Submit an ESTMA annual report to Natural Resources Canada: enrol and get an ESTMA ID, build the report in the XLSX template, publish it online, and submit the link and file through the portal within 150 days of your financial year-end.
Applies in: CA
The Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act (ESTMA) requires certain entities engaged in the commercial development of oil, gas, or minerals to report payments made to governments to Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and to make those reports available to the public. Technical Reporting Specifications puts the deadline in one line: no later than 150 days after the end of each financial year. The submission route is a secure online portal. Its name is the first thing to get straight, because the official pages use two names for it. The current NRCan pages call it the ESTMA Reporting Portal. The NRCan eServices Portal User Guide, and the example provisions in the Model ESTMA Reporting Policy, call it the NRCan eServices Portal. This guide uses the title the backlog row gave it, eServices Portal, and preserves both wordings wherever the route matters, because no official page reconciles them and no direct portal address was verified on the official pages. Start from the link on the current Report under the ESTMA page rather than from a bookmark or a guessed address.
This guide stays inside what the official pages verify. It does not state who counts as a reporting entity beyond pointing to the Guidance and section 8(1) of the Act, it states no filing fee, and it describes no sign-in screen layout beyond the two sign-in methods and the registration steps the Technical Reporting Specifications and the User Guide actually set out. Where the pages disagree, the disagreement is preserved in the text. Where a figure could only be found in a secondary source, it is not stated here, and the closing paragraph names what is not stated.
Start with Step 1 on Report under the ESTMA. That page tells you to review the Guidance, which clarifies the scope of commercial development of oil, gas and minerals, the entities subject to the ESTMA and required to report payments, and the types of payments that must be reported, together with the Technical Reporting Specifications, which detail every step from enrolling on the portal to submitting the report. Do that reading before registering anything, because the portal steps assume the scope question is already answered, and because enrolling does not answer it: the Technical Reporting Specifications state plainly that enrolment does not mean an entity has a reporting obligation in a given financial year, while encouraging even entities without an obligation to enrol so they are added to the ESTMA mailing list for updates to the tools and Guidance.
The Act itself is the authority the NRCan pages point back to. The Technical Reporting Specifications describe reporting entities as defined in section 8(1) of the Act, and the Guidance is described as practical and illustrative rather than prescriptive. If the scope question is close, for example a parent that controls an extractive subsidiary, a joint venture, or an entity whose Canadian connection is only a place of business, assets, or business activity in Canada, the Guidance and the Act are the documents to work from, not this guide and not a summary found elsewhere. The Model ESTMA Reporting Policy is useful background for the same reason: it recommends robust internal reporting policies to determine whether payments are reportable, while stating that entities reporting under the ESTMA are not required to implement such policies.
Check substitution before building a Canadian report from scratch. Under section 10 of the Act, the Minister of Natural Resources may determine that another jurisdiction's reporting requirements are an acceptable substitute for the requirements in section 9, and a reporting entity may then provide the same report it submitted to the other jurisdiction, subject to any additional requirements named in the determination. Substitution determinations lists determinations for the European Union Accounting and Transparency Directives, Quebec's transparency legislation, Switzerland's Transparency Requirements for Raw Materials Companies, the United Kingdom's Reports on Payments to Governments Regulations 2014, and the United States Rules for Disclosure of Payments by Resource Extraction Issuers. Each determination carries additional conditions, and they differ by jurisdiction: most require the ESTMA reporting template cover page with a completed attestation statement, Quebec's requires the cover page excluding the completed attestation statement, and several require email notification to NRCan within 150 days if the other jurisdiction's filing deadline runs later, with submission inside that jurisdiction's own timeframe. With the exception of substituted reports, all ESTMA reports must use the NRCan reporting template, according to the Report under the ESTMA page. If a substituted report applies, the User Guide's submission step also requires a link to the stand-alone ESTMA cover page, with the jurisdiction and its deadline stated in the Notes box. Read the determination for the specific jurisdiction before relying on substitution, and do not assume one jurisdiction's conditions carry over to another.
One further scope check belongs here. The Report under the ESTMA page and the Technical Reporting Specifications both describe the report as covering payments to governments, called payees, in Canada and abroad, in relation to the commercial development of oil, gas, or minerals. The Model ESTMA Reporting Policy example provisions describe payees as any government in Canada or in a foreign state, including any Indigenous group or organization that exercises or performs the power, duty or function of government, a body established by two or more governments, and any trust, board, commission, corporation or body or other authority established to exercise or perform a power, duty or function of government. Apply the same analysis to payments to Indigenous governments as to any other government, as the Model Policy advises, and check the Guidance and the NRCan information on payments to Indigenous payees for the current treatment before classifying those payments.
Nothing can be submitted until the entity is enrolled, and enrolment cannot happen until a person has registered. The order in Annex A of the Technical Reporting Specifications is: register a client profile as a portal user, enrol with NRCan and obtain an ESTMA ID number, obtain the reporting tools including the template, complete and submit the report in XLSX format, then publish online and submit the report and link to NRCan. Follow that order. A report built before enrolment will be missing the ESTMA ID number the template requires.
Registering starts with sign-in. Access the portal and select a secure sign-in method: GCKey, a unique electronic credential of username and password issued to individuals by the Government of Canada, or Sign-In Partners, private-sector companies and organizations partnered with an Interac sign-in service. The NRCan eServices Portal User Guide gives the click-level wording for both routes, including accepting the Terms and Conditions of Use and, for a new GCKey, creating a username and password and recovery questions. That guide reflects the revised Specifications that came into effect November 1, 2018, and its screen wording is old; follow the screens as they appear on the day, and use the guide for the sequence, not as a promise about current button labels. Once signed in, you are redirected to the registration page. If it is your first time using the portal, accept the terms of use and provide the required information, and an email confirmation is required to complete registration. The User Guide adds that NRCan sends a confirmation code to the email address provided and that you have 24 hours to provide the code and complete registration. That 24-hour wording appears only in the User Guide and is not confirmed on the current NRCan pages, so treat it as the guide's wording and check the email promptly rather than leaving registration overnight.
Enrolment is a separate step, completed through the portal on the electronic Enrolment Form. All fields must be completed accurately, entities must use their exact legal entity name for each report, and the 9-digit Business Number issued by the Canada Revenue Agency is required if applicable. Two contacts are required for all entities, and those contacts act as the initial point of contact between the entity and NRCan for all communications, updates and compliance notifications. The User Guide's enrolment wording matches: provide the legal name, CRA business number if applicable, fiscal year start and end dates, and business address, then designate a Primary Contact and an Alternate Contact with their business addresses and contact information, plus the telephone number of the portal user, review the information, and submit. Once the Enrolment Form is completed, NRCan reviews it and assigns a unique ESTMA ID number to all parent entities and subsidiary entities, sent by email. The ESTMA ID number must be referenced in all future correspondence, including when submitting a report, and it is mandatory for all ESTMA reports. The User Guide states that ESTMA ID numbers will normally be processed within 3 to 5 business days, and that urgent requests should be flagged to NRCan at the email address in that guide. That processing time appears only in the User Guide and is not stated on the current pages, so do not plan a filing deadline around it: enrol well before the 150-day deadline, and flag urgency through the contact route in section 6 if the deadline is close.
Two enrolment shortcuts are verified and worth knowing. Entities that previously enrolled with NRCan before the portal launched are not required to enrol again, according to the User Guide; instead, request access to the previously enrolled entity through the portal using its ESTMA ID number, after which NRCan typically grants access within 3 to 5 business days, again User Guide wording only. And there is no limit to the number of contacts a business can authorize on the portal, and no limit to the number of portal users an entity can authorize, but only Principal Users may add, update or remove other users, and new users must have their own GCKey account. If an individual is no longer employed by the business, it is the business's responsibility to remove their contact details. Do that removal the day someone leaves, not at the next filing, because the User Guide warns that a departed user can still access the entity's account until access is revoked.
If the entity's legal name changes, the two pages give different routes and both are preserved here. The Report under the ESTMA page says to submit a request to update the entity's Profile through the Reporting Portal and attach the name change certificate as supporting documentation. The User Guide says to provide NRCan by email with a Certificate of Name Change or any legal document supporting the name change, at the email address in that guide, and says contact information including legal name can otherwise be amended from the entity's Home Page. Use the portal request route first, attach the certificate there, and send the email copy as well if the portal route does not acknowledge the change, keeping both submissions with the entity's records. The exact legal name matters beyond the profile: the report template requires the reporting entity name to match exactly the legal name provided during enrolment.
With the exception of substituted reports, all ESTMA reports must use the NRCan reporting template, and ESTMA reports must be created and submitted using the XLSX reporting template. Download the current template from the NRCan website, from the Report under the ESTMA page, and check that you have the current version before starting, since the Technical Reporting Specifications note that NRCan may amend the validation checklist as required and the latest version is on the NRCan website. Reports must be completed in either English or French.
Start on the Data Entry sheet. Completing the Data Entry sheet automatically populates the report's Cover Page. The mandatory Data Entry fields in Annex A are: the reporting year, entered as the start and end dates of the financial year captured in the report; the reporting entity name, matching exactly the legal name provided during enrolment; the reporting entity ESTMA identification number obtained during enrolment; subsidiary reporting entities, if applicable, by selecting Yes under Consolidation and entering the names and ESTMA ID numbers for each subsidiary included; the currency of the report, a single currency only, which must be Canadian currency or the currency the reporting entity uses in its consolidated financial statements; and substitution, if applicable, by selecting Yes and entering the original jurisdiction where the report was submitted and the due date in that jurisdiction. Once completed, right-click the Data Entry tab to hide the worksheet in the published report, as Annex A directs.
Then complete the payment spreadsheets. The Payments by Payee spreadsheet must be populated for a report to be compliant with the Act. The Payments by Project spreadsheet must also be completed when payments to governments can be attributed to specific extractive projects. To reach them, click the Payments by Payee and Payments by Project tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet. Rows may be added to the payment tables as required, but columns may not be added or amended: they must appear in exactly the same order as in the reporting template. Certain payments may require qualifying notes, entered in the Notes column, which may also be used to provide context for payments. Country names must be entered in accordance with the list in Annex B of the Technical Reporting Specifications.
The classification rules in section 3 of the Technical Reporting Specifications decide what goes in those spreadsheets. Payments must be disclosed on a cash accounting basis, that is, reported based on when the payment is made, not when a commitment is made. Payments must be broken down to indicate which payee received the payment, and also broken down by project when they can be attributed to a specific project; if a payment cannot be linked to a specific project, it may be disclosed without splitting it, and payee-level disclosure is sufficient. The report must also include the total of each payment category to each payee and project where applicable. A project means the operational activities governed by a single contract, licence, lease, concession or similar legal agreement that form the basis for payment liabilities with a government, and multiple such agreements that are substantially interconnected count as one project. Disclosure must reflect the substance rather than the form of the payment or activity. Reporting entities have the option to round payments to the nearest $10,000, but rounding is not to be used for calculating and determining reportable payments: run the C$100,000 aggregation test on unrounded figures first, then round only for presentation.
The seven payment categories, and the threshold, are set out in section 1 and the FAQ: taxes, royalties, fees, production entitlements, bonuses, dividends, and infrastructure improvement payments, aggregated within one category to a single payee, reportable when the aggregate meets or exceeds C$100,000. The monetary value of any in-kind payment must be reported, at fair market value if the value is not determinable, using an existing valuation methodology where one is available, with the payment identified as in-kind and a supplementary note summarizing how the value was determined. For currency, reports must use only one type of currency, payments in other currencies may be converted by one of four methods listed in the Technical Reporting Specifications, and the report must include a note disclosing the exchange rate and primary method used for currency conversions. Choose one conversion method, apply it consistently, and write the note before the report leaves the building, since a missing currency note is the kind of gap the validation checklist exists to catch.
Before moving on, run the validation checklist. The Report under the ESTMA page links the ESTMA report validation checklist, and the Technical Reporting Specifications state that NRCan validates reports against its basic criteria before publishing links. The checklist contents are not summarized here. Download the current checklist, work through it against the finished template, and fix every item it flags before publishing, not after submitting.
Each report is required to include an attestation statement, with two options listed in the reporting template: attestation by a director or officer of the reporting entity, or attestation through independent audit. The Report under the ESTMA page states both options in full. By reporting entity, a director or officer attests that the information in the report is true, accurate and complete to the best of their knowledge and that they exercised due diligence, providing the officer's name, position and date of attestation in the Data Entry sheet, with no physical signature required. By independent audit, a director or officer attests that they obtained an independent audit opinion following the Canadian Auditing Standards, and the audit is included when the report is submitted.
Annex A gives the mechanics. Read both attestation statements carefully and select the checkbox that applies. Enter the end date of the financial year covered in the report at the end of the checked attestation statement. Only the text marked in red in the XLSX attestation statements can be amended; reporting entities are prohibited from altering any other language in the attestation statements. If the independent audit option was selected, provide a link to the audit opinion received in the appropriate section of the cover page. Insert the full name and position title of the attesting director or officer and the date the attestation was completed. For the audit route, the Technical Reporting Specifications add that NRCan requires an unmodified audit opinion based on an audit of the ESTMA report, conducted in accordance with Canadian auditing standards, on the basis that the applicable financial reporting framework is a special purpose, compliance framework. Do not sign, reword, or expand the attestation text beyond the red-marked fields, and do not leave the attestation to the day of filing: it needs a named director or officer, and for the audit route it needs a completed audit opinion and a working link to it.
Publication comes before submission, and the order matters. The Report under the ESTMA page states the sequence plainly: publish the report online, then submit it through the ESTMA Reporting Portal in XLSX format, after the report is published. The Technical Reporting Specifications state the same order: publish online and submit the report to NRCan, no later than 150 days following the end of the financial year.
Publish in a machine-readable format. The published report must be in a machine-readable format such as PDF or XLSX, on a publicly accessible website, but not necessarily a corporate website. Reporting entities are encouraged to publish in XLSX format, and reports converted to PDF for publishing must still be machine readable. The report must remain publicly available for at least five years, and if multiple ESTMA reports are submitted over a number of financial years, all reports published within the last five years must be available at the same landing page. Keep the landing page stable: if links to landing pages or individual reports cease to function at any time, the reporting entity must inform NRCan and provide a functional link as soon as possible, so reports continue to be available for the required five-year period. Annex A adds that links to ESTMA reports and independent audit reports, if applicable, must be functional at all times, and broken links must be reported to NRCan and fixed immediately.
Then submit through the portal. A functional link to the ESTMA report, as well as a copy of the most recent report in XLSX format, must be submitted to NRCan via the portal. The User Guide's submission steps, in the eServices Portal wording, are: from the menu, select Submit ESTMA Report; use the Notes box to provide the link or links to the ESTMA report, and for a substituted report also provide a link to its stand-alone ESTMA cover page plus the additional details described in section 1, such as the jurisdiction and its deadline, amendment details, or reasoning and key dates for a shortened financial year; upload the report by browsing, selecting the file, and clicking Add File; if applicable, browse and upload supporting files such as auditor's reports the same way; and finally click Submit ESTMA Report. The User Guide adds that NRCan will review the report against the Report Validation Checklist and contact the entity if changes or clarifications are required. Those button and menu labels come from the 2018-era User Guide and were not verified against the current portal screens, so follow the screens on the day and use the guide for the sequence and the contents of the Notes box, not as a guarantee of current labels. The Technical Reporting Specifications add one formatting point for the portal submission itself: while entities may convert and publish reports online in machine-readable PDF, only ESTMA reports in Excel format are accepted via the portal, in accordance with the Specifications. Submit the XLSX file, not only the PDF, and include the functional link inside the submission.
Amended reports follow a stricter version of the same route. If a published report requires amendments, the entity must inform NRCan in detail of any changes, provide an electronic copy of the latest version, either publish the most up-to-date report to the previously provided link or provide a new link, and include a note identifying the amendments on the amended report. Annex A adds that a version number must be added to the title of the report for each amended report submitted, in addition to the note identifying the amendments, and that the most up-to-date report must be available via the previously provided link or a new link included in the submission. The Report under the ESTMA page adds the correction duty for published errors: if the business identifies an error or omission in its published report, it must notify NRCan immediately, publish an amended report online, and re-submit it in accordance with the Technical Reporting Specifications, with the new report including details about the changes made. Do not quietly replace a published file: version it, note the change, tell NRCan, and re-submit.
Work out the deadline from the financial year-end, not from the calendar year. Reporting businesses must submit and publish their ESTMA reports online within 150 days of the end of their fiscal year. The Technical Reporting Specifications give a worked timeline example: a financial year ended December 31, 2024, and the report had to be published online with a direct link provided to NRCan no later than May 30, 2025, 150 calendar days following the end of the fiscal year. Count 150 calendar days from your own year-end, write the resulting date down at the start of the reporting cycle, and treat it as the deadline for both publication and submission, since both must be completed inside it. Substituted reports with a later foreign deadline are the only exception described on the official pages, and only with the 150-day email notification described in section 1.
Run the day-of-filing checks in this order. First, confirm the template is the current one, the ESTMA ID number and the exact legal entity name match the enrolment, the reporting year dates are correct, a single currency is used throughout with the conversion note included, and the attestation checkbox, financial year-end date, attesting director or officer name and position, and attestation date are all complete, with no attestation language altered beyond the red-marked text. Second, confirm the Payments by Payee spreadsheet is populated, the Payments by Project spreadsheet is completed wherever payments are attributable to projects, columns are in template order, country names follow Annex B, and the C$100,000 aggregation test was run on unrounded figures. Third, run the validation checklist and fix what it flags. Fourth, publish, then open the published link from a browser that is not signed in, confirm the report opens in machine-readable form, confirm the landing page also shows the last five years of reports, and only then submit the link and XLSX file through the portal, keeping a copy of everything submitted with the submission date.
Keep proof, because no receipt step is verified beyond the NRCan email described in the FAQ. Keep the published report, the submitted XLSX file, the link supplied, the submission date, and any NRCan email about revisions or acceptance together, and watch for that email rather than assuming the filing is complete when the portal accepts the upload. If NRCan raises a validation error, resolve it as quickly as possible and document the error to avoid repeating it, as the Model ESTMA Reporting Policy advises, and remember that a report requiring revisions that has not been accepted should remain as an Original Submission, according to the Report under the ESTMA page.
Record keeping carries a wording conflict, preserved here. The Report under the ESTMA page says all payment records must be kept for seven years from the date that NRCan accepted the report. The Technical Reporting Specifications say a reporting entity must keep records of its annual payments to governments for a seven-year period beginning on the day the entity provides the report, or is deemed to have done so, and Annex A and the Model ESTMA Reporting Policy phrase it as seven years from the date a payment was published in a report and provided to NRCan. Keep records for at least seven years measured from the latest of those starting points, that is, from NRCan's acceptance where acceptance is confirmed, and do not destroy records at seven years from publication alone without confirming acceptance. The seven-year period, on any wording, runs far longer than the five-year public availability period, so the two clocks must be tracked separately.
Finally, know where to get help, and note that the contact details also conflict between pages. The Report under the ESTMA page says to email NRCan with questions about enrolment or the reporting process, or to call the NRCan Help Desk at 1-855-525-9293. The User Guide FAQ says to contact the Help Desk at 1-877-842-5604 for technical problems, and to email NRCan.ESTMA_Reports-Rapports_LMTSE.RNCan@canada.ca with enrolment or reporting questions, stating in the email if a phone call is wanted. The Technical Reporting Specifications give the inquiries address as estma_reports-rapports_lmtse@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca. Try the contact route on the page you are reading first, and if it bounces or goes unanswered, use the other address and number, keeping a note of which route answered. The Model ESTMA Reporting Policy also notes, in its example provisions on violations, that NRCan may recommend prosecution under section 24 of the Act, which allows for fines of up to $250,000 per day per offence for willful non-compliance, obstruction, false or misleading information, or failure to comply with sections 9, 12 or 13. That is the policy's description of the enforcement backdrop, not legal advice, and borderline scope or classification questions belong with the Guidance, the Act, and professional advice, not with a filing made on an assumption.
Both names appear on official NRCan pages, and this guide preserves both rather than picking one. The older [NRCan eServices Portal User Guide](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/sites/nrcan/files/mining-materials/PDF/ESTMA%20-%20NRCan%20eServices%20Portal%20User%20Guide.pdf) calls it the NRCan eServices Portal throughout, describes it as a secure web environment to enrol entities, submit an ESTMA report and update contact information, and says its use is mandatory to enrol and submit ESTMA reports under the revised Technical Reporting Specifications that came into effect November 1, 2018. The current [Report under the ESTMA](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/our-natural-resources/minerals-mining/services-for-the-mining-industry/extractive-sector-transparency-measures-act/tools-extractive-businesses/18192) page and the [Technical Reporting Specifications](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/minerals-mining/services-mining-industry/extractive-sector-transparency/technical-reporting-specifications) call the same route the ESTMA Reporting Portal. The Model ESTMA Reporting Policy example provisions use the eServices Portal name for the submission step. Treat the two names as the same portal route until the pages agree, follow the link labelled ESTMA Reporting Portal from the current Report under the ESTMA page, and do not assume a bookmark or a direct address found elsewhere is current, since no direct portal address was verified on the official pages.
Work through Step 1 on [Report under the ESTMA](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/our-natural-resources/minerals-mining/services-for-the-mining-industry/extractive-sector-transparency-measures-act/tools-extractive-businesses/18192), which directs you to review the Guidance and the [Technical Reporting Specifications](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/minerals-mining/services-mining-industry/extractive-sector-transparency/technical-reporting-specifications) to assess whether your business falls under the jurisdiction of the ESTMA. The Technical Reporting Specifications describe the obligation as applying to certain entities engaged in the commercial development of oil, gas, or minerals, defined as reporting entities in section 8(1) of the Act, who must report payments made to governments no later than 150 days after the end of each financial year. This guide does not state the size or listing tests for who counts as a reporting entity, because no official NRCan page verified those figures; check the Guidance and section 8 of the Act itself before deciding either way. Two cautions from the official pages matter here. Enrolment does not settle the question: the Technical Reporting Specifications state that enrolment does not mean an entity has a reporting obligation in a given financial year, and that entities without an obligation are still encouraged to enrol so they join the ESTMA mailing list. And a report prepared for another jurisdiction may satisfy the Canadian requirement only where a substitution determination says so, with additional conditions, as described in section 1; do not assume a foreign report qualifies without checking the determination for that jurisdiction.
All three official wordings are preserved here, because the NRCan pages do not say the same thing, and the 150-day clock is the one point they agree on. [Report under the ESTMA](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/our-natural-resources/minerals-mining/services-for-the-mining-industry/extractive-sector-transparency-measures-act/tools-extractive-businesses/18192) says to submit an attested NIL report through the ESTMA Reporting Portal. The [Technical Reporting Specifications](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/minerals-mining/services-mining-industry/extractive-sector-transparency/technical-reporting-specifications) say instead that reporting entities that do not make any reportable payments within a financial year are not required to publish a report, but should notify NRCan via the ESTMA Reporting Portal within 150 days following the end of their financial year that no ESTMA report will be submitted for that year. The [NRCan eServices Portal User Guide](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/sites/nrcan/files/mining-materials/PDF/ESTMA%20-%20NRCan%20eServices%20Portal%20User%20Guide.pdf) FAQ says reporting entities that do not make any reportable payments should not publish a report via the eServices Portal, and should instead notify NRCan by email within 150 days following the end of their financial year that no report will be submitted. The Model ESTMA Reporting Policy example provision gives the email wording as well. Do not treat any one wording as settled: before the 150 days run out, contact NRCan through the portal or the email address on the page you are reading, state that the year had no reportable payments, ask which of the NIL-report or notification routes NRCan wants for that year, and keep the reply with the year's records. A parent entity with no reportable payments of its own may still have to submit a report on behalf of its subsidiaries, as the Technical Reporting Specifications state.
Use whichever credential you already hold, because both routes are verified and neither page ranks one above the other. Annex A of the [Technical Reporting Specifications](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/minerals-mining/services-mining-industry/extractive-sector-transparency/technical-reporting-specifications) says to access the ESTMA Reporting Portal and select a secure sign-in method, choosing between Government of Canada Key (GCKey), a unique electronic credential of username and password issued to individuals, and Sign-In Partners, private-sector companies and organizations partnered with an Interac sign-in service so customers can use their online credentials to access Government of Canada services. The [NRCan eServices Portal User Guide](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/sites/nrcan/files/mining-materials/PDF/ESTMA%20-%20NRCan%20eServices%20Portal%20User%20Guide.pdf) gives the same two routes, with step-by-step sign-in instructions for each. Whichever route you choose, the account is personal: individuals authorized to conduct ESTMA-related activities for the entity must create a personal account, and each individual user must create a personal portal account before access to the entity is granted. There is no limit to the number of contacts a business can authorize on the portal, according to the Report under the ESTMA page, and no limit to the number of portal users an entity can authorize, according to the User Guide. Only Principal Users may add, update or remove other users for an entity, and a departed user keeps access until removed, so remove access promptly when someone leaves and keep more than one Principal User, as the User Guide advises.
The report is built in the XLSX reporting template, and its mandatory contents are the Data Entry fields, the Cover Page they populate, the Payments by Payee spreadsheet, the Payments by Project spreadsheet where payments can be attributed to specific projects, and the attestation statement, all as set out in Annex A of the [Technical Reporting Specifications](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/minerals-mining/services-mining-industry/extractive-sector-transparency/technical-reporting-specifications). The seven payment categories named in the [Model ESTMA Reporting Policy](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/minerals-mining/services-mining-industry/extractive-sector-transparency/model-estma-reporting-policy) example provisions are taxes, royalties, fees, production entitlements, bonuses, dividends, and infrastructure improvement payments, judged on substance over form. The same page states the threshold rule: identify and aggregate all payments made within one payment category to a single payee, and if that amount meets or exceeds C$100,000, it must be included in an ESTMA report. The substitution determinations page confirms the same aggregation wording for the United States assessment, describing reportable payments as payments made to a single payee that aggregate to CAD $100,000 or more in a single ESTMA payment category. Payments must be disclosed on a cash accounting basis, broken down by payee and by project when attributable, in a single currency, with totals for each payment category to each payee and project where applicable. Qualifiers on individual categories, such as which taxes or dividends are excluded, were not verified on an official page and are not stated here; check the Guidance for the category definitions before classifying a borderline payment.
No general submission receipt or confirmation screen is verified on the official pages, so do not expect one and do not treat silence as acceptance. What is verified is the validation and email step. [Report under the ESTMA](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/our-natural-resources/minerals-mining/services-for-the-mining-industry/extractive-sector-transparency-measures-act/tools-extractive-businesses/18192) says you will receive an email if NRCan requires any report revisions or if NRCan accepts your report, and that any report requiring revisions that has not been accepted should remain as an Original Submission. The [NRCan eServices Portal User Guide](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/sites/nrcan/files/mining-materials/PDF/ESTMA%20-%20NRCan%20eServices%20Portal%20User%20Guide.pdf) says NRCan will review the report against the Report Validation Checklist and contact the entity if changes or clarifications are required. The [Technical Reporting Specifications](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/minerals-mining/services-mining-industry/extractive-sector-transparency/technical-reporting-specifications) say NRCan will validate that the report meets the basic criteria in the Report Validation Checklist, then publish the links on the NRCan website. Keep a copy of the published report, the submitted XLSX file, the link you supplied, and the date of submission together, watch for the NRCan email, and if a validation error is raised, resolve it as quickly as possible and document it, as the Model ESTMA Reporting Policy advises. After acceptance the duties continue: keep the report publicly available for five years, keep links functional, tell NRCan at once if a link stops working, and keep payment records for seven years.
No filing fee or payment step, direct portal address, current portal screen layout, submission receipt step, or validation checklist contents are stated in this guide, because none was verified on an official page. Figures not stated in this guide: the reporting-entity size and listing tests, including the $20 million assets, $40 million revenue, and 250-employee figures and the stock-exchange listing test, which appeared only in secondary sources; the official Statistics Canada page could not be verified, and no official NRCan page verified them; the qualifiers on individual payment categories, which appeared only in secondary and brochure snippets and not on official pages; any claim that a confirmation email or receipt follows every portal submission, beyond the NRCan revision-or-acceptance email wording on the Report under the ESTMA page; and any reconciliation of the conflicting NIL-report, record-keeping start-date, Help Desk number, and inquiries email wordings, which are presented as both or all wordings instead. The 3-to-5-business-day enrolment and access processing times and the 24-hour account confirmation code wording are carried only as User Guide wording, not as confirmed current practice. Recheck the Report under the ESTMA page and the Technical Reporting Specifications on the day you file, and confirm the portal name, the no-reportable-payments route, and the current contact details there before submitting, since those are the points where the official pages disagree or have moved since the User Guide.