Do I need to register anything to start?

The fear that stops people starting is usually procedural: that there is a form somewhere they have not filled in, and that working without it is illegal. For most people taking their first paid work in Canada, the truth is quieter. You can be in business, invoicing and being paid, before you have registered anything at all.

What actually forces your hand

Three things do, and none of them is the act of starting:

• Trading under a name that is not your own legal name.
• Crossing the GST/HST small supplier threshold, which is a federal rule with its own timing.
• Needing a licence or permit for what you do or where you do it, which is municipal.

The part this course will not guess at

The first of those three is stated everywhere as: you must register a business name unless you trade under your own legal name. It is probably right. I could not confirm it at an ontario.ca page on 26 September 2026, across three attempts, and a rule that everybody repeats is exactly the kind that turns out to have an exception nobody mentions.

What I could confirm is what it costs when you do register in Ontario: CA$60, whether you file online or by post. Online is immediate. By post it is fifteen business days.

The trap that costs money later

A registration is a thing that can lapse. The day you register, put the expiry in whatever you use for reminders, because nothing will tell you it has gone, and discovering it through a bank or a client is worse than the renewal fee.

1. Decide whether you are trading under your own legal name or something else.
2. If something else, confirm the requirement and register it.
3. Diarise the expiry the same day.
4. Check whether your municipality licenses what you do, using BizPaL.