Register a business in New Brunswick through Service New Brunswick's Corporate Registry: the $112 Certificate of Business Name (Gazette fee included), the 5-year renewal at $62, and how partnerships and corporations differ.
Applies in: New Brunswick
Registering a business in New Brunswick means filing with the Corporate Registry at Service New Brunswick. A sole proprietor or a business trading under an operating name files a Certificate of Business Name for $112 — a fee with a New Brunswick twist, because $12 of it pays to publish your registration in the Royal Gazette, the province's official notices journal. The registration runs five years and renews for $62. Partnerships register under the same Act, and incorporation is a separate, heavier filing at $262 online. Everything below walks through who has to file, the Gazette fee, and the five-year clock.
New Brunswick law — the Partnerships and Business Names Registration Act — turns on the name you trade under. The Act's duty is written around businesses carried on for trading, manufacturing or mining purposes, and the certificate is due within two months of the name use starting:
Registration here is a name record, not a licence to operate. It does not create a separate legal entity for a sole proprietor or partners, and it does not replace the municipal and industry permits a given business may still need.
Before you pay the $112, check that the name is usable:
The Gazette publication in the next step is one more reason to get the name right before filing: your registration becomes a published public notice, and fixing a wrong name means a new filing, not an edit.
The filing goes through Service New Brunswick, online through the Corporate Registry's filing centre or in person at a service centre. What the filing asks for:
The fee is $112, made up of the $100 filing fee and the $12 Royal Gazette publication fee — both figures sit on Service New Brunswick's fee table for the service, effective January 1, 1991. When the filing is accepted, save the certificate — it is the document banks ask for when you open a business account, and suppliers and landlords ask for it too. The Corporate Registry works within the common Business Number system, so your registration connects to the federal business number your tax accounts hang off.
Two filing notes that save repeat trips: online filing is the fast route for both business names and incorporations, and the registry's records are open to public inquiry through the Corporate Registry — file information you are comfortable having customers look up. The online database is extracted from the filed documents and is not itself the official legal record; certified copies come from the registry.
The Corporate Registry handles several filings that get confused with the $112 certificate:
Atlantic Canada has cross-border shortcuts worth knowing: a sole proprietorship registered in New Brunswick does not register again in Nova Scotia (Nova Scotia's own registration page lists the exemption), Nova Scotia corporations are exempt from extra-provincial registration in New Brunswick under section 195.1 of the Business Corporations Act, and each province bars names that are identical or deceptively similar to names on the other's registry. Everywhere else in Canada, assume a new province means a new registration.
A Certificate of Business Name runs five years in New Brunswick. Renewal costs $62, Gazette fee included. Five years is long enough that the renewal is the filing most likely to be missed, and a lapsed registration has to be filed fresh.
While the registration is live, keep the record accurate: if the business address, the proprietor or the partners change, update the Corporate Registry. The record is public and third parties rely on it.
Corporations sit on a different clock: no five-year renewal, but an annual return every year, due within the 30 days following the anniversary date and in any case before the end of the month following the anniversary month. A corporation that stops filing can be dissolved under section 139 of the Business Corporations Act — the registry's policy is to dissolve only after two years of missed returns, with a final warning notice first, but dissolution ends the corporation's legal existence.
Registration is only the first layer. The rest: a CRA business number and program accounts — GST/HST registration once you pass $30,000 of taxable supplies in a single calendar quarter or over four consecutive calendar quarters; WorkSafeNB registration once you have three or more workers, within 15 days of their starting; and the municipal and industry permits for your town and trade, which BizPaL lists for free across all levels of government.
| Certificate of Business Name (sole proprietorship or operating name) | $112, including the $12 Royal Gazette fee |
|---|---|
| Renewal of business name (every 5 years) | $62, including the Gazette fee |
| New Brunswick incorporation, filed electronically | $262, including the Gazette fee |
| New Brunswick incorporation, filed on paper | $312 |
| Corporate annual return | $60 online / $80 on paper |
| Extra-provincial corporation registration | $212 ($200 plus $12 Gazette fee) |
Fees are Service New Brunswick Corporate Registry fees. The Gazette charge is part of the bill in New Brunswick: registering a name includes publishing it in the Royal Gazette, the province's official public notices journal. Registration agents and lawyers charge a service fee on top of the same registry fees. The $112 and $62 business-name totals sit on Service New Brunswick's fee table with an effective date of January 1, 1991; the regulation under the Act prescribes the base fees ($100 and $50), and the $12 Gazette charge brings each total to the table figure. The registry does not publish the incorporation fee on its Business Corporations page; the $262 and $312 figures are the amounts charged at filing, so confirm them in the filing centre before you file.
If you carry on business under a name other than your own full legal name, yes. Under the Partnerships and Business Names Registration Act, sole proprietors using a business name, partnerships trading under a firm name, and corporations using an operating name different from their legal corporate name all file with the Corporate Registry at Service New Brunswick. The duty is written around businesses carried on for trading, manufacturing or mining purposes, and the filing is due within two months. A sole proprietor trading under exactly their own name does not file a business name certificate — but adding words like 'and company' to your own name does trigger the filing.
A Certificate of Business Name costs $112, and $12 of that is the Royal Gazette publication fee, which is mandatory and included. The registration lasts five years and renews for $62, Gazette fee included again. Incorporating a New Brunswick company instead costs $262 when you file electronically, or $312 on paper, and corporations then file an annual return at $60 online or $80 on paper.
The Royal Gazette is New Brunswick's official journal for public legal notices. Registering a business name, incorporating, and several other Corporate Registry filings include publishing a notice in it, and the registry builds the $12 publication charge into the filing fee. It is not an optional add-on and it is not a scam line item; the $112 business name fee is $100 for the filing plus $12 for the Gazette.
Five years. When the five years run out you renew the Certificate of Business Name for $62, which includes the Gazette fee. Let it lapse and the name registration is cancelled, which means re-filing from scratch and explaining the gap to your bank. Put the renewal date in your calendar the day the certificate arrives; the cycle is long enough that everyone forgets it.
Service New Brunswick is the province's service delivery agency, and its Corporate Registry is the office that holds business name, partnership and corporation records for New Brunswick. Most filings can be done online through the Corporate Registry's online filing centre, and Service New Brunswick service centres across the province take filings in person. The registry's records are public, so customers and suppliers can look up your business.
Plan on one. The Corporate Registry's own name guide walks incorporations, partnerships and business names through the same step: an Atlantic New Brunswick NUANS report from a private name-search firm, and the electronic filing process for a sole proprietor's business name registration asks you to attach the report. The report must be current — done within 90 days of the registry receiving it. A quick search of the registry's own records and the federal trademark database is still worth doing first, so you do not pay for a report on a name that is obviously taken.
It records the name and gives you the paper trail that you used it first in the province, and the Gazette publication is part of that public record. It does not give you trademark rights and it does not stop someone in another province from using a similar name. If the name is a real brand asset, a federal trademark is the filing that protects it across Canada.
Partners trading under a firm name register under the same Partnerships and Business Names Registration Act, filing a certificate of partnership with the Corporate Registry through Service New Brunswick, within two months. The certificate sets out every partner's full name, address and occupation, the firm name, the firm's principal place of business in the province, and how long the partnership has existed. Registration does not write your partnership agreement for you; how profits, signing authority and exits work is still a private agreement you should put in writing yourselves.
Yes, an out-of-province corporation carrying on business in New Brunswick registers as an extra-provincial corporation with the Corporate Registry. The filing is Form 26 (Statement of Registration) with Forms 25 and 25.1 appointing an attorney for service in the province, plus a copy of the corporation's incorporation documents and an Atlantic New Brunswick NUANS report; it costs $212 (the $200 registration plus the $12 Gazette fee). A $100 expedite fee gets the certificate of registration within 2 business days instead of the usual 10. The corporation then files an annual return (Form 33.1) every year, due by the end of the month following its registration anniversary month. Carrying on business is defined broadly in the Business Corporations Act, so do not assume a small New Brunswick footprint escapes it.
Save the certificate, then do the layers the registry does not cover: your CRA program accounts if they are not already open (GST/HST once you pass $30,000 of taxable supplies in a single calendar quarter or over four consecutive calendar quarters), any municipal licence your city or town requires, WorkSafeNB registration once you have three or more workers (register within 15 days of workers starting), and a business bank account, which most banks will only open once they see the registration certificate.