Registering your business name: Ontario Business Registry and the other provinces
Lesson 2 of 11 in Self-Employment & Small Business Setup · 20 minutes
Before you can issue an invoice, before you can open a business bank account, before you can charge GST/HST, you need to be properly registered. This lesson covers business name registration in Ontario (through the Ontario Business Registry) and equivalent processes across Canada — the practical steps to legitimate setup.
What you'll learn
- Understand provincial business name registration and the Ontario Business Registry
- Decide between sole proprietorship and incorporation based on cost, liability, and tax
- Complete provincial registration online using the right service
- Avoid the common newcomer mistakes that lead to fines or rework
From the lesson
Starting a small business in Canada involves a small but specific set of registrations. Get them right and you have legitimate, properly invoicing, tax-compliant operations from day one. Get them wrong and you operate informally — which in the short term might feel easier but in the medium term creates problems with banks, customers, the CRA, and provincial regulators. This lesson covers the provincial-level registrations that come first: the business name registration (the Ontario Business Registry in Ontario; equivalents elsewhere), the choice between sole proprietorship and incorporation, and the practical step-by-step of getting registered. The federal-level registrations (GST/HST,…