How to Start in Canada

How to Start Selling to Other Provinces in Canada

Selling across Canada is not one market: the sales tax follows the province the goods are delivered to, PST and QST need separate provincial registrations, Quebec requires French on the product, and regulated services need provincial licensing. The seller-side walkthrough.

Written October 26, 2026 · 13 min read

Applies in: across Canada

The short answer

Canada is one country with thirteen tax and licensing regimes. A business in Alberta selling to a customer in Ontario does not charge Alberta tax on that sale: for goods, the tax follows the province the goods are delivered to, so the Ontario sale carries 13% HST. Sell into British Columbia and the same goods carry 5% GST plus 7% PST, collected under two different registrations. Sell into Quebec and you add French labelling to the compliance list. Offer a regulated service across the border and the licence question starts over in the new province.

None of this stops a small business from selling nationally. It does mean the national version of your business has a setup step per province, and the businesses that get burned are the ones that set up once, in their home province, and assume the setup travels. This guide walks the setup province by province, in the order a seller actually hits it: federal tax, provincial tax, business registration, licensing, Quebec labelling, then the checkout and shipping setup that ties it together.

This guide is general information about selling across provinces, not tax or legal advice for your business. Provincial thresholds and triggers change; confirm the current rule with the province before you rely on it.

Step 1: Register for GST/HST, or confirm you do not need to

The federal question comes first because it decides whether you charge tax at all. You must register for GST/HST once you stop being a small supplier: taxable supplies over $30,000 in a single calendar quarter, or over $30,000 across four consecutive calendar quarters. The test counts worldwide taxable supplies of the business, so export sales count toward the threshold even though exports themselves are generally zero-rated.

Below the threshold, registration is voluntary. Volunteering makes sense when your customers are mostly GST/HST-registered businesses that claim the tax back, or when your startup costs carry a lot of GST you want to recover through input tax credits. The trade is real: from registration day you charge tax on every taxable sale and file returns on schedule, so a business selling only to consumers below the threshold often stays unregistered until it crosses it. Register through the CRA's Business Registration Online or My Business Account, which gives you a Business Number with an RT account.

One warning that belongs in this step, not later: registering for GST/HST does not register you for PST or QST. That confusion is the single most expensive interprovincial mistake, and step 3 exists because of it.

Step 2: Tax each sale by the delivery province

The CRA's place-of-supply rules decide which province's rate applies, and the rule turns on the kind of supply:

For goods, the place of supply is where the goods are delivered. If you ship or courier goods to a customer in another province, the destination province is the place of supply. If the customer picks the goods up at your location, your province is. The CRA's own example makes the point cleanly: an Alberta store selling to an Ontario purchaser, with the goods shipped to Ontario, makes the supply in Ontario and charges Ontario HST.

For services, the general rule looks at the recipient's address you obtain in the ordinary course of business. A Quebec supplier designing a website for an Ontario company charges Ontario HST, even though every hour of work happens in Quebec. Where you obtain no Canadian address, fallback rules look at where the service is performed and other connecting factors, and special rules cover real property, in-person services, events, transport, and telecommunications, so a service business with an unusual supply type should check the CRA's place-of-supply pages for its category rather than applying the general rule blindly.

The rates that follow from the place of supply, for a standard taxable sale:

Ontario charges 13% HST. Nova Scotia charges 14% HST, cut from 15% on April 1, 2025, which is the trap for invoicing software still set to the old rate: charging 15% in Nova Scotia in 2026 collects 1% too much, and the excess is not yours to keep. New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island charge 15% HST. Alberta and the three territories charge 5% GST only. British Columbia charges 5% GST plus 7% PST, Saskatchewan 5% plus 6% PST, Manitoba 5% plus 7% RST, and Quebec 5% GST plus 9.975% QST, for a combined 14.975%.

Worked example, because the spread is what surprises sellers: a $1,000 taxable item sold to an Alberta customer carries $50 of GST, for a $1,050 total. The same item sold to an Ontario customer carries $130 of HST, for $1,130. Sold to a British Columbia customer it carries $50 of GST plus $70 of PST, for $1,120, filed in two places. Same product, same price, three different totals and three different returns. Your checkout must know the delivery province before it totals the order, not after.

Step 3: Register for PST and QST province by province

In the five HST provinces, your CRA registration covers the provincial part: one combined return, one remittance. In the other four, you register separately:

British Columbia PST, administered by the BC Ministry of Finance through eTaxBC. An out-of-province seller that solicits sales in BC, accepts orders originating in BC, sells goods to BC purchasers, and causes goods to be delivered into BC is generally required to register. Note the shape of that test: it is about regular selling behaviour aimed at the province, not about having a BC address.

Saskatchewan PST, administered through Saskatchewan eTax Services (SETS). Saskatchewan encourages out-of-province sellers that regularly sell tangible property to Saskatchewan customers, cause goods to be delivered there, or solicit orders there to register.

Manitoba RST, administered through TAXcess. Manitoba's Retail Sales Tax Act requires out-of-province businesses that regularly sell tangible property to Manitoba customers, cause goods to be delivered there, or solicit orders originating there to register.

Quebec QST, administered by Revenu Quebec, which also administers GST for Quebec. Quebec requires out-of-province sellers that regularly sell goods or services to Quebec customers to register for and collect QST, and non-resident suppliers of digital products and services to Quebec consumers face a specified-QST registration regime once their Quebec consumer sales pass the threshold.

Two structural differences matter for your books. First, PST in BC, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba is a retail sales tax with no input tax credits: PST you pay on business inputs is a sunk cost, not a recoverable credit, so price it as a cost. Second, QST works more like GST, with input tax refunds available to registered businesses. File each provincial tax through its own portal on its own schedule; none of them ride on your CRA return.

Thresholds are deliberately not quoted as fixed numbers in this guide. Secondary sources disagree on them, provinces revise them, and the trigger often turns on behaviour (regular selling, solicitation, delivery) rather than a single revenue line. Before you start selling into a PST or QST province, confirm the current trigger with that province's tax authority, and record the answer with the date. That dated note is what protects you if the rule is later disputed.

Step 4: Register the business itself in the new province

Tax registration and business registration are different filings, and a seller expanding province by province needs to think about both. A corporation that carries on business in another province generally registers extra-provincially in that province: the filing, the fee, and the annual upkeep are set by the destination province, and the trigger is carrying on business there, opening a location, hiring staff, or holding yourself out as operating there, not merely shipping goods across the border. A sole proprietorship or partnership using a business name in a new province checks that province's business-name registration rule for the name it trades under.

The cheapest way to map this is BizPaL, the federal-provincial service that lists the permits, licences, and registrations for a given business type and location. Run it for each new province before you open there, not after the first customer complaint or the first regulator letter. Keep the extra-provincial filings current: a lapsed extra-provincial registration can block the corporation from enforcing contracts or maintaining proceedings in that province until it is restored, which is a bad time to discover the lapse.

Step 5: Check the licence before you take regulated work across the border

Goods mostly cross provincial borders freely. Regulated services do not. A trade certificate, professional licence, or business licence is issued by a province, and the destination province's regulator decides what it is worth there. Labour mobility rules under Canada's internal trade agreement push regulators to recognize out-of-province credentials, but recognition is a pathway with paperwork, timelines, and sometimes gap training or an exam, not an automatic passport.

The practical sequence: identify the destination province's regulator for your occupation, ask what pathway applies to a licence-holder from your province, and get the answer before you quote the job. The companion guide on interprovincial licensing pathways lays out the pathway structure. For business licences that are municipal rather than provincial, such as a local business licence, the destination municipality is the authority, and a licence in your home city buys you nothing in the new one.

Step 6: Make the product legal in Quebec

Quebec is the province where a national seller's packaging most often fails, and the failure is preventable at the artwork stage. Under the Charter of the French Language, every inscription on a product sold in Quebec, its container and wrapping, and documents supplied with it, including instructions, warnings, warranties, and manuals, must be in French. Another language may appear, but not more prominently and not on more favourable terms than the French version.

Since June 1, 2025, the trademark exception narrowed: a generic or descriptive term inside a registered non-French trademark must also appear in French on the product or on a medium permanently attached to it, with a grace period to June 1, 2027 for products manufactured before June 1, 2025. The name of the product as sold and the name of the enterprise are excepted, so your brand name does not need translating, but a descriptive word inside the trademark does. Companies with 25 or more employees in Quebec also face francization requirements, including registration with the Office quebecois de la langue francaise.

The operational decision is binary: either print fully bilingual packaging for the whole run, which is why national brands do it, or hold a separate Quebec SKU with French packaging and French documents. What does not work is shipping the English-only SKU to Quebec and hoping nobody complains. Complaints to the language office carry fines, and a retailer that stocks your product in Quebec will eventually ask for the French version before it asks twice.

Step 7: Set the checkout, shipping, and returns up by province

With the registrations in place, the selling setup is mechanical, and it is worth doing in this order:

First, configure tax by delivery province in your checkout, with the HST provinces, the GST-only provinces, and the GST-plus-PST/QST provinces as separate behaviours, not one flat rate. Test it with a $100 order to each province and check the totals against the table in step 2. Second, confirm who collects tax on marketplace sales: read the platform's tax settings for each province, and keep your own registrations for the sales the platform does not collect on. Third, set shipping zones and delivery promises by province, including remote delivery surcharges and timelines, so a customer in Nunavut is not promised the same two-day delivery as a customer in Toronto. Fourth, write a returns policy that works across provinces: who pays return shipping, where returns go, and how refunds handle the tax originally charged. Fifth, screen regulated product categories before listing them as shippable Canada-wide: alcohol, cannabis, tobacco, vehicles, and some controlled goods each carry destination-province rules on shipping, age verification, and licensing.

A final bookkeeping habit closes the loop: file each province's tax on its own schedule, reconcile the checkout's province totals against each return, and keep the delivery addresses that support each place-of-supply decision. If the CRA or a provincial authority ever asks why an invoice carried Ontario's rate instead of Alberta's, the delivery address on the order is the answer, and it should be retrievable without reconstructing the sale.

What to avoid

Do not charge your home province's rate on every sale. The place-of-supply rules make that wrong on most out-of-province sales, and the correction arrives as an assessment plus interest, not as a friendly note. Do not assume your CRA account covers PST or QST. Do not let an English-only SKU ship to Quebec. Do not quote regulated work in a new province before the destination regulator has answered. Do not promise Canada-wide delivery on a regulated product before the destination province's shipping rules have been checked. And do not copy a threshold number from a blog post into your tax setup: provincial triggers change, and the dated answer from the province's own tax authority is the only one that holds up.

Related guides

Selling into a new province, in five steps

  1. Price the tax for the delivery provinceFor goods, the tax rate follows where the goods are delivered, not where your business sits. Set your checkout to tax by delivery province before you take the first out-of-province order.
  2. Register where the province requires itGST/HST registration is federal, but BC PST, Saskatchewan PST, Manitoba RST, and Quebec QST are separate provincial registrations filed with each province, not with the CRA.
  3. Register the business itself if you carry on business thereA corporation operating in another province generally registers extra-provincially there, and a business name used in a province may need registering there too. Check each province before you open a location or hire there.
  4. Check the licence for regulated servicesA trade or professional licence from one province does not automatically let you work in another. Check the destination province's regulator and the interprovincial pathway before you take the job.
  5. Fix the product for Quebec before you ship thereEvery inscription on a product sold in Quebec must be in French, with no other language more prominent. Treat the Quebec rule as the packaging standard for the whole box.

Sales tax by delivery province, on a taxable sale

Ontario13% HST
Nova Scotia14% HST (cut from 15% on April 1, 2025)
New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island15% HST
Alberta, Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut5% GST only
British Columbia5% GST + 7% PST = 12%
Saskatchewan5% GST + 6% PST = 11%
Manitoba5% GST + 7% RST = 12%
Quebec5% GST + 9.975% QST = 14.975%

Rates are for a standard taxable sale. Some goods and services carry different provincial rates or exemptions, and the PST/QST column is a separate provincial tax with its own registration, not part of your GST/HST return.

Questions people ask

Do I charge the tax rate of my own province or my customer's province?

Your customer's province, in most cases. For goods, the Canada Revenue Agency's place-of-supply rule puts the supply where the goods are delivered or shipped to. For services, the general rule looks at the recipient's address you obtain in the ordinary course of business. An Alberta seller shipping to an Ontario customer charges 13% HST on that sale, not 5% GST. If the customer picks the goods up at your location, the tax follows your location instead.

At what sales level do I have to register for GST/HST?

Once you stop being a small supplier: more than $30,000 in taxable supplies in a single calendar quarter, or more than $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters. Below that you may still register voluntarily, which lets you claim input tax credits on your business costs but means charging tax and filing returns from day one. The $30,000 test counts your worldwide taxable supplies, not just Canadian sales.

Does GST/HST registration cover PST and QST too?

No. GST/HST registration covers the federal tax and, in the five HST provinces, the provincial part as one combined return to the CRA. British Columbia PST, Saskatchewan PST, Manitoba RST, and Quebec QST are separate provincial taxes with separate registrations filed with each province. Revenu Quebec administers both GST and QST for Quebec. Assuming your CRA account covers PST is the most common interprovincial tax mistake.

When does an out-of-province seller have to register for PST?

When you regularly sell taxable goods to customers in that province, solicit orders there, and cause goods to be delivered there. British Columbia's test turns on those four behaviours together, not on having a store in the province, and Saskatchewan and Manitoba have similar regular-seller tests. Provincial thresholds and triggers differ and change, so confirm the current trigger with the province's tax authority before you start selling there rather than relying on a threshold quoted in a blog post.

Is PST recoverable like GST?

Generally no. PST in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba is a retail sales tax with no input tax credits: tax you pay on business inputs in those provinces is a cost, not a credit. Quebec's QST is the exception among the four, it works more like GST, with input tax refunds available to registered businesses. That difference is why the QST column of your books looks like your GST column and the PST columns do not.

What does Quebec require on product labelling?

Under Quebec's Charter of the French Language, every inscription on a product sold in Quebec, its container and wrapping, and documents supplied with it such as instructions and warranties, must be in French. Another language may appear too, but not more prominently or on more favourable terms than the French version. Since June 1, 2025, a generic or descriptive term inside a registered non-French trademark must also appear in French on the product or a permanently attached medium, with a grace period to June 1, 2027 for products manufactured before June 1, 2025. Brand and product names themselves are excepted. The practical consequence for a national seller is simple: print bilingual packaging once, or maintain a separate Quebec SKU.

Can I work in another province under my home province's trade or professional licence?

Not automatically. Regulated occupations are licensed province by province, and the destination province's regulator decides what your existing licence gets you. Labour mobility rules under Canada's internal trade agreement push regulators toward recognizing out-of-province credentials, but the pathway, paperwork, and any gap training are set by the destination regulator. Check that regulator before you quote work in the new province, and see the companion interprovincial licensing guide for the pathway structure.

Do I need to register my corporation in every province I sell into?

Selling goods into a province from elsewhere does not by itself force extra-provincial registration, but carrying on business there generally does: opening a location, hiring staff there, or holding yourself out as operating there are the kinds of facts that trigger it. The test and the filing are set by each province, so a corporation expanding province by province registers in each new province where it carries on business, and a sole proprietorship using a business name in a new province checks that province's business-name registration rule. BizPaL, the federal-provincial permit service, lists the registrations for a given business type and location.

What about selling through Amazon or Shopify — does the platform handle the tax?

Partly, and the split is yours to verify. Marketplaces and platform checkout tools increasingly collect tax on some sales in some provinces, but the platform's collection does not automatically cover your direct sales, your PST/QST accounts, or sales in provinces the platform does not cover for your product type. Read the platform's tax settings for each province you sell into, and keep your own registrations for the sales the platform does not collect on. If you cannot say, province by province, who collected the tax on a sale, you do not have a tax setup yet.

Are there goods I simply cannot ship to another province?

Yes, for regulated categories. Alcohol, cannabis, tobacco, vehicles, and some controlled goods each carry their own provincial rules on direct shipping, age verification, licensing, and transport, and a product lawful to sell in your province may not be lawful to ship into another without the destination province's permission. Check the destination province's rules for your exact product before you list it as shippable Canada-wide, and do not let a checkout default promise delivery you cannot lawfully make.

Keep going

Sources

Get new guides by email

One short email when a new Canadian startup guide publishes. No spam — unsubscribe anytime.

We use your address only for the newsletter. Privacy policy.