How to Register a Business in Quebec: the REQ, Your NEQ, and the French-Language Rules

The registration in one paragraph

Registering a business in Quebec means filing a declaration of registration (declaration d'immatriculation) with the Registraire des entreprises, the office that keeps Quebec's enterprise register. A sole proprietorship pays $41, a partnership pays $63, and the filing gives you the number everything else in Quebec keys off: the 10-digit NEQ, your Quebec enterprise number. Two Quebec-only wrinkles shape the whole process. First, the register is a living record — every enterprise files an annual updating declaration and pays an annual fee to stay current. Second, your business name lives under the Charter of the French Language, so the name you choose has to work in French before it works anywhere else. This guide is written in plain English for founders arriving from outside Quebec, including newcomers to Canada; the official forms use French terms, and those terms are given alongside the English throughout.

Step 1: Decide whether you must register

Since 1994, enterprises doing business in Quebec register in the enterprise register. The obligation turns on your structure and your name, as the Registraire's About the registration of an enterprise page sets out:

• Sole proprietor under your first and last name — a business name that includes your own first and last name, with nothing else added, does not have to register. Registration is voluntary for you, and many sole proprietors file anyway to get an NEQ.
• Sole proprietor under any other name — a brand name, a trade name, a name with a descriptor added — you must file a declaration of registration.
• Tobacco retail or tanning salon — a sole proprietor running one registers even under their own first and last name.
• Partnership — general and limited partnerships register, declaring the partners.
• Company incorporated in Quebec — the company is registered as part of its incorporation with the Registraire.
• Company or enterprise from outside Quebec — if you carry on business in Quebec, you register here too, even if you are already registered in another province or federally.

The declaration, with its fee, is due no later than 60 days after registration becomes compulsory under section 32 of the Act. Registration is a legal-publicity record, not a permit. It tells the public who owns the business, where it is, and what it does. Sector licences and municipal permits sit on top of it.

Step 2: Check the name — and the French rules

Start with a free search of the enterprise register on the Registraire's site. Look for the identical name and close variants. The register is public, so this search also shows you who your competitors are and how they named themselves — a useful hour for a newcomer.

Then run the name through the Charter of the French Language, because this is where founders from outside Quebec get tripped:

• A French generic term. Under the Registraire's name rules and its guide Les noms d'entreprises au Québec (IN-531), the part of the name that describes the business — the generic — must be in French. If the distinctive part of the name is a word, an expression, an acronym or a coined word in another language, a French generic is mandatory: that is why you see names built as a brand word plus a French descriptor. A surname can stand alone as the whole name, and so can a coined word that belongs to French; a place name can form the distinctive part, correctly accented, but does not stand alone.
• Signage is stricter than registration. Since June 1, 2025, under the Bill 96 amendments to the Charter, a business name or trademark that carries a part in another language and appears on a sign visible from outside your premises must be accompanied by French terms — a generic, a description or a slogan — so that French is markedly predominant overall; the OQLF's signage page works out markedly predominant as French taking at least twice the space of the other language, with at least equal visibility. Product inscriptions and packaging carry their own French rules, with narrow trademark exceptions and French required for generic and descriptive wording.
• French in the workplace and paperwork. Once you hire, contracts and offers of employment have French-language obligations as well. None of this blocks an anglophone or immigrant founder. It does mean the French version of things is a real deliverable, not an afterthought, so budget for translation the way you budget for signage.

Step 3: File the declaration of registration

The filing is done online through the Registraire's Mon bureau services (My Office). You choose the declaration that matches your structure — individual (sole proprietorship), partnership, legal person, or association — and provide:

• The business name, and any other names you operate under
• The address of your main establishment in Quebec
• Your two main business activities, in order of importance
• The number of employees in Quebec
• The name and address of your representative and your elected domicile (the official address where the Registraire reaches you)

Fees at the regular pace, per the Registraire's fee schedule RE-101: $41 for a sole proprietorship, $63 for a partnership. Priority processing adds 50 percent — $61.50 and $94.50. An optional name reservation, used mostly before an incorporation, costs $27. When the declaration is deposited in the register, the Registraire assigns your NEQ, the 10-digit Quebec enterprise number — its first two digits even encode your legal form. Keep it with your CRA business number; Quebec ministries, Revenu Quebec, banks and suppliers will ask for the NEQ by name.

Step 4: Set up the tax accounts (QST is its own step)

The NEQ is not a tax number. Quebec runs its own tax agency, Revenu Quebec, and its own sales tax:

• QST registration — once your total worldwide taxable supplies, including your associates', exceed $30,000 in a single calendar quarter or in the four preceding calendar quarters, registering for the QST and the GST is mandatory. The rates are the QST at 9.975 percent, calculated on the price excluding the GST, and the GST at 5 percent. Revenu Quebec administers the GST in Quebec and handles both registrations together — online or on its application for registration, form LM-1-V — and you receive a QST number and a federal GST account.
• Voluntary registration — below $30,000 you may register anyway, which lets you claim input tax refunds on the QST and input tax credits on the GST you pay on startup purchases.
• Source deductions — if you hire employees, registering for source deductions with Revenu Quebec is also where payroll deductions, and the Quebec Pension Plan and Quebec Parental Insurance Plan contributions, are handled, alongside the CRA payroll account.

The site's GST/HST guide covers the federal side of the $30,000 rule; in Quebec, read every "HST" instruction as "GST plus QST, filed with Revenu Quebec".

Step 5: File the annual updating declaration, every year

Quebec registration is not file-and-forget. Every registered enterprise must:

• File an annual updating declaration during its assigned filing period each year — January 1 to June 15 for sole proprietorships and partnerships — confirming or correcting the register information. Businesses that file a Quebec tax return can often do it jointly by checking the box on the return (line 436 on the personal return TP-1, line 39 on the corporate return CO-17) when nothing has changed; a sole proprietor filing jointly pays the annual fee by April 30 and files the declaration by June 15.
• Pay the annual registration fee — $41 a year for a sole proprietorship, $63 for a partnership, $106 for a corporation. New registrations are exempt in the year of registration and the following year.
• File a current updating declaration within 30 days of any change during the year — a new address, a new activity, a partner change. This one is free at the regular pace.
• File a declaration of cancellation when the business closes.

Late filing has teeth, per the Registraire's legal obligations page and schedule RE-101: a late annual declaration costs 50 percent of the annual registration fee at the regular pace, an annual fee left unpaid adds 5 percent plus 1 percent for each full month it is late (up to 12 months), and an enterprise that stops filing can be cancelled by the Registraire. The annual rhythm is the price of the register being trustworthy — when you search a Quebec business, the information is current in a way most provinces do not match.

Startup checklist

• Structure picked: sole proprietorship, partnership, or company
• Enterprise register searched (free) for a name clash
• Name checked against the French-language rules before filing
• Declaration of registration filed with the Registraire des entreprises ($41 sole proprietorship / $63 partnership)
• NEQ received and saved with your CRA business number
• Revenu Quebec: QST/GST registration once your worldwide taxable supplies pass $30,000 in a single quarter or the four preceding quarters (or voluntarily, earlier)
• Annual updating declaration period in your calendar, with the annual fee
• Business bank account opened (banks ask for the NEQ and registration)
• Municipal permit and sector licences checked for your city and trade
• French versions planned for signs, contracts and customer documents

Related guides

• How to Start a Home Daycare in Quebec — one business that cannot incorporate here: recognition as an RSGE by a bureau coordonnateur is personal to a self-employed provider, so the sole-proprietorship registration in this guide is the filing that applies.
• How to Register a Business in Ontario — the Ontario companion: a $60 filing and a five-year registration, with none of Quebec's annual declarations or French name rules.
• How to Register a Business in Nova Scotia — the Nova Scotia companion: name reservation first and an annual renewal, the closest Atlantic parallel to Quebec's yearly rhythm.
• How to Register a Business in New Brunswick — the New Brunswick companion: the other officially bilingual province, with a $112 certificate and a five-year cycle.
• How to Register a Business in Manitoba — the Manitoba companion: a $45 name reservation plus a $60 registration, renewed every three years.
• How to Get a Business Number in Canada — the federal identifier that sits alongside the NEQ: the 9-digit CRA business number explained.
• How to Register for GST/HST in Canada — the federal tax registration, including the Quebec exception where Revenu Quebec administers the GST.
• How to Charge GST/HST in Canada — the rates by province once you are registered, including Quebec's 5 percent GST plus 9.975 percent QST.
• How to Apply for Express Entry from Outside Canada — for newcomers still in the immigration process: how Express Entry works before the business registrations begin.
• How to Open a Business Bank Account in Canada — what comes after registration: the account your bank opens once it sees your registration and NEQ.

Sources

• Quebec.ca, About the Registration of an Enterprise — who must file a declaration of registration, including the tobacco-retail and tanning-salon sole proprietors; voluntary registration for a sole proprietor trading under their first and last names; the NEQ assigned on registration.
• Act Respecting the Legal Publicity of Enterprises (P-44.1), LégisQuébec — section 32 (declaration and fee due no later than 60 days after registration becomes compulsory), section 17 (names the Act bars, including confusingly similar names), section 19 (recording a name in the register confers no right to it), and section 80 (the annual-fee obligation begins the second year following first registration).
• Registraire des entreprises, Fees and Terms of Payment, Schedule RE-101-T (2026-09) (PDF) — every fee in this guide: declaration $41 sole proprietorship / $63 partnership, priority at 50 percent more, name reservation $27, annual registration fees $41 / $63 / $106 as of 2026, certificate of constitution $397, a late annual declaration at 50 percent of the annual fee, and the 5 percent plus 1 percent per month penalty on an unpaid annual fee.
• Quebec.ca, Description of the Information in a File in the Enterprise Register — the NEQ is a ten-digit number assigned when the enterprise is registered, its first two digits standing for the legal form.
• Quebec.ca, Legal Obligations Stemming from Registration — the annual updating declaration whether or not anything changed, the annual registration fee, the current updating declaration within 30 days of a change, and the declaration of cancellation when an enterprise closes.
• Quebec.ca, File an Annual Updating Declaration — joint filing with the tax return by checking line 436 of the TP-1 or line 39 of the CO-17, with a sole proprietor paying the annual fee by April 30 and filing by June 15.
• Quebec.ca, About the Enterprise Register — the register is a public information bank the public can consult free of charge.
• Quebec.ca, Definition and Rules Applicable to the Name of an Enterprise — an enterprise name must respect the Charter of the French Language and be in French, built from a generic and a specific component.
• Registraire des entreprises, Les noms d'entreprises au Québec, Guide IN-531 (PDF, in French) — the generic must be in French; a French generic is mandatory when the specific is a word, expression, acronym or coined word in another language; a surname or a coined word belonging to French can stand alone, and a place name forms the specific, correctly accented.
• Office québécois de la langue française, Affichage des marques de commerce et des noms d'entreprises (in French) — since June 1, 2025, a name or trademark carrying a part in another language on a sign visible from outside must be accompanied by French terms so French is markedly predominant, worked out as French taking at least twice the space with at least equal visibility.
• Revenu Québec, Registering for the GST and QST — registration is mandatory once total worldwide taxable supplies, including associates', exceed $30,000 in a single calendar quarter or in the four preceding calendar quarters.
• Revenu Québec, How to Register for the GST and QST — the registration routes, including form LM-1-V, Application for Registration, and the online services.
• Revenu Québec, Basic Rules for Applying the GST/HST and QST — GST at 5 percent and QST at 9.975 percent calculated on the selling price excluding the GST; Revenu Québec administers the GST in Quebec.
• Revenu Québec, Registering for Source Deductions — a new employer must register for source deductions, and must also contact the CRA to open a payroll program account.
• Canada Revenue Agency, Business Number (BN) and Program Accounts — the federal business number is a unique 9-digit number, one per business, with program accounts added to it.
• Canadian Intellectual Property Office, Trademarks Guide — registering a trademark gives the sole right to use the mark across Canada for 10 years, renewable every 10 years.