How Much Does It Really Cost to Incorporate Federally in Canada?

Federal incorporation costs under the CBCA

Incorporating federally means filing Articles of Incorporation under the Canada Business Corporations Act (CBCA) with Corporations Canada. The cost depends on how the filing is made and whether faster processing is requested.

The $200 online fee is the baseline most incorporators pay: it is both the cheaper and the faster of the two federal filing channels.

What drives the federal cost up or down

Online versus paper. Filing the CBCA Articles of Incorporation online costs $200 and processes in about 1 business day. Filing the same paperwork on paper costs more, $250, and takes about 10 business days. Under the current federal fee schedule, the online channel is both cheaper and faster, there is no cost advantage to filing on paper.

Express processing. An optional express service is available for online CBCA filings for an extra $100 on top of the regular fee, cutting the standard turnaround down to about 4 business hours (or 1 business day if the request comes by email or mail). This is a discretionary add-on, not a required cost, and only applies to online filings.

The name search is already bundled in. Corporations Canada folds the corporate name search into the federal incorporation process itself: the $200 online fee covers both the filing and the search, so there is no separate name-search invoice to budget for federally, unlike incorporating under some provincial statutes.

The fee has not moved since 2001. Corporations Canada has stated that CBCA service fees, including the incorporation fee, have not changed since 2001, and has itself flagged this as out of step with the actual cost of delivering the service. That is relevant context for anyone assuming the $200 federal fee reflects current administrative costs; it may be revised in future.

What the federal fee does not cover

The $200 or $250 CBCA filing fee is the cost of the incorporation itself. It does not include costs that can arise afterward, such as registering extra-provincially in a province where the federally incorporated business actually carries on business. Ontario specifically charges no fee for that extra-provincial registration when the corporation is federally incorporated, so a federal corporation planning to operate in Ontario does not face a second government filing fee there on top of the federal one.

How the provinces compare (context only)

A business can also choose to incorporate directly under a province’s own corporate statute instead of federally, and the fee structure looks different in each case. This is provided as background for founders deciding where to incorporate, not as an extension of the federal answer above.

In Ontario, incorporating under the Business Corporations Act (OBCA) costs $360, payable to the Minister of Finance. A business using a word (non-numbered) name must also obtain an original Ontario-biased NUANS report (a private corporate name-search report, not a government product) and submit it with the Articles of Incorporation; this is a separate, market-priced cost on top of the $360.

In Alberta, incorporating under the Business Corporations Act (ABCA) has a fixed government portion of $275. Alberta processes all incorporations exclusively through private registry agents, and each agent adds its own service fee on top of the government portion. That service fee is explicitly unregulated and varies from agent to agent, so two businesses incorporating identical Alberta corporations on the same day can pay different totals depending on which agent they use.

Anyone weighing federal incorporation against incorporating directly in Ontario or Alberta should compare the full cost stack in each case (government fee plus any mandatory name-search or agent charge), not just the headline government figure.