Start a business in the Northwest Territories

Direct answer

You cannot incorporate online in the Northwest Territories. Corporate Registries requires original signed documents delivered by mail or in person; scans, faxes and emails are refused, and the territory's online system is for searching, not filing. Incorporation costs $300, a name search and reservation $25, and the annual return $150 every year. The Business Corporations Act imposes no resident-Canadian director requirement, so an NWT board may be entirely non-resident, but section 19(1) requires a registered office at a physical address in the community named in the articles, and section 20 lets whoever hosts that address end the arrangement on 30 days' notice. There is no territorial sales tax, so only the 5% GST applies, and the CRA administers the NWT's 2% small-business and 11.5% general corporate rates. Employers must register for the 2% employee-paid payroll tax within 21 days and with the Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission within 10 days.

What is actually different about the Northwest Territories

Three of those rows are genuinely unusual: the paper-only filing channel, the complete absence of a director-residency rule, and a payroll tax that falls on the employee rather than the employer.

If you have not chosen between an NWT corporation and a federal one, read the federal versus provincial comparison first, because here the federal route is the more expensive way onto the territorial register. Founders inside Canada start from the resident founder track; founders abroad from the non-resident track.

Stage 1: choose the legal form

Registering a corporation formed elsewhere costs more than incorporating locally — $500 against $300 — which changes the arithmetic for anyone who has not yet incorporated.

A sole proprietorship is often not exempt. The registry's worked example: "if your name is 'John Smith' and you conduct business as 'John Smith Consulting', this is still a business name requiring registration because 'Consulting' is not part of your legal name." Registration is also triggered by being "engaged in trading, mining, or manufacturing", or by forming a partnership at all. And the NWT limited liability partnership is open to everyone: "Unlike many jurisdictions, the creation of limited liability partnerships is not restricted to members of a regulated profession." [8]

Regulated sectors — banking, insurance, air transport, trust companies and others — incorporate under different statutes, as do co-operatives and not-for-profits. There is no minimum company size. [4]

Stage 2: clear the name

Unless you take a numbered company, a name must be searched and reserved: $25, held for 90 days, re-requested if it lapses before the articles are filed. A numbered company skips the search — the registry assigns the number and you choose only the legal element. [6]

The test is distinctiveness: a name must "not be 'too general'", must contain descriptive and distinctive elements, must not be primarily the surname of someone living or dead within 30 years, and must not suggest governmental sponsorship. The most useful NWT-specific guidance concerns one word: "Use of the word 'Aurora' is often considered too general because of the saturated use of the word in businesses use in the Northwest Territories." The registry's own examples: "ABC Services" fails, "ABC Building Supplies" passes; "Superior Coffee" fails, "Yellowknife Superior Coffee Cafe" passes. Test candidates free on the Corporate Registries Online System before paying anything. [9] A bilingual English/French name can be filed with both forms in the articles. [6]

Stage 3: file the incorporation on paper

This is the defining operational fact about the territory. The forms page requires original signed documents by mail or in person, and the incorporation guide is blunter: "Original signatures are required; scans or photocopies cannot be accepted. Forms must be mailed in or delivered in person and may not be submitted by fax or by email." [5] [6] The online system searches the register; it does not accept filings. [4]

All shares are without nominal or par value, and the registry accepts a simple "The corporation is authorized to issue an unlimited number of shares of one class." Get the package wrong and it all returns: "Deficient applications will be sent back to the applicant … the fee will also be returned to the submitter." [6] The registry does not pay return postage; enclose "a prepaid, self-addressed and trackable envelope". [4] And no official source publishes a processing time, so budget for a postal round trip each way plus an unquantified queue rather than committing to a date you cannot control.

Stage 4: the registered office and the address that can walk away

Section 19(1) is absolute: "A corporation shall at all times have a registered office at the place within the Northwest Territories specified in its articles." [1] There is no attorney-for-service substitute and no out-of-territory option.

The Act creates three distinct address fields, all on Form 2: the registered office, a civic address in the community named in the articles, where "a post office box number is not sufficient; a physical address is required" [6]; a separate records office if the directors designate one, failing which section 19(7) makes the registered office the records office; and a PO box for service by mail, which section 19(4) forbids from doubling as either of the others. Both offices must be "accessible to the public during normal business hours" and "readily identifiable" — an operating standard, not a formality — and changes are filed within 15 days. [1]

The provision most founders never read

Section 20 lets the person hosting your registered office end the arrangement without your consent. Where the office sits "at an address where the corporation does not carry on business", that person may notify the Registrar and "on the expiry of 30 days after a notice … is sent to the Registrar, the address of the person that sent the notice ceases to be the address of the registered office". Read that against section 214(1)(b), which lets the Registrar dissolve a corporation that "does not have a registered office address". [1] A borrowed address or a lapsed agreement is therefore a direct path to dissolution, on a 30-day clock you do not control.

Records

Section 21 requires the articles, by-laws, shareholder agreements and minutes, director notices, a securities register and financial statements at the records office, plus accounting records. One subsection matters to any founder operating from elsewhere: where accounting records are kept outside the NWT, section 21(8) still requires records "sufficient to enable the directors to ascertain the financial position of the corporation with reasonable accuracy on a quarterly basis" at the records office or another NWT place, so cloud bookkeeping elsewhere does not discharge it. Accounting records are kept six years, and non-compliance without reasonable cause carries a fine up to $10,000. [1]

Directors, transparency, and two rules the NWT does not have

Section 106(1) disqualifies from being a director: a person who is not an individual; an individual under 19; an individual subject to a certificate of involuntary admission under the Mental Health Act, a trusteeship order under the Guardianship and Trusteeship Act, or a finding of unsound mind by a court elsewhere; and an undischarged bankrupt. [1]

That is the complete list. The Act contains no resident-Canadian director requirement. "Resident Canadian" is defined at section 1 — a citizen ordinarily resident in Canada, a citizen abroad in a prescribed class, or a permanent resident — and then never used again in the statute. The word "Canadian" otherwise appears only in the permissive constrained-share provisions, which let a corporation restrict share transfers to non-residents in order to hold a licence or qualify as a Canadian newspaper publisher; those are options, not board duties. [1] The registry reads it the same way, answering "Who can be a director" with section 106(1) and nothing else. [6]

So an NWT corporation may have a single director who is neither a citizen nor a permanent resident nor resident in Canada. Whether that beats the federal route or another province is what the federal versus provincial comparison is for. Three cautions: sector statutes and licences can impose conditions the Act does not; every director's postal and physical address is filed and public; and an all-non-resident board raises CCPC and corporate-residence questions that are tax questions, not registry questions.

The second missing rule is a transparency register. A full-text reading of the office consolidation as it stood on 6 September 2026 — including every amendment on its face page, up to SNWT 2025, c.2 — finds no register of individuals with significant control, no filing obligation and no public ownership register; the Act uses "beneficial owner" only in its securities and proxy-voting senses. [1] That is an absence on the date checked, not a promise that none is coming, and it exempts nobody from the obligations that actually bite: a federally incorporated corporation registered here still carries its federal transparency obligations in full, and every bank still performs its own beneficial-ownership review under federal anti-money-laundering rules. The territorial silence changes the paperwork, not the scrutiny.

Stage 5: tax accounts

Incorporating registers you for nothing. The registry's guide sends you to the Canada Revenue Agency "to obtain a GST number if your business charges Goods and Services Tax (GST), pays employees, pays corporate income tax, or imports and exports goods or services" — that is where the business number and program accounts come from. [6]

Sales tax: GST only. The CRA's rate table shows the NWT at a 5% GST/HST rate and a 0% provincial rate. [12] No PST to register for and no QST equivalent — a simplification shared with Alberta, Yukon and Nunavut, set against the other regimes in the sales-tax comparison. Whether you must register for GST depends on your supplies, not on where you incorporated.

Corporate income tax. GNWT Finance: "For Canadian-controlled private corporations, the first $500,000 of their active business income is subject to the small business rate of 2%. Any income over this threshold is subject to the general rate of 11.5%." The administrative point matters as much as the rates: "The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) administers the NWT Income Tax Act." [10] The CRA states the same two rates from its side. [11] So there is no separate territorial corporate return — your T2 carries it. Note the condition on the 2% rate: it is for Canadian-controlled private corporations, and a corporation controlled by non-residents is generally not one.

Stage 6: payroll tax, workers' safety and the business licence

Payroll tax. It is "a 2 per cent tax on income that you earn as an employee working in the NWT", levied on the employee, though "employers are required to withhold the tax from their employees' pay, and remit the tax directly to the GNWT." Its reach follows the work, not residence — it applies to everyone working in the NWT "regardless of the province or territory of residence of the employee or employer", so a southern company flying crews north is in scope. [14] An employer with a "fixed place of business" in the NWT paying remuneration must register with the Department of Finance "within 21 days after you first pay remuneration to an employee", then remit on a schedule set by payroll size, with the annual return due 28 February. [13]

Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission. The WSCC serves both territories and calls itself "unique in Canada as it is the only workers' compensation organization in the country to insure workers across more than one province or territory" — so a business operating in the NWT and Nunavut deals with one commission. All employers establishing a business in either territory must register unless they meet Temporary Employer criteria, and "Employers who fail to register must pay a penalty to the WSCC." [15] The deadline is statutory rather than on the website: section 73 of the Workers' Compensation Act requires an employer who "establishes, commences or recommences business" to notify the Commission and send a payroll statement "within 10 days". [16] Founders are often not covered themselves: "The individuals who are not automatically covered by WSCC are a director of a corporation, a business owner with workers, or self-employed with no workers." Cover is bought separately as Personal Optional Coverage, and the annual payroll report is due 28 February. [17]

The business licence. The Business Licence Act is direct: "No person shall carry on a business unless he or she is registered or holds a licence issued under this Act and the regulations." A fee is payable per establishment, the penalty is a daily fine of up to $25 for an individual and $100 for a corporation, and the Commissioner may refuse or cancel a licence where an applicant "fails to produce satisfactory evidence" of compliance with the Workers' Compensation Act — so register with the WSCC first. [3]

Who issues it depends on where you operate. MACA "issues business licences to: Businesses operating outside community boundaries", while "All other NWT communities issue their own business licences". [18] Its procedure sets the fee at $218, states that "Licenses are issued from April 1 and expire March 31 of the following year," and asks applicants to "allow 3 to 4 weeks for processing". [19] Yellowknife prices residency: its Fees and Charges By-law sets "All Businesses not listed" at $200.00 resident and $350.00 non-resident, and home-based businesses are not exempt. [21] The renewal dates do not align: a Yellowknife licence is "valid and current from the date of issue for a period of one year", while MACA licences all expire on 31 March. [20]

Extra-territorial registration

If your corporation already exists — federally, in another province, or outside Canada — you register it rather than incorporating again, and the duty does not scale with intentions: "You are required to register regardless of how long you plan to do business in the Northwest Territories." [7]

What counts as carrying on business is a seven-limb list in section 279, broader than most founders expect. It captures a corporation whose name "is listed in a telephone directory for any part of the Northwest Territories"; whose name "appears or is announced in any advertisement in which an address in the Northwest Territories is given"; which has an agent, representative, warehouse, office or place of business there; which solicits business there; which owns any interest in NWT land; which is licensed or required to be licensed under an NWT Act; or which "otherwise carries on business or operations" there. [1] Two of those limbs turn on advertising and directory presence alone, so acquiring a northern address to look local can create the very duty the address was meant to sidestep.

What you file is five items: a Name Search and Reservation (except for a numbered or federal company); Form 18, Statement of Registration; Form 21, Notice of Registered Office; notarised or government-certified copies of the charter documents; and a certificate of status from the incorporating jurisdiction "dated not more than 30 days prior to the submission of documents". [7] That 30-day window is the sequencing constraint — order the certificate last, because one that goes stale in transit fails the filing. A charter not wholly in English or French may require a translation, and the corporation needs an NWT registered office "at all times" under section 287(1). [1]

Federal incorporation buys national name protection and portability; it does not buy exemption from NWT registration, and here it does not even buy a cheaper one — you pay the federal fee, the $500 territorial registration and two annual returns.

If you are outside Canada

The Northwest Territories is, on paper, among the more permissive places in Canada for a non-resident to own a corporation. The constraints are practical rather than legal, and they bite in a specific order.

Director residency is not a barrier. The Act imposes no resident-Canadian requirement, so one non-resident director suffices. [1] What is public is each director's complete postal and physical address, so a director abroad will have their foreign residential address on the territorial record. [6]

The registered office is the real barrier. Section 19(1) requires a physical civic address inside the territory, in the community named in the articles, publicly accessible during business hours. A founder abroad must arrange a genuine NWT address held by someone willing to accept service there — and section 20 means that person can end it on 30 days' notice, after which section 214(1)(b) exposes the corporation to dissolution. [1] No address outside the territory will do, and a Montreal address — including a 2727 address — cannot be an NWT registered office. Nor is a nominal arrangement safe: if the corporation does not actually carry on business at the address, section 20 is precisely the provision that applies to it.

What you cannot do remotely is file. Incorporation requires original signed documents by mail or in person, with scans, faxes and emails expressly refused. [5] [6] You can sign abroad and courier the originals, but wet ink must physically reach Yellowknife, a deficient package is returned with the fee, and no processing time is published. Build in weeks, not days, and expect at least one round trip. If you cannot attend in person, identify in advance who will deliver or post the package and who will receive it back.

Records must partly exist in the territory. If accounting records live abroad, section 21(8) still requires NWT-side records sufficient to establish the financial position quarterly with reasonable accuracy. [1] A purely offshore back office does not satisfy the Act.

Tax is where non-residence costs money. The 2% small-business rate is expressed for Canadian-controlled private corporations. [10] A corporation controlled by non-residents is generally outside CCPC status, so the attractive headline rate may be unavailable and the 11.5% general rate would apply. [11] Corporate residence and permanent establishment turn on where central management and control actually sits, not on where the registered office is. Take advice before making representations to a bank or a tax authority.

Owning the corporation gives you no right to work in Canada. This is where most plans end. Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, a business visitor is someone who "seeks to engage in international business activities in Canada without directly entering the Canadian labour market", and that is satisfied only where "the primary source of remuneration for the business activities is outside Canada" and "the principal place of business and actual place of accrual of profits remain predominately outside Canada." [27] Running your own Canadian company from inside Canada is the opposite of that: once the principal place of business and profits are in Canada, you are no longer a business visitor and need a work permit. Incorporating first and solving immigration later is the wrong order.

Banking is the other gate. No official source reviewed here establishes that a non-resident can open a Canadian business account remotely, or that any institution accepts any particular address document. Start from the open-from-abroad guide, the non-resident research and the bank requirements for the institution you intend to approach.

The realistic sequence is therefore: settle immigration first, arrange a genuine NWT address and a person to hold it, take tax advice on control and residence, then file on paper — reading the non-resident track alongside this page.

Immigration streams tied to the Northwest Territories

The territorial route is the NWT Nominee Program Business Stream, and its 2026 status runs against the national trend. The GNWT reported in August 2026 that the territory's allocation "was increased by 103 nominees this week, bringing this year's total allocation to 300", and that the Francophone and Business streams "do not operate under the Expression of Interest System and continue to evaluate applications on a first-come-first-serve basis." [24] The Business Stream itself advertises "no wait-list for your application". [23]

One caution before spending anything. The programme's own website still carried, when checked on 6 September 2026, an undated notice saying the Nominee Program "has closed its 2025 intake" — inconsistent with the 2026 releases above, but live on the GNWT's own site. Confirm intake directly before committing money.

The money thresholds are geographic, and halving them outside Yellowknife is the territory's distinctive feature.

Net worth is verified by a third-party financial service provider. The other conditions apply everywhere: own "at least one-third (33.3%) of the business" unless personal equity reaches $1,000,000; Canadian Language Benchmark 4 in English or the French equivalent, a notably low bar for an entrepreneur programme; a non-refundable $2,800 application fee; and a mandatory business visit of "a minimum of four (4) full business days" at the applicant's own cost. Approval leads to a two-year Business Performance Agreement, signed within 30 days, after which Education, Culture and Employment "will provide the applicant with a letter of support for a two (2) year temporary work permit." It requires residence "within 100 kilometers of the business", NWT residence "for at least 75% of the time while on a temporary work permit", and operating the business at least 12 months, with nomination available "during the nineteenth (19th) month after the Commencement Date". Critically, investment made before that agreement is signed "will not be recognized towards the required investment" — buying a business first destroys its eligibility — and decisions "are final and there is no appeal process." No minimum job count is published, and no refundable good-faith deposit appears in the guidelines. [22]

The federal Start-up Visa is not an alternative right now. IRCC's page carries the status "Paused" and "Closed to new applicants", stating that "The Start-Up Visa Program was paused on June 30, 2026", leaving only holders of a valid 2025 commitment certificate in the queue. [26] The Employer-Driven stream moved to an Expression of Interest draw system for 2026 and needs a job offer from an NWT employer, so it serves someone being hired, not a founder.

Territorial incentives and official languages

The NWT's most concrete incentive is not a tax credit but a procurement preference. GNWT Industry, Tourism and Investment notes that "The GNWT spends over $260 million annually on products and services" and that the Business Incentive Policy exists "to give preference on government procurement to businesses that are owned and operated within the NWT", with registered businesses receiving a published bid adjustment of "15% NWT and 5% local" on contracts up to $1 million. Eligibility is a real residency test, not a mailing address: "majority ownership within the NWT (51%)" and "You must have been a resident within the NWT for the past 12 months". [25] Where government is the dominant purchaser that adjustment is often worth more than any rate difference — and it is exactly what a non-resident-owned corporation with a nominal northern address cannot access.

The territory also has eleven official languages. Section 4 of the Official Languages Act names them: "Chipewyan, Cree, English, French, Gwich'in, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey, South Slavey and Tłı̨chǫ are the Official Languages of the Northwest Territories." Section 11 is the provision that matters to a founder: subsection (1) gives the right "to communicate with, and to receive available services from, any head or central office of a government institution in English or French", while subsection (2) extends an equivalent right to the other nine languages at "any regional, area or community office" where there is significant demand or it is reasonable. [28] So a francophone founder can deal with the GNWT in French: Corporate Registries publishes its guidance, forms and fee schedules in French, and the Business Corporations Act is itself a bilingual consolidation in parallel columns — though French pages are not maintained to a uniform standard, and one registry fee schedule in French was out of date when checked.

Common failure modes

Annual maintenance calendar

Readiness checklist

• A distinctive name has been tested free on the online register, does not lean on "Aurora", and is inside its 90-day reservation window.
• Form 1 names only the community; Form 2 carries the civic address and marks unused fields N/A; Form 4 lists every director with postal and physical addresses.
• A real physical NWT address is contracted in writing, with a named person willing to accept service.
• Every signature is original wet ink, with a prepaid trackable return envelope enclosed.
• A business number and only the required CRA program accounts are in place; GST assessed against actual supplies.
• The WSCC is notified within 10 days, and Personal Optional Coverage considered for directors.
• Payroll-tax registration is filed within 21 days of first remuneration, and the correct licence — MACA or community — applied for with WSCC proof attached.
• The anniversary month, 28 February and 31 March are all in one compliance calendar.
• If you are abroad: immigration is settled first, tax advice taken on CCPC status and residence, and the address arrangement would survive a section 20 withdrawal.

What 2727 can and cannot support

2727 Coworking is in Griffintown, Montreal, and that geography decides honestly what it can do for a Northwest Territories business.

A 2727 business address can be a mailing and correspondence address for a company of any kind, with whatever workspace, meeting-room and mail handling the signed agreement describes. For a company constituted federally or under Quebec law, a suitable plan may also document a Quebec registered office — set out in the federal corporation scenario.

A 2727 address cannot be the registered office of an NWT corporation, nor the NWT registered office of an extra-territorial corporation: sections 19(1) and 287(1) both require an address inside the Northwest Territories, and no Montreal address satisfies either. [1] It is also not a records office, not evidence of NWT residency for the Business Incentive Policy, not a substitute for the nominee programme's residency and business-visit requirements, and not a personal residential address for any director. And one NWT-specific trap deserves stating plainly: if a corporation formed elsewhere advertises using an address in the Northwest Territories, that advertising is itself a statutory limb of carrying on business there. Addresses are not cosmetic in this territory; they carry registration consequences.

2727 does not certify any address as satisfying any registry, tax or banking requirement, does not issue utility or property-tax bills, and cannot make any registry, bank or government accept anything. Ask the receiving body which exact field it means and which document it accepts, then choose a plan only if the real service matches that use. Founders abroad should read starting from abroad and the non-resident address research first.

For the neighbouring territories compare Yukon and Nunavut — Nunavut shares the WSCC with the NWT — and for the other GST-only jurisdiction, Alberta. The cluster is indexed on the start a business in Canada hub.

Research method and limitations

This page was researched and verified on 6 September 2026 against the territory's own publishers and the relevant federal bodies.

The intended discovery tools were unavailable: Exa returned an HTTP 402 credit-limit error and the built-in web search reported its session budget exhausted. Discovery was therefore done without a search engine — official publishers were crawled directly with curl and WebFetch, entering Corporate Registries at its landing page and following its own links and PDF asset URLs, with the statutes located through the GNWT consolidated-legislation index and read as pdftotext extractions. No fact here rests on a search-engine snippet; the cost is breadth, and a source not linked from one of those entry points may have been missed. CanLII returned HTTP 403, so the Act is cited from the GNWT office consolidation, which carries the caveat that a consolidation "is not an official statement of the law".

The finding that the Act imposes no resident-Canadian director requirement was established by reading section 106(1) and then searching the full consolidation: "resident Canadian" appears exactly once, in the section 1 definitions, and "résident canadien" exactly once in the French column. The absence of a beneficial-ownership register was established the same way.

One discrepancy was resolved: the registry's standalone French fee-schedule PDF states $300 for registering an extra-territorial corporation carrying on business for gain, while the English schedule and Schedule B of the Regulations — as last amended by R-029-2024, bilingual in both columns — state $500. The French PDF is stale; $500 is used here and on the French page. A second is unresolved: for an application to the Registrar under sections 3(3), 153, 158 and 190(11) the English registry schedule says $300 and Schedule B says $100, so that figure is not used.

Stated as unverifiable rather than estimated: the registry publishes no processing time for any filing; the WSCC does not publish its late-registration penalty or its per-subclass rates; no Business Incentive Policy registration fee is published; and no official source connects the NWT cost of living tax credit to the payroll tax, so no offset is claimed. The nominee programme's site carries a 2025 intake-closure notice contradicting its 2026 releases; both are reported rather than reconciled. Facts from canada.ca came through a tool that renders pages to markdown, so those strings are content rather than byte-exact quotation, and GNWT wording is preferred where it overlaps.

No filing, payment, name reservation, licence application, tax registration, immigration application or bank application was submitted or tested, and nothing here predicts any outcome. This page is educational planning material, not legal, tax, accounting, immigration or banking advice.

Frequently asked questions

Can I incorporate in the Northwest Territories online?

No. Corporate Registries requires original signed documents by mail or in person, and scans, photocopies, emails and faxes cannot be accepted. The online system searches the register; it does not accept filings. [5] [6]

Do NWT directors have to be Canadian residents?

No. Section 106(1) disqualifies only non-individuals, people under 19, individuals under specified incapacity orders and undischarged bankrupts. The Act defines "resident Canadian" but never imposes it on a board. Sector statutes and licences can still add conditions. [1]

Can my registered office be outside the territory, and can the host withdraw it?

No, and yes. Section 19(1) requires a physical civic address inside the NWT, in the community named in the articles; a PO box will not do. And where the corporation does not carry on business there, the host may notify the Registrar and the address ceases to be the registered office 30 days later — which exposes the corporation to dissolution. [1]

Is there a sales tax, and do I file a separate territorial corporate return?

No to both. Only the 5% federal GST applies. [12] The CRA administers the NWT Income Tax Act, so territorial corporate tax flows through your federal T2 at 2% on the first $500,000 for CCPCs and 11.5% generally. [10] [11]

What is the NWT payroll tax and who pays it?

A 2% tax on employment income earned working in the NWT, levied on the employee rather than the employer. The employer must still register within 21 days of first paying remuneration, then withhold and remit, regardless of where either party resides. [14] [13]

When must I register with the WSCC?

Within 10 days of establishing, commencing or recommencing business, under section 73 of the Workers' Compensation Act. Do it before applying for a business licence, which can be refused for workers'-compensation non-compliance. [16] [15] [3]

Is the NWT nominee programme's business stream open?

The GNWT's August 2026 release says the Business Stream continues first-come, first-served and that the 2026 allocation rose to 300. An older, undated notice on the same site still says the 2025 intake closed, so confirm intake directly before spending money. [24] [23]

Does owning an NWT corporation let me move to Canada or work there?

No. Business-visitor status requires that your principal place of business and profits stay predominantly outside Canada, which running a Canadian company from inside Canada contradicts. You need a work permit or a nomination, and the federal Start-up Visa was paused on 30 June 2026. [27] [26]

Official references

1. GNWT Department of Justice: Business Corporations Act, SNWT 1996, c.19 (consolidation)
2. GNWT Department of Justice: Business Corporations Regulations (Schedule B fees)
3. GNWT Department of Justice: Business Licence Act, RSNWT 1988, c.B-4
4. Corporate Registries: NWT corporations
5. Corporate Registries: NWT corporations, forms and guides
6. GNWT: Incorporating under the Business Corporations Act of the Northwest Territories
7. Corporate Registries: extra-territorial corporations
8. Corporate Registries: business names and partnerships
9. Corporate Registries: business name requirements
10. GNWT Department of Finance: corporate income tax
11. CRA: Northwest Territories territorial corporation tax
12. CRA: GST/HST and provincial sales-tax rates by province and territory
13. GNWT Department of Finance: payroll tax — employers
14. GNWT Department of Finance: payroll tax — employees
15. WSCC: register your business
16. GNWT Department of Justice: Workers' Compensation Act
17. WSCC: report payroll and Personal Optional Coverage
18. GNWT Municipal and Community Affairs: business licensing
19. GNWT Municipal and Community Affairs: procedures for licensing businesses
20. City of Yellowknife: Business Licence By-law No. 3451 (consolidation)
21. City of Yellowknife: consolidated Fees and Charges By-law No. 4436
22. NWT Nominee Program: Business Stream Program Guidelines, effective 1 January 2026
23. NWT Nominee Program: Business Stream
24. NWT Nominee Program: allocations increased to 300
25. GNWT Industry, Tourism and Investment: Business Incentive Policy
26. IRCC: Start-up Visa Program
27. Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, section 187 (business visitors)
28. GNWT Department of Justice: Official Languages Act, RSNWT 1988, c.O-1