Registering a Business in British Columbia: A Step-by-Step Guide | Blog

If you've got a business name picked out and you're staring at a government website trying to figure out what to actually click, this one's for you. Registering a business in BC isn't complicated once you know the order of operations, but it is scattered across a few different government bodies (provincial, federal, and municipal), and it's easy to register the business itself and then discover, weeks later, that you also needed a tax account or a local licence nobody mentioned.

Here's the plain version: what you need to do, in what order, what each step actually costs, and which parts of "registering a business" are one-time and which ones follow you every year. One note before we start: this is general information, not legal or tax advice for your specific situation. If your business carries real risk, involves a partner, or you're just not sure which structure fits, a conversation with an accountant or lawyer before you file anything is worth it.

The short version

Registering a business in BC has a few possible layers, and not every business needs all of them. If you're operating as a sole proprietor under your own legal name, you may not need to register anything at all. If you want a business name, or you're incorporating, you'll register through the BC Business Registry, and your federal Business Number gets issued automatically as part of that process, no separate CRA step required. From there, whether you need to register for GST/HST, PST, a municipal business licence, or WorkSafeBC coverage depends on how much you earn, what you sell, where you're located, and whether you hire anyone. None of it is hard on its own. It's just spread out, so it helps to see the whole list in one place before you start.

Step one: figure out your structure first

Before you register anything, you need to know whether you're setting up as a sole proprietor or incorporating, because it changes which forms you fill out and what you'll pay. If you haven't made that call yet, we've written a full breakdown of the costs, liability, and tax differences in our guide to sole proprietorship versus incorporation. The short version: a sole proprietorship is simpler and cheaper to set up and maintain, while incorporating costs more but creates a separate legal entity with its own liability protection. The registration steps below apply to both, they just branch at a couple of points.

Step two: reserve your business name, unless you're using your own

If you plan to operate under your own legal name (say, Priya Sharma trading simply as Priya Sharma), you can generally skip name reservation entirely. The moment you want to trade under any other name, whether that's a standalone business name for a sole proprietorship or the name of a corporation, you'll need to request approval for it first.

This is done through a Name Request, filed online through the BC Business Registry. The standard service costs $30 and an approved name is reserved for you for 56 days, which is enough time to complete the rest of your registration before it expires. If you're in a hurry, a priority service is available for $100 that gets a decision back in one to two business days. (Source: Province of British Columbia: Request Approval for a Business Name, accessed August 2026.)

Step three: register the business itself

This is the step that actually creates your business on the public record, and it works a bit differently depending on your structure. One thing worth knowing up front: BC used to route sole proprietorship and partnership registrations through a separate portal called OneStop. That system has been retired. Everything now goes through the BC Business Registry directly. (Source: OneStop Business Registry, accessed August 2026.)

Sole proprietorship or general partnership. Once your name is reserved, you register the business itself for $40, bringing the total to $70 if you needed a name request too. You can do this online through the BC Business Registry or in person at a Service BC location, and you'll receive a Statement of Registration by mail once it's processed. Again, if you're operating strictly under your own legal name, this step (and the $40 fee) isn't required at all. (Source: Province of British Columbia: Sole Proprietorships and Partnerships, accessed August 2026.)

Incorporating provincially. A BC company costs $350 to incorporate, plus the $30 name reservation, for a total of $380 (an unlimited liability company runs higher, at $1,000 for the filing fee alone). After that, you'll file an annual report each year within two months of your incorporation anniversary, for a fee of $43.39. (Source: Province of British Columbia: Incorporated Companies, accessed August 2026.)

Incorporating federally, then registering in BC. If you incorporate under the Canada Business Corporations Act instead, the federal filing fee is $200 online, with an annual return afterward of $12. (Source: Corporations Canada: Services, Fees and Processing Times, accessed August 2026.) But a federal corporation still has to register extra-provincially wherever it actually operates, and registering an extraprovincial company in BC costs the same $380 (the $350 basic fee plus the $30 name approval) as incorporating provincially in the first place. (Source: Province of British Columbia: Forms, Fees and Information Packages, accessed August 2026.) So if your business genuinely operates only in BC, provincial incorporation gets you the same result for the same total cost, without an extra layer of federal filing on top. Federal incorporation tends to make more sense once you're operating across more than one province.

Your Business Number shows up on its own

One genuinely good piece of news in all of this: when you register or incorporate through the BC Business Registry, a federal Business Number (BN) is issued to you automatically as part of that process. You don't need a separate registration with the CRA to get one. (Source: Province of British Columbia: Business Numbers, accessed August 2026.) Your BN is the account number the CRA uses to track your business, and it's what the next few program accounts, GST/HST, payroll, corporate tax, get attached to as you need them, rather than a fresh number each time. (Source: Canada Revenue Agency: Register as a Resident with a Canadian Business, accessed August 2026.)

GST/HST: the one almost every business eventually needs

Once your revenue crosses $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters (or in a single quarter), you're required to register for a GST/HST account and start charging it, and this applies equally to sole proprietors and corporations. Below that threshold, registering is optional, and some very small or early-stage businesses choose to wait. (Source: Canada Revenue Agency: When to Register for and Start Charging the GST/HST, accessed August 2026.)

PST: check whether it applies to what you sell

BC's provincial sales tax is a separate registration from GST/HST, and it's a common source of confusion because it isn't revenue-based in the same way. You're required to register to collect PST if you sell or lease taxable goods, or provide software or certain taxable services, in the ordinary course of business in BC, at the general rate of 7%. (Sources: Province of British Columbia: Register to Collect PST, Province of British Columbia: PST Overview, both accessed August 2026.)

There is a small seller exemption: if you don't operate from a storefront or other established business premises (many home-based businesses without a public-facing location fit this), and your gross revenue from taxable retail sales was $10,000 or less over the past 12 months, with the same expected for the next 12, you generally don't need to register. (Source: Province of British Columbia: Bulletin PST 001, Registering to Collect PST, accessed August 2026.)

One thing worth flagging if you offer accounting, bookkeeping, architectural, engineering or geoscience, security, or non-residential real estate services: BC's 2026 budget proposes to expand PST to cover those specific services starting October 1, 2026. It's still pending Royal Assent as of this writing, not yet law, so it isn't certain, but if you work in one of those fields it's worth keeping an eye on rather than being caught off guard in the fall. This doesn't extend to general consulting, coaching, marketing, or most other service businesses. (Source: EY: British Columbia Budget Proposes to Expand Provincial Sales Tax to Certain Professional Services, accessed August 2026.)

Your municipal business licence (yes, even if you work from a laptop)

There's no single, province-wide business licence in BC. Instead, each municipality sets and administers its own, which means the requirement (and the fee) depends entirely on where you're based, and it genuinely varies a lot across BC's roughly 160 municipalities. As one concrete example, the City of Vancouver requires a business licence for every business operating in the city, including home-based and online businesses with no public storefront. The one-time application fee is $77, with an annual licence fee on top that varies by business category and is pro-rated for your first year. (Source: City of Vancouver: Apply for a Business Licence, accessed August 2026.) If you do business across several Metro Vancouver municipalities, it's worth asking about the Inter-Municipal Business Licence, which covers multiple municipalities under one application instead of several separate ones.

Because this step is so specific to location, the most useful thing to do is check your own municipality's website directly, or use BizPaL, a federal-provincial-municipal tool that generates a customized list of the permits and licences your specific business needs based on your location and industry. (Source: Province of British Columbia: Starting a Small Business Guide, Step 10, accessed August 2026.) If you'll be working from home, it's also worth a quick check of your municipality's zoning bylaw, since a few types of home-based business are restricted or need a separate home occupation permit.

WorkSafeBC, if and when you hire

If you plan to hire employees (and in some cases, certain contractors), you'll need to register for WorkSafeBC coverage. WorkSafeBC recommends applying about a month before you start your business or hire your first worker, since applications typically take up to 10 business days to process, and there isn't a fixed grace period afterward to fall back on. There's no flat registration fee; instead, you pay ongoing premiums calculated as your industry's base rate (adjusted up or down based on your claims history) multiplied by your assessable payroll. (Sources: WorkSafeBC: Apply for Coverage, WorkSafeBC: Getting Started, both accessed August 2026.) Hiring also brings a few other registrations into play, including a CRA payroll deductions account and, above a certain payroll threshold, BC's Employer Health Tax; those are genuinely worth a proper look with an accountant once you're closer to actually hiring, rather than something to solve on day one.

What this actually costs, start to finish

If you're keeping a running total: a sole proprietorship under a business name runs about $70 in one-time provincial fees. Incorporating, whether provincially in BC or federally with extra-provincial registration in BC, runs about $380 up front, plus $43.39 a year for a BC annual report (or $12 a year federally, on top of whatever BC charges for keeping the extra-provincial registration current). Your Business Number is free and automatic. GST/HST and PST registration are both free; what they cost you is the tax you collect and remit, not the registration itself. Your municipal business licence is the most variable line item, commonly somewhere in the range of $77 to a few hundred dollars a year depending on your municipality and business category, and WorkSafeBC has no flat fee at all, just premiums tied to what you actually pay employees. None of these numbers are large enough to be the reason to delay starting. They're just worth budgeting for accurately instead of guessing.

A few myths worth clearing up

"I have to register with the province before I can do anything." Not if you're trading under your own legal name as a sole proprietor. Plenty of founders operate for years this way before registering a business name or incorporating.

"Once I register with BC Registries, I'm all set." Registering the business itself is the first layer, not the whole picture. Depending on what you sell, where you're based, and whether you hire, you may still need GST/HST, PST, a municipal licence, or WorkSafeBC coverage on top of it.

"A business licence is a provincial thing, like incorporation." It isn't. It's set by your municipality, and the requirement and cost can look completely different one town over.

"If I'm small, none of this applies to me yet." Some of it genuinely doesn't, like GST/HST below $30,000 in revenue or PST if you qualify as a small seller. But a municipal business licence is typically required from day one, regardless of how small the business is, so it's worth checking rather than assuming you're under the radar.

Where a community fits into this

Nobody enjoys reading a checklist of government forms alone at eleven at night, wondering whether they've missed a step, and most of us have done exactly that at some point. That's a real part of what a room like Athena Collective is for: other BC founders who've already been through this exact registration process and can tell you, plainly, what they wish someone had told them before they started.

Getting ready to register your business in BC? Join Athena Collective and ask the room what they'd do differently.

FAQs

Do I need to register my business in BC if I'm a sole proprietor?
Not if you're operating strictly under your own legal name. You only need to file a Name Request and register with the BC Business Registry if you want to trade under a different business name.

How much does it cost to register a business in BC?
A sole proprietorship under a business name runs about $70 in provincial fees. Incorporating, whether provincially or federally with BC extra-provincial registration, runs about $380 up front, with a small annual report fee after that.

Do I need to apply for a Business Number separately?
No. Registering or incorporating through the BC Business Registry automatically issues you a federal Business Number, which is then used for any CRA program accounts you add later, like GST/HST or payroll.

Do I need a business licence even if I work from home or only sell online?
Often, yes. Municipalities like Vancouver require a business licence for home-based and online businesses with no public storefront. Requirements vary by municipality, so check your own local government's website or use BizPaL to confirm what applies to you.

When do I need to register for GST/HST and PST?
GST/HST registration becomes mandatory once your revenue crosses $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters. PST registration depends on what you sell rather than how much you earn, with a small seller exemption available if you have no established business premises and your taxable retail revenue is $10,000 or less.