Start your business
in Canada

No. Nothing is charged until you enter your card and confirm on the payment screen. Before that, you see the full order: the one-time formation fee and any recurring services with the cadence they bill on. Recurring items renew on that stated cadence, and you can change them from your dashboard.

Your Commenda dashboard is ready the moment payment clears. Log in with the email you used at checkout and complete your company details: directors, shareholders, share structure, and ID verification. Your Canadian team reviews all of it, and nothing goes to the registry until you approve it. Once the entity is formed, your certificate of incorporation, business number, formation documents, and compliance calendar all sit in the same dashboard.

For every director: full name, home address, phone, email, citizenship, and a passport copy. If a company will hold shares, we also need that entity's legal name, address, and a contact for its authorized representative. There is no minimum share capital in Canada, so you do not need to fund the company to incorporate. The formation clock starts once your KYC documents are in, so returning these quickly is the fastest lever you control.

Ontario formation takes 1 to 3 business days, and as little as one day when the incorporation documents are signed quickly. Your business number from the CRA, plus GST/HST registration if you add it, follows within 48 hours of formation. The registry and the CRA control those two clocks, so we file the same day we have your documents rather than promise you a date. This timeline excludes the time to collect KYC documents and any certification or legalization they need.

Yes. The $900 covers the government and registry filing fees for your incorporation. No separate government invoice arrives later for the formation itself. That price also includes bank account opening.

Most people assume federal is the default and the stronger option. It usually is not. A federal corporation requires at least 25% of its directors to be resident Canadians, so it fits when you are going into business with a Canadian partner and rarely otherwise. An Ontario provincial corporation has no director-residency requirement, forms fastest, and can register to operate across all of Canada, which is why it is our default and why it gets called the Delaware of Canada.

No resident director. An Ontario provincial corporation has no director-residency requirement, so non-residents can own and run it. You do need a registered business address in your province of incorporation, because that is where the registry and the CRA send official mail. That address is a separate service at $900 a year, shown as its own annual line on your invoice, and we scan whatever arrives to your dashboard the day it lands. Use your own provincial address instead if you have one.

Yes, and bank account opening is inside the $900 rather than an add-on. We introduce you through our partner channel at RBC to a named contact who guides you through every step, and the bank runs its own approval from there. If you would rather use a fintech account, we refer you to Airwallex, which Commenda clients from Australia to the U.S. use for their Canadian accounts. The account can only open after the entity exists, so we sequence it immediately after formation.

GST/HST registration is a separate $500 one-time item, not part of the $900. Annual compliance is separate too: Basic at $3,600/year covers the T2 corporate return, one GST/HST filing, the registry annual return, end-of-year financials, and the ISC register, while Advanced at $7,000/year adds quarterly bookkeeping, quarterly GST/HST, and T4 payroll for up to 10 employees. Also outside the formation price: the registered business address at $900/year, standalone quarterly bookkeeping at $1,800/year, and an Alberta Agent of Service at $500/year from year 2 if you incorporate there. Immigration, visas, and trademark work are out of scope.

Canadian obligations attach to the corporation, not to its revenue. A dormant corporation still owes a nil T2 return to the CRA and an annual return to the provincial registry, and it has to keep its ISC register current. We already run exactly this for a client whose Canadian entity has had no transactions since we incorporated it. Skip the filings and late-filing penalties start; let the annual return lapse and the province can dissolve the corporation.

Yes. Every service on this page can be added or removed from your dashboard after formation. The one worth not delaying is GST/HST registration, because liability starts when you cross the CA$30,000 threshold, not when you register, so back tax and interest can build up in the gap.

Your corporation gets a compliance calendar built from its province, entity type, and fiscal year end, listing every federal and provincial obligation it owes. We remind you ahead of each deadline, file what your plan covers, and post the confirmation to your dashboard. You get one point of contact for the account plus a Canadian accountant assigned to the entity, not a ticket queue. Early on we ask you to sign a CRA authorization letter so that accountant can act on your file.