Corporate Transparency Registers in Canada: Who Must Keep What, and What's Now Public

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Every Canadian corporation is now required to track the real people who own or control it — and depending on where you incorporated, that information is either sitting in a register you were supposed to create years ago, or published on a government website for anyone to search. Federal corporations have filed their individuals with significant control (ISC) information with Corporations Canada since January 22, 2024, and it is publicly searchable. Québec's register of ultimate beneficiaries went public in 2023. Ontario, B.C. and most other provinces require a private transparency register kept with your corporate records — and B.C.'s is legislated to become public too.

Most owner-managers have never heard of any of this until a bank, lawyer or investor asks to see a register that doesn't exist. Here is what each register is, who must keep what in every jurisdiction, and what it costs to ignore.

What is a corporate transparency register?

A transparency register (the federal statute calls it an ISC register; Québec says ultimate beneficiaries; B.C. says significant individuals) is a record of the natural persons who ultimately own or control a corporation. Not the shareholders of record — the human beings at the end of the chain. If your shares are held by a holding company, the transparency register looks through it to the person behind the holdco.

It exists because numbered companies and layered holdcos made Canada attractive for money laundering and tax evasion — so since 2019, federal and provincial governments have been rolling out register requirements, each with its own rules on who keeps it, where, and who gets to see it.

It is not the same thing as your central securities register, which every corporation has always been required to keep. More on the difference below.

Who counts as an individual with significant control?

Every Canadian regime uses a version of the same test. An individual has significant control if they meet any of the following, alone or jointly with others:

• They own, control or direct — directly or indirectly — shares carrying 25% or more of the voting rights
• They own, control or direct shares worth 25% or more of the corporation's outstanding shares by fair market value
• They have direct or indirect influence that would amount to control in fact of the corporation, even with no shares at all

Indirect counts. A founder whose shares sit in a family trust but who still decides who sits on the board is an ISC. Joint owners whose combined holding crosses 25%, or shareholders who have agreed to vote together ("acting in concert"), are each individually ISCs. B.C. adds an explicit test for the right to elect or remove a majority of directors; Québec adds general partners and trustees.

If no individual meets the test — common in widely held or venture-backed corporations — the register must say so, along with the steps taken to find out.

What must federal (CBCA) corporations file — and what's public?

Since January 22, 2024, private CBCA corporations don't just keep an ISC register — they file its contents with Corporations Canada (ised-isde.canada.ca):

• At incorporation, amalgamation or continuance into the CBCA
• Annually, together with the federal annual return (the $12 filing due within 60 days of your anniversary)
• Within 15 days of any change recorded in the register

There is no separate government fee for the ISC filing itself — but it is not optional, and "no changes" is still a filing.

What the public can see for each ISC: full legal name, the date they became (or ceased to be) an ISC, a description of how they have significant control, and an address — the address for service if one is provided, otherwise the residential address. Kept private: date of birth, citizenship, country of residence, and the residential address when an address for service is on file. Minors are not searchable, and an ISC can apply to have information withheld in limited safety-related circumstances. The information appears on the corporation's record in Corporations Canada's public database — the same database you can query through our free corporation search.

Who is exempt: reporting issuers, corporations listed on a designated stock exchange, Crown corporations, and their wholly owned subsidiaries. If you are a normal private federal corporation, this is you.

Penalties are the steepest in Canadian registry law: fines of up to $100,000 for the corporation, and up to $1 million, five years' imprisonment, or both for a director or officer who knowingly authorizes or acquiesces in a contravention. Corporations Canada can also refuse certificates of compliance and administratively dissolve a non-filing corporation — the same way it dissolves corporations that skip annual returns.

What are the rules in Ontario, B.C., Québec and the rest of Canada?

Same 25% idea, very different mechanics:

Jurisdiction	Required since	Where it lives	Public?
Federal (CBCA)	Register 2019; filing Jan 22, 2024	Filed with Corporations Canada	Yes (core fields)
Québec	March 31, 2023	Declared to the Registraire des entreprises	Yes — searchable by individual name since 2024
B.C.	Oct 1, 2020	Transparency register at the records office	Not yet — public register expected in 2026
Ontario	Jan 1, 2023	ISC register at the registered office	No — police, tax and regulators only
SK, MB, NS, NB, PEI, NL	Mostly 2023	Private register with corporate records	No
Alberta	—	No requirement yet (2025 consultation; legislation expected)	—
Territories	—	No regime	—

A few of these deserve a closer look:

Ontario private OBCA corporations have needed an ISC register at their registered office since January 1, 2023. It is not filed with the Ontario Business Registry. It must record each ISC's name, date of birth, address, tax-residence jurisdiction, the dates they became or ceased to be an ISC, how they qualify — plus a description of the steps taken each financial year to keep it current. Updates go in within 15 days of the corporation learning of them. Fines run up to $200,000, six months' imprisonment, or both for individuals involved in contraventions.

British Columbia has required a transparency register at every private company's records office since October 1, 2020 — and in 2023 it legislated a publicly searchable, centrally filed version, now expected to come into force in 2026. When it does, B.C. companies will file significant-individual information with the Corporate Registry rather than just keeping it in a binder — which means the many B.C. companies that never built the register will be exposed all at once. The full B.C. rules, tests and penalties are in our dedicated guide: BC transparency register requirements. If your B.C. company doesn't have one yet, CRS builds it for you — $299 all-in + GST, from your share register and articles.

Québec is the broadest regime in the country: since March 31, 2023, any enterprise registered with the Registraire des entreprises — including corporations from other provinces that carry on an activity in Québec — must declare its ultimate beneficiaries, and the names have been publicly searchable, including by the individual's own name, since 2024. The date of birth stays private, and the home address stays private if a professional address is declared.

Alberta is the main holdout: no transparency-register requirement at all as of October 2026, though the province consulted on one in 2025 and legislation is expected. Alberta corporations do file their top-five voting shareholders with each annual return — a snapshot, not a beneficial-ownership register.

What is a central securities register — and the other registers you already owe?

The transparency register gets the headlines, but it sits on top of record-keeping obligations that every corporation — federal or provincial, in every province including Alberta — has had all along:

• Central securities register — the official record of every share the corporation has issued: class, holder, date, and every transfer. This is what legally establishes who owns your shares; a share certificate is just evidence of an entry here.
• Registers of directors and officers — who they are, addresses, appointment and cessation dates.
• Minute book — articles, by-laws, resolutions, and all of the above in one place. Here's where each corporate document belongs.

The practical distinction: the securities register records registered holders; the transparency register records ultimate human control. If 123456 Holdings Ltd. holds 100% of your operating company, the securities register shows the holdco — the transparency register shows you.

Banks ask for these registers when you open accounts or borrow; buyers and their lawyers ask during due diligence; and lenders' KYC teams increasingly cross-check what you tell them against the federal public database. A corporation that can't produce them looks — fairly or not — like a corporation that doesn't know who owns it. If your minute book is missing, incomplete or twenty years out of date, our guide to what a corporate minute book must contain covers the full list.

How do you set up and maintain these registers?

For most owner-managed corporations this is a few hours of honest work, once:

1. Trace the humans. Start from the securities register and follow every corporate shareholder, trust or nominee up the chain until you reach natural persons. Apply the 25%-votes, 25%-value and control-in-fact tests — including joint holdings and voting agreements.
2. Record the required particulars for each ISC: name, date of birth, address, citizenship/residence details as your statute requires, the date they became an ISC, and how they qualify.
3. File where filing is required. Federal corporations file with Corporations Canada — at incorporation, with each annual return, and within 15 days of changes. Québec registrants declare with the REQ.
4. Put a review date in the calendar. Ontario and most provinces require at least an annual review, with reasonable steps documented; the cleanest habit is reviewing the register every time you file the annual return.
5. Keep it with the minute book so it's producible when a bank, regulator or purchaser asks.

Where it gets hard — trusts as shareholders, estate freezes, shareholder agreements with veto rights, chains of holdcos — the control-in-fact analysis is legal judgment, and a corporate lawyer is the right call. For the record-keeping itself, CRS does this every day.

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