Search Canada's public bankruptcy and insolvency records through the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy: free registration with a GCKey or Sign-In Partner, the $8 charge for each set of 10 bankruptcy records viewed, free CCAA records, and how to search by name or file number and save what you find.
Applies in: CA
The Bankruptcy and Insolvency Records Search is the online service that provides access to the public record of insolvency filings in Canada. The Superintendent of Bankruptcy must maintain a public record of insolvency filings under section 11.1 of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and section 26 of the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, and the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy (OSB) makes that record available through this search, through its National Service Centre, and through agreements with the Superintendent, as set out in Updates to the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Public Record Disclosure Policy and Process. The OSB's own landing page describes the search the same way: access to information on all bankruptcies and proposals filed in Canada, in Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy.
State plainly what this search is not. It is a lookup of the public record for a named estate, not a credit report, not a list of everyone who is insolvent, and not advice about any filing. It does not tell you whether a person or business should file, what filing would do to them, or what a record means for lending, hiring, or renting decisions. Those are questions for a Licensed Insolvency Trustee or a lawyer, not questions this search answers. It also does not cover buying the goods of a bankrupt estate: that is a trustee sale, a different process with different sellers and terms, covered in the companion guide linked under Related guides below.
Work the steps in order, and refine before you pay. Searching is free until you view results; viewing is the step that costs money. Every filter you apply before paying is free, and every set of results you open costs $8.
Registration costs nothing, but you cannot search without signing in. Instructions: Bankruptcy and Insolvency Records states that new clients looking to complete a search in the database can register online for free, and that before you can perform a search you must log in with your GCKey or Sign-In Partner. If you do not have a GCKey, you must create one by providing a username, a password and password recovery questions.
Do not try your old credentials. If you had an account before July 2023, do not use your old Bankruptcy and Insolvency Search credentials: you will need to create a GCKey or use a Sign-In Partner as part of the new login process, on the same page. Searches are made via the OSB website, so start from the OSB's own search pages rather than from a search engine result or a third-party site that offers to check records for you. If you search on behalf of a group, note that tokens purchased are shared within the group when you are registered as a user in a group, on the same page.
The search covers two kinds of filing, and the price depends on which one you open. The instructions page states that the search includes both bankruptcy and insolvency records under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (BIA) and records for companies that filed under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) since September 18, 2009, and that there is no charge to view CCAA records. Only companies that owe creditors at least $5 million can file for protection under the CCAA, on the same page.
View the CCAA records first. There is no charge to view them, so the instructions page recommends viewing them first by clicking the CCAA Records tab, and repeats the advice at the payment step. A company filing may appear there free of charge while a BIA search for the same name would cost tokens to view. If the company you are checking is large enough to have used the CCAA route, the free list may answer the question before you spend anything.
There are two ways into the database. To search by name, enter the information you know in any order in the space provided and click Search. To search by BIA estate number or CCAA file number, click the Search by File Number tab, according to Instructions: Bankruptcy and Insolvency Records.
For a name search, you need very little to start: enter the first name, last name or both, in any order, as long as you enter at least two letters. For a file-number search, use the BIA estate number to find an estate quickly, or the CCAA file number assigned by the OSB, which is not the CCAA court number, on the same page. A file number is the precise route when you have it: it names one estate instead of every estate sharing a name. If you have a court document, a trustee letter, or a creditor notice, the estate or file number on it is the fastest entry point.
For uncertain spelling, use the wild cards described in the FAQ above: an asterisk for one or more unknown letters, an underscore for a single unknown letter. Use them sparingly. Wild cards widen the match count, and a wider match count means more sets of 10 to pay for if you view them all.
Refining is free and unlimited, and it is the step that controls the cost. The instructions page states that you can refine your search as often as you like before you view the results, and suggests starting with the name only and adding additional information to narrow the search if the number of records found is too high.
Once you submit a query, the system tells you the match position: if there are more than 10 matches, you are told the number of matches; if there are fewer than 10 or none, the message reads "10 or fewer matches were found (including no matches found)." The system also tells you the maximum cost for viewing all of the results, with results shown in sets of 10 or fewer at $8 per set. If the number of matches is large, refine; if it is very large, the system may prompt you to refine, on the same page. If the count is small and you do not need to refine, go directly to payment.
The refine filters, all from the instructions page, are:
Be sure the information you enter is correct, otherwise you could get inaccurate results, as the instructions page warns. A refined search built on a wrong birth year or a wrong province is worse than a broad name search: it looks precise while missing the record you need.
You pay to view, not to search. Instructions: Bankruptcy and Insolvency Records states the cost to view the results of a search is $8 for each set of 10 or fewer records, with CCAA records free of charge, and that you can purchase search rights in the form of tokens. Except where the search returns fewer than 10 records, you will be told the exact number of records found and the cost of viewing all of them, but you pay only for the sets of 10 records that you view.
Work the arithmetic before you click. The instructions page gives the example directly: if there are 61 records found and you view only the first set of 10, you will be charged only $8. If 38 records are found and you view all of them, the total cost will be $32, three sets of 10 plus one set of 8. If you find what you are looking for in the second set of 10 and stop there, the total cost will be $16. You are told how many $8 tokens you need to buy to view the results of your search, and each token can be used to view up to 10 matches.
Choose the payment method: credit card, or My OSB account. New and existing clients paying by credit card, VISA or MasterCard, will be told how many tokens they need, will be prompted for credit card information, and after payment click Submit for the results to appear, with the number of tokens remaining displayed. The OSB systems will not save credit card information, so buying several tokens in the first purchase avoids re-entering the details each time, and tokens remain in the account until further use, on the same page. Payments through My OSB account are only available to existing clients that obtained a monthly billing account prior to July 2016. If you do not already hold such an account, the credit card route is the one available to you.
Remember the minimum charge. If your search results in the response "10 or fewer matches were found (including no matches found)," you must pay the minimum $8 fee to view the results, even if the result turns out to mean there are no records at all. Searching a name and finding nothing still costs $8 to confirm. That is the price of a confirmed no-match, and it is the reason step 4, refining, comes before this step.
Once you have paid, one of three situations occurs, all described on the instructions page. If the system indicates there are no matches, press "View details of the results" to print or save: even when there are no matches, print or save the results, because that is your record that, according to your search criteria, nothing was found in the records. If the system indicates 10 or fewer matches, you can view, print or save the details of each record one at a time by clicking on the name, then use the "Back to the search results" link to return to the list and open another record. If the system indicates more than 10 matches, the same one-at-a-time viewing applies, with "Next 10" and "Previous 10" links to move between sets.
Save everything you view, including a no-match result. The instructions page repeats the advice at each situation: do not forget to print the details or save them to your desktop. A search result viewed and closed is a search you may have to pay to repeat, and a no-match result with no saved copy is a claim you cannot show anyone. Save the result with the search criteria you used, the date, and the match count, so the saved copy shows what was searched, not just what was found.
For CCAA records, viewing, printing and saving work the same way but without the charge: when you choose to view CCAA records by clicking the CCAA Records tab, you can view, print or save your search results, with no charge. For detail beyond the CCAA list itself, contact the monitor for that proceeding: the CCAA list page states that if you need additional information, you should contact the monitor, and gives the monitor's representative and phone number for each company in CCAA records search (2021 to present).
When you are finished, log out by clicking the Logout link at the top of the page, according to the instructions page. Do not close the browser tab and assume the session ended.
Clicking "My OSB account" lets you view previous transactions and manage users. The record of transactions allows you to view previous searches, either a complete list or all searches within a specific time period, covering searches charged to your OSB account, searches charged to your credit card, searches charged to both, and, for administrators, a list of all searches by everyone using the account. User management allows administrators to add, delete or modify user profiles within a group; before being added, each user must register online for free if they do not already have an account, and adding a user means entering the new user's email address, verifying it, selecting the user type, and saving. If you share an account within a firm or group, check the transaction record before buying more tokens: tokens already purchased remain in the account, and a colleague may have bought tokens you can use.
For BIA filings, the public record result is basic estate information for an individual estate. That limit comes from the OSB's own disclosure policy: Updates to the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Public Record Disclosure Policy and Process states that for BIA insolvency filings, results are provided on individual estates and are limited to basic estate information, that searches require the name of the estate, and that additional personal data such as date of birth, file number or location of the proceedings may increase the accuracy of the results. The public record itself is made up of select information collected through prescribed forms filed with the Superintendent, a division office or the official receiver that would otherwise have been filed with the courts, on the same page.
Do not expect the search to show the full file. The instructions page does not list the fields on a record detail page, and this guide does not fill that gap with a guess. If you need the trustee's full file, the court documents, or the details of a proposal's terms, the search result is the pointer to the estate, and the Licensed Insolvency Trustee administering it, or the court where the file sits, is where the fuller record lives. The CCAA list is the exception that proves the limit: it publishes the company name, the date of the initial order, and the appointed monitor, because a CCAA proceeding is a large-company restructuring where the monitor is the public contact point, and the list page directs further questions to that monitor.
The search also does not do aggregate research. National Service Centre requests cover individual estates only, not groupings or aggregate data such as all filings in a city, and a compilation of part or all of the public record requires an agreement with the Superintendent, with the cost set by the agreement, on the disclosure update page. If your question is "how many filings happened in my city last year," this search is the wrong tool: the OSB publishes insolvency statistics separately, and bulk data goes through an agreement, not through repeated name searches.
If you cannot search online, or you want a person to check the details with you, use the National Service Centre. The disclosure update states it provides public record information by telephone at toll-free 1-877-376-9902 or by email at osbservice-bsfservice@ised-isde.gc.ca, for individual estates only, and that agents will ask for details about the debtor or company to help ensure accurate results. Have the same information ready as for an online search: the full name, any file number, the approximate filing year, the province, and a birth date if you know it. The more of those details you can give, the more accurate the result, for the same reason refining helps online.
Expect to pay, and expect the clock to start at payment. The service standards page states the OSB will respond to telephone requests within one business day, with processing time starting once the prescribed payment has been received by the OSB. The disclosure update, dated October 15, 2024, states that under the updated policy all requests for public record information, regardless of channel, will be charged fees with very limited exceptions, that the fee for a BIA estate-specific request is still $8 as prescribed in the Bankruptcy and Insolvency General Rules, that there is no prescribed fee for CCAA-related public records, and that the National Service Centre would accept credit card as the only method of payment under its new payment process from December 2, 2024. Treat the telephone fee as the same prescribed $8 for a BIA estate-specific request, and confirm the payment method when you call, since the OSB page describes the process as it stood at that implementation date.
Yes, you need to sign in, but registration itself is free. [Instructions: Bankruptcy and Insolvency Records](https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/office-superintendent-bankruptcy/en/bankruptcy-and-insolvency-records-search/instructions) states that new clients looking to complete a search in the database can register online for free, and that before you can perform a search you must log in with your GCKey or Sign-In Partner, creating a GCKey with a username, a password and password recovery questions if you do not have one. If you had an account before July 2023, do not use your old Bankruptcy and Insolvency Search credentials: you will need to create a GCKey or use a Sign-In Partner as part of the new login process, on the same page. Signing in also gives you the My OSB account features for viewing previous transactions and managing users on a group account.
Viewing bankruptcy and insolvency records costs $8 for each set of 10 or fewer records, and CCAA records are free to view, according to [Instructions: Bankruptcy and Insolvency Records](https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/office-superintendent-bankruptcy/en/bankruptcy-and-insolvency-records-search/instructions). You buy search rights in the form of tokens, and you pay only for the sets of 10 you actually view: if 61 records are found and you view only the first set of 10, you are charged only $8, and if 38 records are found and you view all of them, the total is $32. The minimum charge applies even to an empty result: if your search returns the response 10 or fewer matches were found (including no matches found), you must pay the minimum $8 fee to view the results, even if the result turns out to mean there are no records at all. Refine as much as you like before paying, because refining is free and viewing is not. Two narrow exceptions sit outside the ordinary search: Licensed Insolvency Trustees continue to have free access to information needed for the proper administration of estates, and requests from media outlets are free and go to the OSB media team instead of through a BIRS account, according to [Updates to the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Public Record Disclosure Policy and Process](https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/office-superintendent-bankruptcy/en/stakeholder-engagement/notices-to-stakeholders/updates-to-osb-public-record-disclosure-policy-process).
Less than most people expect. [Updates to the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Public Record Disclosure Policy and Process](https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/office-superintendent-bankruptcy/en/stakeholder-engagement/notices-to-stakeholders/updates-to-osb-public-record-disclosure-policy-process) states that for Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act filings, results are provided on individual estates and are limited to basic estate information, and that searches require the name of the estate. The OSB instructions page does not publish a field-by-field list of what a record detail page contains, so this guide does not invent one: expect basic estate information for the named estate, and use the trustee or the court file for anything beyond it. The separate CCAA list is more explicit: [CCAA records search (2021 to present)](https://www.ised-isde.canada.ca/site/office-superintendent-bankruptcy/en/ccaa-records-2021-to-present) lists each company name, the date of the initial order, and the appointed monitor, with a representative name, phone number and link, and says to contact the monitor for additional information. Terms you meet in results, such as absolute, automatic, conditional and suspended discharge, are defined in plain language in [Definitions](https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/office-superintendent-bankruptcy/en/definitions).
Start with the name only, and add detail only if the match count is too high. [Instructions: Bankruptcy and Insolvency Records](https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/office-superintendent-bankruptcy/en/bankruptcy-and-insolvency-records-search/instructions) advises starting with the name only and adding additional information to narrow the search if the number of records found is too high, and warns to be sure the information you enter is correct, otherwise you could get inaccurate results. To search by name, enter the information you know in any order, as long as you enter at least two letters. Two wild cards help with uncertain spelling: an asterisk replaces one or more unknown letters, so Rob* returns Robertson, Robinson and Roberts, and an underscore replaces a single unknown letter, so Si_ard returns Simard and Sicard. Use wild cards sparingly, because they increase the number of matches and therefore the cost if you view the results. If you know the exact name of a company, enclose the words in quotation marks so results include only those exact words in the order you typed them. Searches handle apostrophes, hyphens and two last names with or without the punctuation, on the same page.
Yes, for one estate at a time. [Updates to the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Public Record Disclosure Policy and Process](https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/office-superintendent-bankruptcy/en/stakeholder-engagement/notices-to-stakeholders/updates-to-osb-public-record-disclosure-policy-process) states that the OSB National Service Centre provides public record information by telephone at toll-free 1-877-376-9902 or by email at osbservice-bsfservice@ised-isde.gc.ca, that basic estate information and other public record documents can be requested for individual estates only, not for groupings or aggregate data such as by city, and that agents will ask you for details about the debtor or company to help ensure accurate results. The telephone route has a service standard: [Service Standards and Results: Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy](https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/office-superintendent-bankruptcy/en/service-standards-results) states the OSB will respond to Bankruptcy and Insolvency Records Search requests received by telephone within one business day, with processing time starting once the prescribed payment has been received. The same page states the online database is available at any time except routine maintenance, with a target of at least 97% availability during the fiscal year and a 2025-2026 result of 99.4%. For help with the search itself, the disclosure update gives the same National Service Centre phone number and email address.
The search is a record of individual estates, not a research database. [Updates to the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Public Record Disclosure Policy and Process](https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/office-superintendent-bankruptcy/en/stakeholder-engagement/notices-to-stakeholders/updates-to-osb-public-record-disclosure-policy-process) states that results are provided on individual estates, that National Service Centre requests cover individual estates only and not groupings or aggregate data, and that a compilation of part or all of the public record is available only through an agreement with the Superintendent, with the cost set by the agreement. The same update states the OSB may refuse to provide information if the request triggers privacy concerns, if disclosure could reasonably be expected to result in material financial loss or gain, or if it could reasonably be expected to prejudice the competitive position of a third party, and that by accessing public record data users agree to use it solely for lawful and legitimate purposes in a way that will not negatively impact the integrity of the Canadian insolvency system. This guide gives no insolvency, legal or financial advice: it describes how to search the public record only, and what a result means for any particular person or business is a question for a Licensed Insolvency Trustee or a lawyer.
No figure in this guide was carried from a secondary source. The following were cut because they could not be verified on an opened Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy page: how long a bankruptcy or proposal record stays searchable in the database after filing or discharge, including any retention or removal period; the exact fields shown on a BIA record detail page beyond the OSB's own description of results as basic estate information; the earliest filing date covered by the BIA portion of the search, as distinct from the verified September 18, 2009 start date for CCAA records; any separate fee figure for a telephone or email request beyond the prescribed $8 for a BIA estate-specific request; how long a credit bureau keeps a bankruptcy on a credit report, which is a credit bureau practice, not an OSB record rule; and any list of the specific public record documents available through the National Service Centre beyond basic estate information and other public record documents as the OSB describes them. Check the OSB pages linked above, or the National Service Centre at 1-877-376-9902, before relying on any of those points.