Starting a business in Canada: registration, trademarks & taxes

1. The three common structures, in one table

Three legal "shells" cover most businesses in Canada: the sole proprietorship (you are the business), the partnership (two or more people together) and the corporation (a separate legal person). "Studio", "workshop" and "team" are brand words, not legal forms. Whatever the sign says, in law you are one of these three.

Corporations come in two kinds. A BC company is the usual choice for a business in BC: directors face no citizenship or residency requirement. A federal corporation protects its name across Canada, but at least 25% of its directors must be "resident Canadians" (at least one director, if there are fewer than four). "Resident Canadian" means a citizen or PR who ordinarily lives in Canada. Note one trap: a PR who has been eligible for citizenship for more than a year without applying no longer counts. And a federal corporation that operates in BC must also register here as an extraprovincial company, for another $350. If your business lives in BC, a BC company is usually simpler.

Ongoing cost: a BC company files an annual report every year, about $43. A sole proprietorship has no annual fee.

2. The truth about "business scope": nobody charges you by category to open shop

In some countries the business licence spells out a permitted scope, and stepping outside it causes trouble. Canada has no such system.

• Sole proprietorship: at registration you enter a one-line "nature of business". It is only a record, and the price is a flat $40. Add a product line later, start a channel, take design work: nothing to amend, nothing more to pay.
• Corporation: by default it may carry on any lawful business. The articles rarely restrict the scope at all.
• The one exception is industry licensing: selling insurance needs an insurance licence, food service needs health permits, child care needs a licence. That is sector regulation, and it has nothing to do with registration fees. To see what your industry needs, use BizPaL (the federal permit-finder tool; it is in the list at the end).

3. What does your status let you register?

• Citizen / PR: everything is open to you, including being a director of a federal corporation. The PR must ordinarily live in Canada, and must not be more than a year past citizenship eligibility without applying. See section 1.
• Open work permit (a permit not tied to one employer): you may register and run a sole proprietorship or a partnership, because self-employment is lawful. You may also incorporate a BC company and work in it. One warning: self-employed experience usually does not count as Canadian work experience for the Canadian Experience Class under Express Entry (the federal fast-track system).
• Employer-specific (closed) work permit: you may only work for the employer named on the permit. No self-employment, and no running your own business. Change the permit first.
• Study permit: you may work off campus only if your permit says so. The conditions: full-time study at a DLI (a designated learning institution recognized by the federal government), in a degree, diploma or certificate program lasting 6 months or more. There is also an hourly cap while classes are on, currently 24 hours a week; during scheduled school breaks you may work full-time. Self-employment counts as work and counts against the cap. Students in a language program only (ESL/FSL) cannot work off campus at all. Do the math before you build a start-up around your classes, and follow IRCC’s rules.
• Abroad / no status: you may hold shares, because owning is not "working". You may also incorporate a BC company, since BC sets no residency requirement for directors. But you cannot come to Canada and work in your own company without a work permit. See the next section.

One aside: a .ca domain requires a "Canadian presence". Citizens, PRs, Canadian companies and owners of a Canadian registered trademark qualify. .org and .com have no such requirement and serve perfectly well in the meantime.

4. Owning a company ≠ getting a work permit (rumour control)

Here are the real routes. None of them is easy:

1. C11 entrepreneur work permit (under the International Mobility Program, so no LMIA — no labour market impact assessment — is needed): you normally need 50% or more ownership, a credible business plan, and proof that the business brings Canada a "significant benefit", economic, social or cultural. The scrutiny is real, and an empty shell company does not pass.
2. Provincial nominee entrepreneur streams (for example BC PNP Entrepreneur Immigration): hard thresholds on investment, net worth and business performance. Usually you operate the business first and are nominated only after you deliver.
3. Federal Start-Up Visa (SUV): ⚠️ new applications have been paused since December 31, 2025. Anyone who already held a support letter from a designated organization had until 2026-06-30 to file. IRCC says a new entrepreneur pilot will be announced in 2026. The details are not out yet, so its website prevails.
4. Regular LMIA: the old special Owner-Operator LMIA lane was eliminated on April 1, 2021. Old articles still circulate; do not rely on them. Owners now face the same scrutiny as any other employer, and the advertising requirements still apply.

5. When to start: before PR vs after PR

The same act — starting a business — plays out very differently before and after permanent residence. This section is about strategy. How PR itself is obtained is the next section.

Before PR (the work- or study-permit stage): treat the venture as a side line, and never cut your immigration main line.

• Know which immigration route you are on before you commit. If it is the Canadian Experience Class (CEC), employed work experience is your lifeline. Self-employment does not count for CEC — the only current exception is for practising physicians — and neither does work done while you are a full-time student. So quitting your job to found a start-up cuts that route with your own hands. What each status permits is in section 3.
• On the Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) route the rule flips: self-employed experience does count, in Canada or abroad. But it must add up to one continuous year, and you must clear the 67-point pass mark across six selection factors. The two routes treat self-employment in opposite ways, so work out which one is yours first.
• The right way to test the waters: a sole proprietorship. It is lawful under an open work permit, registration costs $71.50 all in (section 8), and the income is reported on form T2125. A clean tax record is your business’s résumé, and it shows whenever you borrow money or apply for anything.
• Want a .ca domain? You do not have to wait for PR, but you must use the right door. See the fold-out below, which also clears up a common mix-up.
• An employer-specific (closed) permit is a hard line: no self-employment, no running a business. Change the permit first (section 3).

After PR: your status and your business come apart, and you can truly commit.

• Whether the business keeps running no longer hangs on a permit. No more worrying that a renewal gap interrupts it. Working full-time in your own venture is lawful and settled;
• Eligibility unlocks across the board: you can be a director of a federal corporation (section 1), register .ca in your own name, and apply to citizen- and PR-only programs such as Futurpreneur. Section 7 has the table;
• Two residency counts to remember. To keep PR, you need 730 days inside any 5-year window, counting back from any given day; the days need not be continuous. For citizenship, you need 1,095 days in the 5 years before you apply. If business has you flying everywhere, budget those days.

6. How PR is actually obtained: the main routes (signposts only)

There is no single "PR standard". There are routes, and each has its own bar. These are the ones that matter most to workers and founders:

How does Express Entry work? You build a profile to enter the pool, everyone is ranked by CRS score, and IRCC holds draws at intervals. Only an invitation lets you apply. So qualifying for the pool and being drawn are two different things. French is the evergreen category, and learning it is real currency.

7. After PR: what unlocks — and what was open all along

The good news comes in two layers: things PR unlocks, and things that were open all along. Do not be scared off by "no status, no programs". And do not expect "PR arrives, cheques follow". Most support is loans, advice and risk-sharing, not free money.

Unlocked by PR (or citizenship):

• Futurpreneur: you must be 18–39, a citizen or PR, and living in Canada. It offers start-up loans plus two years of mentoring (checked against the eligibility page);
• .ca in your own name, and being a director of a federal corporation: the full story is in section 5 and section 1;
• A permanent SIN: the temporary number starting with 9 is retired. A sole proprietor’s handover steps are in the fold-out of section 3.

Open no matter what your immigration status is, as long as the business operates in Canada:

• Business Benefits Finder: the federal government’s own matching tool. Answer a few questions and it lists the programs your business can apply for. Start every subsidy hunt here, not with hearsay;
• CSBFP (Canada Small Business Financing Program): loans where the government shares the risk with the bank. They are for businesses operating in Canada with gross annual revenue of $10 million or less. The cap is $1.15 million per borrower: term loans up to $1M, plus a line of credit up to $150k. You apply at your own bank;
• BDC (Business Development Bank of Canada): a federally owned bank for entrepreneurs, offering start-up loans and advisory services;
• Small Business BC: provincial advisory services and seminars;
• The small-business tax rate: a corporation that qualifies as a CCPC (a Canadian-controlled private corporation) gets the small business deduction, which means a net federal rate of 9% instead of the general 15% (see section 10). Note this: "Canadian-controlled" turns on tax residency, which is a separate system from immigration status. So a company controlled by a work-permit holder who is a tax resident may still qualify. The tests are technical, so ask a CPA.

8. The registration steps and fees (BC sole proprietorship)

1. Name Request ($31.50): file it with BC Registries. You may list up to 3 candidate names, and they are examined in the order you give. Priority service takes 1–2 business days and costs $100 more. An approved name is held for you for 56 days.
2. Register ($40): use the approved name request to complete the sole-proprietorship registration with BC Registries.
3. The rest only as needed:
   • CRA Business Number (BN): free. You need it once you open a GST/HST account (the federal sales tax) or start running payroll;
   • GST/HST: when does registering become mandatory? Once your worldwide taxable sales pass $30,000, either in a single calendar quarter or across four consecutive calendar quarters. The threshold is the same for every structure. Ride-share and taxi drivers are the exception: they must register from the first dollar. Below the threshold you may register voluntarily, which lets you recover the tax you pay on purchases;
   • BC PST (the provincial sales tax): only if you sell taxable goods or certain services;
   • WorkSafeBC: register for workplace insurance when you hire, in most cases;
   • Municipal business licence: from the city you operate in. BizPaL lists exactly what your industry and city require.

9. Trademarks: insurance for your name

Protecting a brand really works in three layers, each covering something different:

• Copyright (automatic, $0): an original logo is protected the moment it is created. No registration needed;
• Word mark: protects the name itself. Whatever font, styling or artwork someone wraps around it, using that name inside your registered classes is within your reach;
• Design mark: protects the specific artwork, that is, the logo.

What is the Nice Classification? It is a set of 45 classes used worldwide: classes 1–34 are goods, 35–45 are services. Some examples: class 35 covers advertising and business services, and accounting and tax preparation live there; 41 is education and training; 42 is website and software design; 43 is food and lodging. Trademark protection is bought class by class. In the classes you buy, others cannot use your name. Outside them you have no protection, but nothing stops you from operating there yourself.

How the fees work (2026, filed online): you are charged per class, once — this is not a yearly fee. It is $491.06 for the first class, plus $149.04 for each additional class. ⚠️ Once you file, you cannot add classes to that application. Topping up means a brand-new application, starting again at the first-class price. So before you file, think through every line of business you run now or plan to run in the next few years. A registration lasts 10 years and can be renewed every 10 years. Renewal is also per class: $595.06 for the first and $185.49 for each additional class, filed online. Examination currently queues for two to three years. While you wait you may use ™; only after registration may you use ®. The fees are not refundable, even if the application is refused in the end.

There is no status requirement. Visitors, work-permit holders, study-permit holders and people overseas can all apply for a Canadian trademark. Individual, sole proprietor or corporation: same classification table, same price.

Two extras are required for a Chinese-character mark. If a trademark contains non-Latin characters, Chinese for instance, the application must include a transliteration into Latin characters. Words in a language other than English or French also need an English or French translation (Trademarks Regulations, s. 31). These are information fields only. They are not separately protected. What the registration protects is the characters you applied for.

Search before you file. The CIPO trademarks database (in the list below) shows identical and similar registered marks, free of charge.

10. How the tax filing differs

Sole proprietorship / partnership: business income goes on form T2125 inside your personal T1 return. Self-employed filers have until June 15 to file, but interest on any balance owing starts on April 30. Profit is taxed at your personal rate. Losses can offset your other personal income. CPP (the public pension) is paid double, because you are both the employer half and the employee half. A one-person business can absolutely file its own taxes. That is exactly what this site helps with, free.

Corporation: the company files its own T2 return, due 6 months after year-end, with balances generally payable within 2–3 months of year-end. BC’s small-business rate is about 11%: 9% federal plus 2% BC, on the first $500k of active income. But that low rate only pays off while the money stays in the company. To pay yourself a salary you need payroll and T4 slips; to pay dividends you need T5 slips; and personal tax is due again either way. Corporate losses stay locked inside the company. In practice most small corporations hire a CPA, roughly $1,000–2,500 a year. You can check the licence in the CPABC directory, section 11.

11. The websites you will actually use (all verified)

These are all official or authoritative sites, opened and checked one by one on 2026-08-24. The one marked ※ is the exception: its address matches public records, but that day the site blocked our automated check.

Names & registration

Taxes (CRA)

Trademarks (CIPO)

Immigration (signposts only)

Funding & support

More

12. Common myths ↔ facts