The guides that match your answers
Every result links to live guides verified on disk at build time, and names the registry check to run next. Read the guides before you file anything. The registry and the municipality are the authority.
Free tool · Canada · Licence and registration guides
Business Licence Finder
Pick what you will do and where you will do it, and see which live licence and registration guides match — with the registry check to run next. This finder points to guides only. It does not decide whether you need a licence, and it stores no fee figures. Business licensing in Canada is municipal and provincial as well as federal, so the final check is always the registry and the municipality where you will operate.
The activity picks the guides. If your activity is regulated — food, construction, cannabis, passenger transport — the regulated guide matters more than the general registration guide.
Registration is provincial or territorial, and the municipal licence is set by the municipality where you operate. A guide for one province does not settle another province.
The municipal licence check turns on the place, not only the activity. A home-based business and an online-only business still need the registry check below, even where no municipal licence guide matches.
How the matching works (guides only, no new facts)
What this finder does. It matches your activity and province against the live guides on this site, verified on disk at build time. Every guide link below was checked against the guides directory before this tool was written. No guide link points to a page that does not exist, and no link points to a guide for a different province presented as if it were yours.
What this finder does not do. It adds no facts of its own. It states no fee, no processing time, and no licence requirement. Fees in guide titles elsewhere on this site are not repeated here, because fees change and this tool stores no figures that rot. If a guide states a fee, read it in the guide and confirm it on the registry page before you pay.
The registry check. After the guides, run the registry check for your province or territory: search for your business name, register the name or the business if the registry requires it, and confirm whether your legal structure needs a separate registration. The business number guide explains the federal business number, which is separate from a provincial business name registration and separate again from a municipal licence.
The municipal check. Municipal business licences are set municipality by municipality. The only worked municipal example linked from this tool is Richmond, British Columbia, and it is labelled as a Richmond example only: it does not settle any other municipality. For any other municipality, check that municipality business licence page directly and ask the municipality if the answer is not clear.
Where no guide matches. Some province and activity combinations have no live guide on this site. In those cases the finder returns the general guides that do exist plus the registry check, and states plainly that no activity guide exists for that province. It never substitutes a guide for another province.
Sources: the live guides linked in the results, each verified on disk at build time. No other source was used, and no licence determination was added.
Next step: read the full step-by-step guide: Do Freelancers Need a Business Licence in Canada?