How to start accepting online payments in Canada: setting up with Stripe, PayPal, or Square as each provider states its own onboarding and verification, the fees each provider publishes for Canada, and the CRA business-number and GST/HST mechanics that sit underneath every sale.
Applies in: across Canada
This guide covers the mechanics of accepting online payments in Canada: setting up with a payment provider, completing the provider's verification, and handling the business-number and GST/HST mechanics that sit underneath every sale. It covers three providers — Stripe, PayPal, and Square — as each provider states its own onboarding, verification, and fees on its own pages. It recommends none of them. Which provider fits depends on how the business sells: through a hosted checkout, through a store platform, by payment link or invoice, or through a custom integration. Fees change, and every fee figure in this guide is stated only as the provider's page stated it on November 1, 2026. Recheck the provider's pricing page before choosing, and again before the first sale after any gap.
The order of operations matters more than the provider choice. Register the business and its tax accounts first, or at least in parallel with the provider account, because verification checks the business against registry records and tax must be charged correctly from the first taxable sale. A provider account that accepts money before the tax account exists creates a bookkeeping problem that has to be unwound sale by sale. Do the paperwork in the order this guide sets out, and the first payment lands in an account that is ready to receive it, report it, and remit the tax on it.
A business number (BN) is the identifier the business uses with the Canada Revenue Agency. The CRA states that a BN is a unique 9-digit number the CRA gives a business, that it identifies the business when dealing with the CRA and other government programs, and that a business needs one if it owns or operates a business in Canada and has to deal with the CRA for certain taxes or programs, including collecting GST/HST, having employees and needing a payroll deductions account, importing or exporting, incorporating federally or provincially, filing information returns, and filing corporate income tax. A CRA program account relates to a specific aspect of the business's taxes or reporting and is linked to the BN. Program accounts have codes: RT for GST/HST, RP for payroll deductions, RC for corporation income tax, and others. A business number with a GST/HST program account looks like 123456789 RT0001.
Registration is done through Business Registration Online (BRO). The CRA states that registering online is the fastest and easiest way to get a BN and certain CRA program accounts, that a business that already has a BN must not register for a new one and should use the existing BN to register for the program accounts it needs, and that BRO can register a BN and GST/HST, payroll, corporation income tax, registered charity, information returns, luxury tax, underused housing tax, and global minimum tax accounts at the same time. Access to BRO requires a CRA account, and a CRA account cannot be registered if the person has not filed taxes or has enhanced protection enabled on the account. BRO is available daily except between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. Eastern Time for system maintenance, the online session times out after 10 minutes of inactivity, information cannot be saved during the registration process, and the BN must be saved or printed because it will not be sent. If BRO does not accept the postal code, registration must be done by sending a form by mail. A business that cannot complete registration online mails Form RC1, Request for a Business Number and Certain Program Accounts, to its tax centre.
Two limits on BRO matter at setup time. BRO cannot reactivate a previously closed program account, register a business owned by another business (for example where the partner is a corporation or partnership), register a business when the owner or director is deceased, or register a Canadian business with only non-resident owners. A business in any of those situations follows the separate route the CRA page describes rather than forcing the online form. After registering in BRO, a business in Ontario or Nova Scotia can link directly to the provincial registration site; the BRO session ends once Transfer to provincial site is selected.
Quebec is the exception to the federal route. If the business is physically located in Quebec, GST/HST is administered by Revenu Québec. The business must register and file GST/HST returns with Revenu Québec and use its forms. The CRA page directs Quebec businesses to Revenu Québec's general information on the QST and GST/HST and to Revenu Québec's business contact page. Do not register a Quebec GST/HST account through BRO and assume the filing obligation is covered; the Quebec registration is a separate act with a separate filer.
The CRA states the registration test in plain terms on its starting-work page. A business must register for a GST/HST account if it is resident in Canada and earned more than $30,000 during the last four calendar quarters, and it must charge and remit GST/HST on amounts earned over $30,000. A driver for a ride-share application or a taxi driver must collect and remit GST/HST on all fares regardless of the total earned. A business may register voluntarily if it earned less than $30,000 during the last four calendar quarters and is considered a small supplier. A business does not need to register if it provides products or services exempt from GST/HST, such as music lessons or tutoring. Once registered, the business charges GST/HST when it provides a taxable service or product, and is responsible for the GST/HST it charges until it remits it to the CRA.
Voluntary registration is a real choice with a real trade-off, and it should be made deliberately rather than by default. Registering voluntarily lets the business claim input tax credits on the GST/HST it pays on business purchases, which matters when start-up purchases are large relative to sales. It also obliges the business to charge tax from the effective date, file returns even when nothing is owing, and generally stay registered. A business below the threshold that sells mostly to consumers who cannot claim input tax credits is adding tax to its prices for no benefit to the customer; a business below the threshold that sells mostly to GST/HST-registered businesses, or that has large taxable purchases, may gain from registering early. Make the decision on the business's actual sales mix, record it, and revisit it when sales cross the threshold.
This guide states no GST/HST rate for any province and no place-of-supply rule, because neither was verified on a CRA page. The rate depends on where the supply is made and what is supplied, and the CRA's place-of-supply rules, not the business's home province, decide the rate for a sale to a customer in another province. Read the CRA's charging and place-of-supply pages for the goods or services being sold, configure the checkout to apply the resulting rate per customer province, and test it with a sale to each province the business will serve before going live.
Providers pay out to a bank account, and the account details are part of verification. Open a business bank account in the business's legal name before completing provider verification, and confirm with the bank what the provider's payout will look like: the account name on the payout must match the business name on the provider account and on the registry record, or verification and payout can both stall. A personal account in the owner's name is a common cause of a payout hold for a sole proprietorship that trades under a registered business name, because the names do not match. If the business trades under a name other than its legal name, the business-name registration for that name should be in hand before the provider account is created, so every record — bank, registry, provider — carries the same name and address.
Keep the provider's money separate from personal money from the first payout. The provider deducts its fees before transferring funds, so the amount that lands in the bank is net of fees; the gross sale, the fee, and the tax are three separate figures in the books even though only one deposit arrives. Reconcile weekly at first: match each payout to its sales, fees, and tax, and keep the provider's payout report as the source document. A business that reconciles monthly from bank statements alone will struggle to separate fees from sales when a dispute or refund lands weeks later.
Create the account with the legal business name and the business address exactly as they appear in the provincial or federal business registry. This is the single most useful piece of advice in this guide, because every provider in it verifies against registry records. Stripe states the check directly: it checks the business name and business address on the account against information available with the provincial and federal registries of businesses, and if the submitted name or address does not exactly match the registry, the business must update the information with the registry or review the information provided to Stripe. A suite number, a hyphen, or an old address that was never updated in the registry is enough to fail automatic verification and force a document upload. Fix the registry record first, then create the provider account, not the other way around.
For a corporation, registered charity, or non-profit organization, Stripe may also verify directors' information: it checks the name of each director and the number of directors listed on the registry, and a document used to complete director verification must accurately list all directors and match the directors entered on the Stripe account, and must clearly identify which individuals are directors. If the business information in the Stripe account is incorrect, update it in the Dashboard and Stripe will try again to verify automatically. If the information is accurate, complete verification by uploading an acceptable document from the list on Stripe's acceptable-verification-documents page, under the Company/Entity tab for business verification and the Relationship tab for director verification. The document for business verification must contain the business name and business address matching the name and address on the Stripe account, and Stripe requires a valid physical Canada address: a post office box cannot be accepted as a valid business address.
PayPal's onboarding follows the same shape at a higher level of generality on the pages : create a Business account, provide the business information PayPal asks for, link the bank account, and start selling. PayPal states there is no fee to open a Business account and that the business pays for sales only when it gets paid. Square's onboarding is similar: create the account, link the bank account, and connect Square Online, a payment link, or an invoice. Neither provider's onboarding page states a document list comparable to Stripe's, so this guide states no document list for PayPal or Square. Follow the document request the provider itself issues in the account, and keep a copy of everything uploaded, with the date, in the business file.
Fees are stated here only as each provider's Canada page stated them, and only for the payment types a small online seller most commonly uses. Recheck the provider's page before choosing: all three providers state that rates vary by plan, volume, or payment method, and Square states expressly that payment processing rates may vary by plan type and that the rates for a location should be checked on the Pricing and subscriptions page in the Square Dashboard.
Stripe, on standard pricing, charges 2.9% plus CA$0.30 per successful transaction for domestic cards, plus 0.8% for international cards, with no setup fees, monthly fees, or hidden fees. Stripe also publishes pre-authorized debit pricing of 1% plus CA$0.40 per transaction with a CA$5.00 cap, plus CA$1.00 per instant verification and CA$5.00 for failures and disputes, and in-person pricing of 2.7% plus CA$0.05 for most cards and CA$0.15 per transaction for Interac debit cards. Dispute fees are CA$15.00 for each dispute received, each dispute responded to manually, and each dispute appealed, with the manual-response fee returned for disputes won. Stripe's invoicing product adds 0.4% on the transaction total with a US$2.00 cap per invoice, on top of payment processing fees. Custom pricing is available for large volume or unique business models.
PayPal's Canada merchant fee page states a standard rate for receiving domestic commercial transactions of 2.90% plus a fixed fee, with the fixed fee for Canadian-dollar receipts at CA$0.30. PayPal Pay Later options are 4.9% plus the fixed fee. QR code transactions are 1.90% plus the fixed fee for transactions of CA$10.01 and above, and 2.40% plus the fixed fee for transactions of CA$10.00 and below, with lower fixed fees for QR code transactions. International commercial transactions add 0.80% for transactions from the United States and 1.00% for transactions from all other countries, on top of the domestic rate. PayPal's Online Card Payment Services rates are higher and are stated separately on the same page: Advanced Credit and Debit Card Payments at 2.70% plus the fixed fee domestically, Payments Pro at 2.90% plus the fixed fee, and Virtual Terminal at 3.10% plus the fixed fee, with higher international rates. Volume-based discounts may be available for qualified merchants under those services.
Square's Canada support page states 2.8% plus 30 cents for eCommerce payments, 3.3% plus 15 cents for manually keyed-in card payments and card-on-file transactions, 2.5% for card-present credit or prepaid transactions, and 0.75% plus 7 cents for card-present debit transactions. An additional 1.5% international transaction fee applies to payments made with cards issued in a different country from the Square account's location, in addition to the base processing fee, for in-person, online, card-not-present, and API transactions. Square charges no fees for activation, chargebacks and dispute management, account inactivity, or standard transfers arriving as soon as the next business day, and charges 1.95% of the transfer amount for Instant Transfer, with funds generally available within 20 minutes subject to the bank's availability schedule. Square Invoices cost 6% plus 30 cents. Custom rates are available where annual sales exceed $250,000.
Work the comparison on the business's own numbers, not on the headline rate. Take a typical sale value, apply each provider's rate for the payment type the business will actually receive — card online, card on file, invoice, or payment link — add the international add-on for the share of customers paying with foreign-issued cards, and add the dispute fee at the dispute rate the business expects. A provider that looks cheapest on domestic cards can be the most expensive once international cards and manual-entry transactions are counted. Keep the worked comparison in the business file with the date and the provider page it was taken from, so the next review starts from evidence rather than memory.
Connect the provider to the way the business sells: a hosted checkout, a store platform integration, a payment link, or an invoice. Stripe's Payment Links and Checkout products are included with Payments on standard pricing, and invoicing adds the per-invoice fee stated above. Square Online, the Square eCommerce API, subscription payments, and Square Appointments prepayments all fall under Square's eCommerce rate. PayPal's checkout options include PayPal checkout, Advanced Credit and Debit Card Payments, and Virtual Terminal, each at the different rates stated above; confirm which product the integration actually uses before estimating fees, because the rate follows the product, not the PayPal brand.
Set the tax treatment in the checkout before the first real sale. Decide, from the CRA pages, whether the business is registered for GST/HST, which rate applies to each customer's province under the place-of-supply rules, and whether the prices shown include tax or add it at checkout. Configure the provider or store tool to match that decision, and test it: run a test transaction for a customer in the business's own province and one in another province, and confirm the tax charged matches the decision recorded in Step 2. A provider's tax product is not a substitute for that decision. Stripe's tax product is a separate paid product, starting at CA$120.00 per month on a one-year contract for the plan that includes automated tax calculations for limited regions, with no-code integration at 0.5% per transaction where the business is registered to collect taxes and API integration at CA$0.50 per transaction. Whether that product is worth its price depends on how many provinces the business sells into and how often the rules change; it does not change the registration obligation.
Test the full path before announcing the store is open: a successful payment, a refund, a failed payment, and a payout to the bank account. Confirm the payout arrives, the fee deducted matches the provider's published rate, and the tax figure in the books matches the tax charged at checkout. Keep the test records separate from real sales, and void or refund test transactions through the provider's own tools so the test does not pollute the sales ledger.
From the first real sale, the routine is the same every week: reconcile payouts to sales, fees, and tax; file the GST/HST return on the CRA schedule for the business's reporting period; and keep the records the CRA and the provider each require. The CRA requires the business to keep records that support the GST/HST charged and remitted; the provider's payout reports, fee statements, and dispute records are part of that evidence, and they should be downloaded and filed rather than left in the provider dashboard, where retention limits apply. In Quebec, the same routine runs through Revenu Québec's filing route.
Handle disputes promptly and with evidence. Stripe's dispute fees are stated in the frequently asked questions section: CA$15.00 per dispute received, per manual response, and per appeal, with the manual-response fee returned for disputes won. Square charges no fee for chargebacks and dispute management. This guide states no PayPal dispute fee, because none was verified on the PayPal page ; check the PayPal fee page and the user agreement for the dispute terms that apply to the account before the first dispute arrives. For every dispute, submit the order record, proof of delivery or fulfilment, the customer's messages, and the policy the customer saw at checkout, within the provider's deadline. A late or evidence-free response loses disputes that the underlying sale would have won.
Review the setup when the business changes: a new sales channel, a new province served, a change of business structure, or a change of directors all touch verification, tax, or both. A change of directors that is not updated in the registry will surface at the next verification check, not at the moment of the change. A new province served changes the place-of-supply analysis. A move from sole proprietorship to corporation changes the business name, the BN, and the provider account's verification in one move. Treat each change as a setup event, not as an administrative afterthought, and re-verify the provider account and the tax configuration before the next sale under the new arrangement.
This guide states no GST/HST rate for any province and no place-of-supply rule, because neither was verified on a CRA page. It states no single-quarter threshold timing rule and no number of days allowed to register after crossing the $30,000 threshold, because the CRA page states the four-quarter test without those figures. It states no PayPal dispute or chargeback fee, because no such figure was verified on the PayPal fee page. It states no payout timing for any provider beyond Square's next-business-day standard transfers and 20-minute Instant Transfer timing, because no payout timing was verified on the Stripe or PayPal pages. It states no document list for PayPal or Square verification, because no comparable list was verified on those providers' pages. Confirm every figure on the provider's or the CRA's own page before acting on it.
A payment provider account can usually be created before the tax paperwork is finished, but the business number is needed before the business can charge and remit GST/HST, and providers check the business against registry records as part of verification. The Canada Revenue Agency states that a business number is a unique 9-digit number the CRA gives a business, and that a GST/HST program account is added to it with the code RT, giving an account number in the form 123456789 RT0001. Registration for a business number and CRA program accounts is done through Business Registration Online, and the CRA states that registering online is the fastest and easiest way. If the business is physically located in Quebec, GST/HST is administered by Revenu Québec, and the business must register and file GST/HST returns with Revenu Québec using its forms. Do not start charging tax on sales until the GST/HST account exists, and do not assume a provider account on its own creates any tax account.
The Canada Revenue Agency states that a business must register for a GST/HST account if it is resident in Canada and earned more than $30,000 during the last four calendar quarters, or if it is a driver for a ride-share application or a taxi driver, who must collect and remit GST/HST on all fares regardless of the total earned. A business may register voluntarily if it earned less than $30,000 during the last four calendar quarters and is considered a small supplier. A business does not need to register if it provides products or services that are exempt from GST/HST, such as music lessons or tutoring, as the CRA's examples state. Once registered, the business charges GST/HST when it provides a taxable service or product and is responsible for the GST/HST it charges until it remits it to the CRA. The CRA page states the four-quarter test; it does not state the single-quarter timing rule or the number of days allowed to register after crossing the threshold, so this guide states neither figure. Check the CRA's small-supplier and GST/HST registration pages for the timing rules that apply to the business's own sales pattern before the first sale that could cross the threshold.
Only the figures on each provider's own Canada pricing page are stated here, and all three providers state that their fees change, so recheck the provider's page on the day you choose. Stripe's Canada pricing page states standard pricing of 2.9% plus CA$0.30 per successful transaction for domestic cards, plus 0.8% for international cards, with no setup fees, monthly fees, or hidden fees on standard pricing, and a CA$15.00 fee for each dispute received, each dispute responded to manually, and each dispute appealed. PayPal's Canada merchant fee page states a standard domestic commercial-transaction rate of 2.90% plus a fixed fee, with a fixed fee of CA$0.30 for Canadian-dollar receipts, plus an additional 0.80% for commercial transactions from the United States and 1.00% for commercial transactions from all other countries. Square's Canada support page states 2.8% plus 30 cents for eCommerce payments through Square Online, the Square eCommerce API, subscription payments, and Square Appointments prepayment and no-show and cancellation fees, excluding manually keyed-in or card-on-file transactions, plus a 1.5% international transaction fee for cards issued in a different country from the Square account's location. None of this is a recommendation: the providers differ in how they handle verification, disputes, payouts, and add-on products, and the right choice depends on how the business sells.
Because verification compares what was entered against registry records, and a mismatch stops automatic verification. Stripe states that for a corporation, registered charity, or non-profit organization in Canada, it may be required to verify the business and its directors' information. It checks the business name and business address against information available with the provincial or federal registries of businesses, and checks each director's name and the number of directors against the registry. If the directors' information cannot be found, does not exactly match the registry, or the business name or address does not exactly match the registry, the business must update the information with the registry or review the information given to Stripe. If the information in the Stripe account is wrong, it can be updated in the Dashboard and Stripe will try again to verify automatically; if the information is accurate, verification is completed by uploading an acceptable document. Stripe requires a valid physical Canada address and cannot accept a post office box as a valid business address. The practical lesson is to fix the registry record first: a document upload will not cure a registry record that names a former director or an old address.
This guide states no provincial GST/HST rate and no place-of-supply rule, because neither was verified on a CRA page. The rate that applies to a sale depends on the province where the supply is made and on the type of supply, and the CRA's place-of-supply rules decide which province's rate applies; applying the rate of the province where the business sits to every sale is a common and expensive error. Before the first sale, read the CRA's pages on charging GST/HST and on the place of supply for the goods or services being sold, set the checkout or invoicing tool to apply the rate the CRA rules produce for each customer's province, and confirm how the provider's tax tools treat the sale: Stripe's tax product, for example, is a separate paid product with its own pricing, and using a provider's checkout does not by itself make the business tax-compliant. In Quebec, remember that GST/HST is administered by Revenu Québec, so the registration and filing route differs from the rest of Canada. Keep the tax decision in writing, with the CRA page it rests on, before the first cross-province sale.
The dispute process and its cost differ by provider, and only the figures verified on the providers' pages are stated here. Stripe charges CA$15.00 for each dispute received, CA$15.00 for each dispute responded to manually, which is returned for disputes won and not for disputes lost, and CA$15.00 for each dispute appealed, which is not returned even if the appeal is won. Square states there are no fees for chargebacks and dispute management, and that processing fees are deducted from the total transaction amount including tax and tip before funds are transferred. This guide states no PayPal dispute fee, because no PayPal dispute fee figure was verified on the PayPal fee page. For refunds, Stripe states that on standard pricing there are no fees for issuing refunds for most payment methods, but the payment processing, Connect, and currency conversion fees from the original transaction are not returned. Whatever the provider, keep the evidence a dispute needs from the start: the order record, proof of delivery or fulfilment, the customer's communications, and the refund policy the customer saw at checkout. A dispute lost for want of evidence costs the sale, the goods, and the dispute fee together.
Figures that could not be verified on an official or provider page were cut from this guide: all provincial GST/HST rates and place-of-supply rules; the single-quarter threshold timing rule and the registration deadline in days; any PayPal dispute or chargeback fee; payout timing for Stripe and PayPal; and document lists for PayPal and Square verification. Check the provider and CRA pages linked above for current figures before you choose or sell.