arrangement ends [1]
• Articles and share structure decided before filing, the incorporation agreement signed by every incorporator on properly labelled signature lines, and a completing party identified who understands the statutory examination duty [1]
• After incorporation: certificate and notice of articles archived, original signed documents delivered to the records office, shares actually issued, and the central securities register and register of directors opened [1]
• Transparency register built, tracing every ownership layer to individuals, with the reasonable steps recorded [3]
• Business number and RC account located rather than re-registered, and the recognition-date anniversary calendared with a two-month window [27]
• CCPC status modelled against the intended ownership, because it decides 11.0% versus 27.0% [50]
• GST/HST and PST positions assessed separately, against every applicable scenario, with 21 business days allowed for the PST account [20] [43]
• The 1 October 2026 PST expansion checked against what the business actually sells [43]
• WorkSafeBC coverage applied for 30 days before the first worker starts, and Personal Coverage decided for each working owner [48] [26]
• Employment-standards mechanics set up before the first payday: twice-monthly pay, wage statements, and four years of payroll records in English at a BC principal place of business [66] [67]
• Municipal business licence obtained for every municipality where the business operates, with the 31 December renewal calendared separately from the registry anniversary [35]
• Extra-provincial registration analysed for every other province, and the NWPTA position understood as fee relief rather than exemption [17]

Address roles and banking

Address questions cause more avoidable trouble in British Columbia than in most provinces, because there are three separate in-province address obligations rather than one, and each has its own truth test.

The BC registered office and the BC records office both need a British Columbia delivery address, public 9 a.m.–4 p.m., never a post office box — so a Montreal address can fill neither [11]. A company with employees has a third: payroll records must sit "in English at their principal place of business in B.C." for four years [67]. A director's address must be a residence, or an office where that director can actually be served in those hours, and never a stand-in for a residence. A CRA mailing address can legitimately be a real mail service the CRA accepts. If you incorporate federally instead, a Quebec registered office is available on the terms in the federal corporation guide. And a bank's "business address" is whichever field that institution is asking for, decided by the institution.

No public source reviewed for this page states that any bank accepts any particular address document for a British Columbia company. Bank onboarding is covered institution by institution in the RBC, TD, BMO, Scotiabank, CIBC and Desjardins guides. Ask which field the institution is filling, and which document it accepts, before subscribing to anything.

What 2727 can and cannot support

2727 Coworking is a Montreal coworking space in Griffintown providing private offices, desks, meeting rooms and a business-address and mail service. What that can do for a British Columbia company is limited and specific.

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

It cannot be the British Columbia registered office or records office of a BC company: the registry requires a British Columbia location publicly accessible between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., and no Montreal address satisfies that [11]. It cannot be the "principal place of business in B.C." where employment-standards payroll records must be kept [67]. It does not act as an attorney for an extraprovincial company under section 386 [4], hold a minute book unless that is separately arranged, determine tax residence or CCPC status, or obtain any approval from a registry, the CRA, a municipality or a bank. No registry, bank or government body has stated that it accepts a 2727 address for any field, and nothing here should be read as such a claim.

Founders abroad choosing a province should start with the Track B guide; founders already in Canada with the Track A guide. The cluster is indexed at the hub, alongside the Ontario, Alberta and Quebec guides, the federal-versus-provincial comparison and the sales-tax comparison.

Research method and limitations

This page was researched and verified on 6 September 2026. Discovery used Exa semantic and keyword search; every landed fact was then read on the official page itself. Statutory text came from the Business Corporations Act consolidation on BC Laws, current to 1 September 2026 — Part 2 (incorporation, the two offices, records and inspection, and the annual report in section 51), Part 4.1 (transparency register), Part 5 (directors), Part 10 (dissolution and restoration), Part 11 (extraprovincial companies) and Part 12 (the registrar's dissolution power in section 422 and the transparency-register offences) — together with B.C. Reg. 88/2009 and the First Reading text of Bill 20 – 2023. Fees, timelines and procedure came from BC Registries and Online Services, its Form 1 instructions, its INFO 36 guide, its published processing times, and the Corporate Online site and help pages; rates and deadlines from the BC Ministry of Finance, the CRA, Justice Canada and WorkSafeBC; employment standards from the province's own employment-standards pages; immigration from WelcomeBC and IRCC; licensing from the City of Vancouver. Comparative figures for Alberta and Ontario were taken from those provinces' own official publications, cited directly. Two BC Registries PDFs were extracted locally with pdftotext because the fetcher could not read their text layer.

Several things could not be verified and are stated as such rather than guessed.

The commencement date of the registrar's transparency register and its public search is unknown: Bill 20 – 2023 brings sections 1 to 14 and 16 to 23 into force only by regulation, no such regulation appears in the consolidation current to 1 September 2026, and the text available on BC Laws is the First Reading version rather than an assented-to or consolidated one. Everything this page says about that regime is expressly conditional.

BC Registries publishes no processing time for a straightforward incorporation. Its processing-times page lists eight incorporated-company filings, and incorporation is not among them, which is consistent with the statute making incorporation effective on filing; no number is asserted. That page also carries two different dates for itself — a page stamp of 12 August 2026 and an internal "Updated August 11th, 2026" — and the times are described as "approximate and subject to change".

No official page states a hard statutory deadline for WorkSafeBC registration after a first hire; only a recommendation to apply 30 days ahead and a review time of about 10 business days are published, and that page carries no date stamp at all. The page states the obligation as coverage before the worker starts, which is what the "against the law" wording supports, and does not invent a day count.

The City of Vancouver's published application fee and the fee in its own by-law schedule do not match, so no single figure is asserted. The vancouver.ca page also returns HTTP 403 to every automated request from this network, including through a Canadian residential egress and a real headless browser, because the city blocks datacenter and non-browser traffic; the quotations used here were retrieved during research through a different egress and are recorded verbatim in the evidence file. That 403 is a bot block, not a dead link, and a future refresh should not swap in an unverified alternative URL.

The Corporate Online help pages are visibly stale in places — they still recommend Internet Explorer — so they are cited for the filing rules they state, which the site's own behaviour corroborates, and not as current technical guidance.

No allocation or quota figure for the BC PNP appears here. Numbers circulate, but no current WelcomeBC page that could be fetched restates them, so the page says only what the province publishes: which streams are open and what they require. Nor does the page state a single ownership threshold for a significant-benefit work permit, because IRCC publishes two positions on the same C11 instruction page: issuance "should be considered only when the applicant controls at least 51% of the business in question", and, where the page explains how significant benefit is assessed, that the application is considered "regardless of what percentage of the business in Canada is owned". This guide’s companion page for founders outside Canada quotes the 51% instruction as published; treat it as the operative instruction and the tension as a reason to take advice, not as settled. [68]

Finally, nothing here was tested by filing: no incorporation, name request, PST or EHT registration, WorkSafeBC application, extraprovincial registration, municipal licence, immigration application or bank account was submitted or opened, and the worked example is a constructed illustration built from published fees and deadlines rather than a record of an actual filing. Fees, rates, thresholds and program statuses change, sometimes within weeks — the PST expansion to several professional services on 1 October 2026 and the training tax credit's 1 January 2028 end date are both live at the time of writing. This is educational planning material, not legal, tax, accounting, immigration or banking advice.

Frequently asked questions

Does British Columbia require a Canadian resident director?

No. Section 120 requires at least one director for a private company, and section 124 sets out the complete list of disqualifications, which contains no residency or citizenship condition. A single non-resident may be sole director, sole officer and sole shareholder. British Columbia never imposed such a rule, unlike Ontario and Alberta, which each repealed theirs. [2] [57]

Can I use a mail-forwarding address as my BC registered office?

No. Both the registered office and the records office need a delivery address in British Columbia that is "accessible to the public between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on business days", and it "must not be a post office box". A mail service that cannot accept service of legal documents, or host an inspection of the records, at those hours does not meet the requirement. [11]

How much does it cost, and how long does it take?

BC Registries publishes $350 for a BC limited company plus $30 for name approval, and $1,000 for an unlimited liability company; the annual report is $43.39 plus a $1.50 service fee. The incorporation is effective on filing, so the wait is the name request — "about 7 to 14 days", or 1 to 2 business days with $100 priority service. The registry publishes no processing time for incorporation itself. [10] [8] [37]

Do I need a BC Services Card or a BCeID to incorporate?

No. The incorporation application is on Corporate Online's "No Login Required" menu, where you simply pay by credit card. A customer profile can only be created afterwards, because it requires the incorporation number and company password. The BC Services Card is in any case "for B.C. residents". [39] [41] [40]

What is the difference between the registered office and the records office?

The registered office is where records and notices are delivered to the company, including service of process and the registry's own notices. The records office is where the section 42 corporate records are kept and inspected. Both must be in British Columbia and both may be at the same place, but they are separate designations with separate change filings. [1]

What happens if my BC registered-office provider quits?

Sections 39 to 41 govern it, and none of the outcomes is good if you are unreachable. An applicant agent may apply to the registrar to move the registered office to the British Columbia residence of a director or officer, after 21 days' written notice; may apply to the court to transfer the records office the same way; and, where no director or officer can be located, may ask the court to eliminate the registered office entirely, after which service happens only in the manner the court orders. A wholly foreign board leaves no BC residence to transfer to, so the elimination route is the one that remains. [1]

Is British Columbia's beneficial-ownership register public, and is it the Land Owner Transparency Registry?

Not today, and no. The corporate transparency register is kept in the company's records office and inspected only by directors and a listed set of authorities; Bill 20 – 2023 would create a registrar's transparency register with a limited public search — full name, year of birth and citizenship status, released 90 days after filing — but those sections come into force by regulation and are not in the consolidation current to 1 September 2026. The Land Owner Transparency Registry is a different regime: administered by the Land Title and Survey Authority under the Land Owner Transparency Act, publicly searchable, and concerned with indirect interests in land. A BC company that buys property complies with both, and neither satisfies the other. [15] [6] [16]

Can anyone find out who owns my BC company?

The registry does not publish it, but the company can be compelled to disclose. Section 49 lets any person apply to the company for a list of shareholders' names, addresses and shareholdings on an affidavit that it will be used only for one of five stated purposes, such as influencing a shareholder vote or acquiring the company's securities. Beneficial ownership in the transparency register is separate and is inspected only by directors and listed authorities. [1] [15]

What happens if I miss the annual report?

Two consecutive missed annual reports let the registrar dissolve the company under section 422, but only after a default letter, a month to cure, a published notice and a further month — with a six-month extension available on one application. A dissolved company "ceases to exist for any purpose" yet can still be sued for two years. Restoration costs $350 and BC Registries' published processing time for it is 42 business days. Note that the widely repeated "ten years to restore" deadline is a transitional rule: section 356(4) applies it only where the dissolution "occurred before the coming into force of this Act", and provides that in any other case an application "may … be made at any time". [5] [56] [37]

Do I charge PST as well as GST?

Usually yes, and they are separate registrations with separate tests. GST/HST registration follows the $30,000 worldwide small-supplier threshold, with 29 days to register once the effective date arrives. PST follows its own triggers — located in BC, or holding inventory here, or supplying software or telecommunication services to solicited BC customers — and from 1 October 2026 extends to several professional services. There is no HST in British Columbia. [51] [20] [43]

If I incorporate federally, do I still deal with British Columbia?

Yes. A federal corporation carrying on business here registers as an extraprovincial company within two months and must have an attorney unless its head office is in the province. Vancouver goes further at the licensing counter: it says a federal certificate of incorporation "won't be accepted" and requires the BC Statement of Registration instead. [4] [35]

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

No. IRCC's published status is "Paused — We're not currently accepting new applications. The Start-Up Visa Program was paused on June 30, 2026." The BC PNP entrepreneur streams remain open and are the province-specific route, but they require the applicant to intend to live within 50 kilometres of the business. [33] [32]

Official references

1. BC Laws: Business Corporations Act, Part 2 — Incorporation, company offices and company records
2. BC Laws: Business Corporations Act, Part 5 — Directors and officers
3. BC Laws: Business Corporations Act, Part 4.1 — Transparency register
4. BC Laws: Business Corporations Act, Part 11 — Extraprovincial companies
5. BC Laws: Business Corporations Act, Part 12 — Administration, offences and penalties
6. BC Laws: Bill 20 – 2023, Business Corporations Amendment Act, 2023
7. BC Laws: Extraprovincial Companies and Foreign Entities from a Designated Province Regulation, B.C. Reg. 88/2009
8. BC Registries: incorporated companies
9. BC Registries: approval of a business name
10. BC Registries: forms, fees and information packages
11. BC Registries: Form 1 incorporation application and notice of articles instructions
12. BC Registries: Maintaining Your B.C. Company (INFO 36)
13. BC Registries: proprietorships and partnerships
14. Province of British Columbia: choose your business structure
15. Province of British Columbia: transparency register
16. Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia: Land Owner Transparency Registry
17. BC Registries: New West Partnership Trade Agreement
18. BC Ministry of Finance: corporate income tax rates
19. Province of British Columbia: provincial sales tax
20. BC Ministry of Finance: Bulletin PST 001, registering to collect PST
21. BC Ministry of Finance: Bulletin PST 003, small sellers
22. Province of British Columbia: employer health tax overview
23. Province of British Columbia: employer health tax, file and pay
24. WorkSafeBC: who needs coverage
25. WorkSafeBC: consequences of not registering
26. WorkSafeBC: Personal Coverage
27. CRA: when you need a business number
28. CRA: doing business in Canada — GST/HST information for non-residents (RC4027)
29. CRA: residency of a corporation
30. Province of British Columbia: scientific research and experimental development tax credit
31. WelcomeBC: BC PNP for entrepreneurs and businesses
32. BC PNP: Entrepreneur Immigration program guide
33. IRCC: Start-up Visa Program eligibility and status
34. IRCC: provincial business candidates or Quebec self-employed applicants approved for a selection certificate, R205(a) C60
35. City of Vancouver: get a business licence
36. Province of British Columbia: BC Registries and Online Services
37. BC Registries: processing times
38. BC Registries: Corporate Online
39. BC Registries: Corporate Online frequently asked questions
40. Province of British Columbia: about BCeID
41. Province of British Columbia: BC Services Card
42. Province of British Columbia: transparency register questions
43. Province of British Columbia: register to collect provincial sales tax
44. Province of British Columbia: employer health tax
45. Province of British Columbia: Medical Services Plan premiums
46. Province of British Columbia: interactive digital media tax credit
47. Province of British Columbia: training tax credit for employers
48. WorkSafeBC: apply for coverage
49. CRA: corporation tax rates
50. CRA: type of corporation
51. CRA: when to register for and start charging the GST/HST
52. CRA: GST/HST rates by province and territory
53. CRA: how to register for a business number — non-resident businesses
54. Justice Canada: Income Tax Act, section 250
55. FINTRAC: beneficial ownership requirements
56. BC Laws: Business Corporations Act, Part 10 — Liquidation, dissolution, restoration and reinstatement
57. Ontario e-Laws: Business Corporations Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. B.16
58. ServiceOntario: cost and time required to register, change or search for a business name, corporation or not-for-profit
59. Ontario Ministry of Finance: corporate income tax rates
60. Alberta King's Printer: Business Corporations Act, RSA 2000 c B-9
61. Alberta: incorporate an Alberta corporation
62. Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction: registry agent product catalogue, September 2026
63. Alberta: annual returns for corporations, cooperatives and organizations
64. Alberta: tax and levy rates and prescribed interest rates
65. Province of British Columbia: minimum wage
66. Province of British Columbia: getting paid for work
67. Province of British Columbia: keeping employment records
68. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: business owners seeking only temporary residence, R205(a) C11