How to Register an Ontario Sole Proprietorship

By Holly Crosgrey


When registering an Ontario sole proprietorship the statute that you need to review would be the Business Names Act (Ontario). Frequently an Ontario sole proprietorship is called an Ontario trade name. A responsible business person will read the statute to ensure that he or she follows the legal requirements of the statute.

The law requires that a person must not give the public the opinion that he or she is carrying on business under another name unless that name has been registered. Further a person must be registered in order to be legally allowed to use a name other than his or her own.

You are not required to provide an Ontario Nuans name search report to register an Ontario sole proprietorship. The Business Names Act (Ontario) has no requirement for an Ontario trade name / Ontario sole proprietorship name to be unique. Any company, sole proprietorship or partnership can register the same Ontario business name at the same time. This does not mean that you should just go ahead and register any name you wish. It is important that you make all attempts to have a distinct name for an Ontario Business Registration that is very different from all names out there.

The best way to ensure this is to do a preliminary name search for the proposed name for your Ontario sole proprietorship. A search house can perform this for you. Some search houses charge a small fee for this and others will do this for free when you purchase a sole proprietorship registration service from them. You really need the help of a search house for clearing the name. You cannot clear you name on your own just by going through the phone book. As well you need to consider that you should not have a name that is even close to another name registered across all of Canada. It could cause problems since many businesses today conduct business right across Canada.

Five years is the period of time in which the Ontario sole proprietorship will be in place. The Ontario government issues a Master Business Licence for the Ontario sole proprietorship and this comes in the form of a pdf document when you place an order with an Ontario service provider online. The expiry date on the Master Business License will be shown at the bottom. The onus is on you to ensure you renew your business just prior to that date. The Ontario government does not send out reminder notices.

You should realize that it is only Ontario sole proprietorships, Ontario partnerships and Ontario business names that are not protected. An Ontario incorporated company cannot register a name that is exactly the same as another Ontario company.

The Ontario government requires you to inform them of any changes on your Ontario sole proprietorship within 15 days. An amendment to the registration must be filed. What happens if you decide you do not wish to operate your Ontario sole proprietorship under the same name? You will need to register a new Ontario trade name because you cannot amend the name of an Ontario sole proprietorship.

An Ontario sole proprietorship can be dissolved by filing a dissolution of the trade name.

The Ontario sole proprietorship registration does not stay in place forever. The Master Business Licence will have an expiry date on it. You must ensure you renew the registration a few days before the expiry date. The government will not remind you about this.




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