How to Start a Carpentry Business in Canada
Start a carpentry business in Canada: trade certification, Quebec rules, business registration, insurance, workers' compensation, and pricing structure.
How to Start a Flooring Installation Business in Canada
Start a flooring installation business in Canada: licensing, registration, insurance, workers' compensation, and how flooring jobs are priced.
Applies in: across Canada
The short answer
Outside Quebec, there is no flooring licence standing between you and your first paid job — and that is exactly why new flooring installers get the paperwork wrong. Trade certification exists, it carries a Red Seal endorsement, and it helps you win work from builders — but in every province and territory except Quebec it is voluntary, not a gate. The real gates are duller: a registered business name, tax accounts set up before the revenue arrives, liability insurance that covers a ruined floor, workers' compensation before the first hire, and a written quote that separates the install from the extras. Get those right and the rest is a craft business: floors laid flat, transitions clean, and a reputation built one room at a time.
Step 1: Pick a flooring lane — and start with one
Flooring lanes look alike from the doorway and run differently on the job:
- Hardwood: solid and engineered wood, sanding and finishing, repairs and refinishing. Skilled work, dust control, and customers who care about the finish.
- Laminate and floating floors: fast installs, click-lock systems, and price-sensitive buyers. Volume work that rewards speed and clean cutting.
- Vinyl: sheet vinyl, luxury vinyl plank, and vinyl tile. Bathrooms, kitchens, basements, and rental units, where water resistance and durability sell the job.
- Carpet: broadloom and carpet tile, underlay, stretching, and seaming. Apartments, offices, and bedrooms, where the buyer often compares on comfort and price.
- Tile and stone: ceramic, porcelain, and natural stone, with thinset, grout, and layout skill. Bathrooms and entries, where a crooked layout shows forever.
Start with one lane. An installer who advertises hardwood, tile, carpet, vinyl, and laminate in the first month is really advertising that none of them is proven yet. One lane, done well, earns the photos and reviews that let you add the second.
Step 2: The licensing reality, province by province
Job Bank's floor covering installer requirements, drawn from the National Occupational Classification, put it plainly: completion of secondary school is usually required, plus a two- to three-year apprenticeship program or over four years of work experience in the trade and some courses in floor covering installation to be eligible for trade certification. Trade certification is compulsory in Quebec and available but voluntary in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. The Red Seal endorsement is available on passing the interprovincial exam.
What that means in practice:
- Outside Quebec: you may work as a flooring installer without certification. Certification still pays: it signals training to builders, general contractors, and property managers, and it is the credential a commercial tender is most likely to ask about.
- In Quebec: certification is compulsory, and the business needs an RBQ licence in subclass 9.0 for interior finishing work. Do not take Quebec flooring work on the strength of an out-of-province setup; check both requirements first and get them in place before you quote.
- No province issues a separate "flooring business licence." The licences that do apply are the ordinary ones: a municipal business licence where your city requires one, and any site-specific requirement a general contractor or property manager imposes, such as proof of insurance and workers' compensation clearance.
Step 3: Register the business and set up tax before the money arrives
The business paperwork is the cheapest part of the startup, and it is the part most often left until a customer asks for an invoice:
- Structure: most flooring installers start as sole proprietors and incorporate later, when revenue and liability justify it. If you trade under a name other than your own legal name, register that name provincially.
- Ontario: registering a sole proprietorship under a business name costs $60 through the Ontario Business Registry and lasts five years. Operating under your own name does not require registration.
- British Columbia: request name approval first ($30), then register the sole proprietorship ($40) using the name request number within 56 days, or the approval lapses.
- CRA business number: free, and needed for payroll and GST/HST accounts. Register for GST/HST once taxable sales pass $30,000 in a single calendar quarter or over four consecutive calendar quarters, or voluntarily before that so you can claim input tax credits on product, tools, and vehicle costs.
- Municipal business licence: check your city's licensing page. Some cities license businesses generally, some regulate home-based businesses or signage, and some require nothing flooring-specific. Do not assume a neighbouring city's answer applies to yours.
- Bookkeeping from job one: track product, labour, mileage, and disposal per job. An installer who knows the cost per square foot prices with confidence; one who does not drifts into long days for hourly wages.
Step 4: Insurance and workers' compensation
Two conversations, in the order a broker will want them:
- Commercial general liability: covers injury or property damage to someone else — adhesive on a finished cabinet, a saw cut through a subfloor pipe, water damage from a job left open overnight. A homeowner's policy does not cover your business, and a customer who asks for your certificate of insurance before you start is doing you a favour by asking early.
- Vehicle and equipment: if you drive a van or carry saws, sanders, and compressors, confirm the vehicle policy covers commercial use and that expensive kit is covered in transit and on site, not just in your garage.
Workers' compensation is the third conversation, and it starts before the first hire — and in Ontario, before the first construction job. Since January 1, 2013, independent operators, sole proprietors, partners, and executive officers in Ontario construction have been treated as workers who must be covered, so register with the WSIB and confirm whether any narrow exemption applies to your exact work. In other provinces, register with the board in the province where your crew works, before the crew's first shift. Solo operators outside Ontario can ask their board about optional coverage: an installer with a bad knee injury and no coverage has no income and no claim.
Step 5: Safety training — dust, chemicals, and knees
Flooring injuries cluster in three places: dust, chemical exposure, and knees and backs. The discipline maps to those three:
- Dust: sanding hardwood, cutting tile and stone, and tearing out old floors all make dust. Control it at the source where the tool allows it, keep the work area ventilated, and wear the respiratory protection the product safety data sheet calls for. Never dry-sweep a pile of cutting dust into the air the customer will breathe.
- Chemicals: adhesives, finishes, sealers, and cleaners each carry a safety data sheet. Any worker who handles or may be exposed to a hazardous product must be trained on that product's labels and safety data sheets, and the employer must keep those sheets available. That is the WHMIS discipline, and it applies to the adhesive on the truck, not just to industrial coatings.
- Knees and backs: flooring is kneeling work with heavy boxes. Knee pads are not optional kit, and a two-person lift for full boxes and long boards beats a back injury that ends the week. Plan the carry route before the boxes arrive, not after they are stacked at the door.
Step 6: Kit, measuring, and the standard of work
The working kit for a flooring installer runs: a measuring tape and laser measure, a saw set for the lane you work in, a tapping block and pull bar for floating floors or a nailer and compressor for hardwood, a trowel set and mixer for tile, a knee kicker and stretcher for carpet, spacers, levels, and a vehicle that keeps product dry and flat. Tile work adds a wet saw and layout tools; hardwood refinishing adds a sander and dust extraction.
The job sequence that earns repeat work is the same on a bedroom and a boardroom: measure every room and note the subfloor condition, agree the product, the direction, the transitions, and the extras in writing, protect the rest of the house, prepare the subfloor, lay the floor, fit the trim and transitions, clean up, and walk the customer through the finished floor before packing up. The walk-through is not a courtesy; it is where a small miss gets fixed in ten minutes instead of becoming a callback, a bad review, and a second trip.
Step 7: Pricing jobs — per square foot, extras named
Flooring quotes follow one model, and the extras are where installers lose money:
- Per square foot: the standard install quote. It works because the installer has measured the rooms, seen the subfloor, and can price the whole install as one number. State what the square-foot price includes: the install, the underlay if included, and the trim if included.
- Removal and disposal: price it as its own line. Old carpet, old tile, and old adhesive take time and dump fees, and a quote that treats removal as free is a quote that loses money on the first morning.
- Subfloor repair and levelling: price it as its own line, with the condition that hidden damage found under the old floor is priced before it is fixed, not after. A levelling compound pour discovered on site and charged after the fact is a dispute; the same pour named in the quote as a conditional extra is just the price.
- Stairs: price per step. Cutting, fitting, and nosing a staircase costs more per square foot than a flat run, and a flat-rate quote that treats stairs as floor area underprices the hardest part of the job.
- Transitions, trim, and furniture: name each one. A transition strip, a reducer at a height change, baseboard removal and refitting, and moving heavy furniture are all real labour, and each belongs on the quote.
Whichever extras apply, the written quote should separate product, labour, removal, and extras, name the product by brand and line, state who supplies the product, and say how extras are charged. A deposit before work starts is normal; the balance on completion after the walk-through is normal too.
Step 8: Finding the first clients
The first ten jobs rarely come from advertising. They come from people who already trust you:
- Tell everyone you know, plainly: you install floors, here is the service, here is the number. Friends, family, neighbours, and former employers are the first book.
- Flooring retailers, builders, renovators, and property managers buy flooring repeatedly, and they buy on reliability first: show up when promised, send the quote when promised, and finish when promised. One property manager who trusts you is worth a season of ads.
- Before-and-after photos, with the customer's permission, are the portfolio. Photograph in daylight, from the same angle, and keep the customer's belongings out of frame.
- Online listings and a simple website come next: service area, services, photos, and a phone number. Reviews follow completed jobs, not advertising spend — ask every happy customer for one, and answer every review, good or bad, like a person, not a brand.
What not to do
- Do not take Quebec flooring work without checking the compulsory certification rule and the RBQ subclass 9.0 licence that apply there.
- Do not hire a crew before registering for workers' compensation coverage in the province where the crew works.
- Do not lay a floor on a subfloor you have not walked, measured, and checked for moisture the way the manufacturer requires.
- Do not tear out suspect old flooring or underlay before checking whether it may contain asbestos.
- Do not start a job without a written quote that separates product, labour, removal, and extras.
- Do not take a deposit on an Alberta residential job before checking the prepaid-contractor licence rule.
- Do not promise a finish, a date, or a coverage level your kit, your crew, or your policy cannot deliver.
Related guides:
Starting a flooring installation business in Canada, in six steps
- Pick a flooring laneHardwood, laminate and floating floors, vinyl, carpet, or tile and stone. Each lane needs different tools, different suppliers, and a different buyer.
- Clear the licence questionFloor covering installer certification is compulsory in Quebec and voluntary everywhere else, and Quebec work for a client needs an RBQ licence in subclass 9.0.
- Register the businessProvincial business name registration if you trade under a name, a free CRA business number, and GST/HST registration once taxable sales pass $30,000.
- Insure the work and the crewCommercial general liability for damage to someone else's property, and workers' compensation coverage before the crew's first shift.
- Set the job sequence before the first installMeasure, check the subfloor, confirm the product and the acclimation the manufacturer requires, then install, trim, and walk the customer through the finished floor.
- Price per square foot, extras separatelyThe square-foot price covers the install itself. Removal, subfloor repair, stairs, transitions, and underlay price as named extras.
Verified fees in the flooring-business startup paperwork
| Ontario sole proprietorship registration | $60, five years |
|---|---|
| BC name request plus registration | $30 plus $40 |
| CRA business number | $0 — free |
| GST/HST registration threshold | $30,000 in taxable sales |
Questions people ask
Do I need a licence to start a flooring installation business in Canada?
Outside Quebec, no trade licence blocks you from working. Job Bank, drawing on the National Occupational Classification for floor covering installers (NOC 73113), states that completion of secondary school is usually required, plus a two- to three-year apprenticeship program or over four years of work experience in the trade and some courses in floor covering installation to be eligible for trade certification. Trade certification for floor covering installers is compulsory in Quebec and available but voluntary in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut, and a Red Seal endorsement is available to qualified installers who pass the interprovincial Red Seal examination. That means a flooring installer in Ontario, British Columbia, or Alberta can legally work without trade certification, though certification still helps win work from builders and general contractors. In Quebec the rule flips, as the next answer explains.
What does Quebec require for flooring work?
Two things, and they are separate. First, trade certification for floor covering installers is compulsory in Quebec, so check the Quebec regulator's requirements before taking work there. Second, the business side needs a licence from the Régie du bâtiment du Québec (RBQ): subclass 9.0, Contractor — Interior finishing, is the licence for work related to the installation of floorings, walls or ceilings and their finishing. Confirm the subclass covers your exact scope before bidding, because a bid made without the required licence can be a penal offence.
What business registration does a flooring business need?
The same as any Canadian service business. If you trade under a name other than your own legal name, register that name provincially: in Ontario that costs $60 through the Ontario Business Registry and lasts five years, and in British Columbia a name request costs $30 followed by a $40 registration that must be completed within 56 days or the approval lapses. A CRA business number is free. Register for GST/HST once your taxable sales pass $30,000 in a single calendar quarter or over four consecutive calendar quarters, or voluntarily before that if claiming input tax credits matters to you. A municipal business licence may also apply, so check your city's licensing page rather than assuming a neighbouring city's answer.
Do I need workers' compensation coverage for a flooring crew?
Once you hire staff, yes, through the board in the province where the crew works. In Ontario the rule goes further: since January 1, 2013, independent operators, sole proprietors, partners, and executive officers in construction have been treated as workers who must be covered, so a solo flooring installer working on construction in Ontario should register with the WSIB and confirm whether any narrow exemption applies to the exact work, rather than assuming there is none to check. Every other province has its own board with its own registration trigger, so register with the board in the province where your crew works, before the crew's first shift. General contractors and property managers will ask for your clearance certificate, so keep it current.
How do flooring businesses price jobs?
By the square foot for the install, with everything that is not the install priced as a named extra. The square-foot price covers laying the floor itself, quoted after measuring the rooms and walking the subfloor. Removal and disposal of the old floor, subfloor repair and levelling, underlay, transitions and trim, moving furniture, and stairs, which price per step because cutting and fitting them costs more than a flat run, are extras, named in the quote before work starts. A quote that hides the removal or the levelling until the invoice is a dispute, not a price. A deposit before work starts is normal, and the balance on completion after the walk-through is normal too. In Alberta, remember that taking that deposit on a residential job can trigger the prepaid-contractor licence, so check the Service Alberta rule before taking the first deposit.
What should a flooring installer check before laying the floor?
The subfloor, the moisture, and the product instructions, in that order. Walk every room, note damage, uneven areas, squeaks, and height changes at doorways and transitions, and fix what the new floor needs fixed before the first board goes down. Check moisture the way the product manufacturer requires for that product and that subfloor, because a floor laid on a damp slab or a wet subfloor will fail no matter how clean the install looks on day one. Follow the manufacturer's acclimation instructions for the product, and keep the product, the adhesive, and the finish the job actually uses on site before starting. In an older home, do not tear out suspect old flooring or underlay before checking whether it may contain asbestos: have it tested, and do not disturb it until you know what it is.
Sources
- Job Bank, Floor Covering Installer — Job Requirements (NOC 73113) — completion of secondary school is usually required; a two- to three-year apprenticeship or over four years of work experience plus courses to be eligible for trade certification; certification compulsory in Quebec and voluntary elsewhere; Red Seal endorsement available on passing the interprovincial exam.
- Régie du bâtiment du Québec, Licence — the Building Act requires any building contractor in Quebec to hold a licence in good standing; for work related to the installation of floorings, walls or ceilings and their finishing, subclass 9, Finishing contractor, is required.
- Ontario, Cost and time required to register, change or search for a business name — Business Names Act: a new sole-proprietorship registration is $60 online, a renewal is $60; updated September 29, 2026.
- Ontario, Register your business online — sole proprietorship registration is $60 through the Ontario Business Registry; the 9-digit Ontario Business Identification Number is different from the CRA business number.
- Ontario, Ontario Business Registry: all services — a Business Name Registration expires every 5 years and is renewed within 6 months before to 60 days after expiry; renewal costs the same as a new registration.
- Province of British Columbia, Sole proprietorships and partnerships — request and reserve a business name online for a $30 fee; complete the registration before the name request expires, 56 days after it is approved.
- Province of British Columbia, Forms, fees and information packages — to register a proprietorship or general partnership: basic fee $40, name approval fee $30, total $70.
- Canada Revenue Agency, When to register for and start charging the GST/HST — you must register once you exceed the $30,000 small-supplier threshold in a single calendar quarter or over four consecutive calendar quarters; you may register voluntarily below that; you have 29 days from your effective date of registration to register.
- Canada Revenue Agency, Businesses: Go online to register for a business number or CRA program account — a business number is a unique 9-digit number; registrations for a new business number must be done online through Business Registration Online since November 3, 2025; the CRA pages list no fee for a business number.
- WSIB, Expanded Compulsory Coverage in Construction — independent operators, sole proprietors, partners, and executive officers in construction are deemed workers who must be covered, with a narrow home-renovation-work exemption; previously published as policy 12-01-06 dated January 2, 2013.
- Health Canada, Roles and responsibilities under WHMIS — employers must educate and train workers on the hazards and safe use of hazardous products, ensure products are properly labelled, and keep safety data sheets available.
- Government of Alberta, Prepaid contracting licence — a prepaid contracting business solicits, negotiates, or concludes prepaid contracts in person away from its place of business and accepts money before the work is done; prepaid contracts cover construction, maintenance, or repair of private dwellings; applying needs business information, a criminal record check, a security, standard contracts, and a licensing fee.