Constituting a federal corporation costs $200 online with Corporations Canada, processed in one business day. These fees are not taxable. Filing by email or mail costs $250 and takes ten days. The federal annual return costs $12 and does not replace the Québec declaration.
The amounts below are those of Corporations Canada for business corporations governed by the Canada Business Corporations Act. Official source: Corporations Canada, services, fees and processing times. Processing times are in business days.
What does federal incorporation cost in 2026?
Constituting a federal corporation costs $200 online, processed in one business day. Expect $250 and ten days if you file by email or by mail. The express service, at $100 more, brings the delay down to four hours.
The channel therefore matters as much as the amount: filing online costs $50 less and saves nine days. That is a constant of federal pricing, and it holds for almost every step in the table below.
| Service | Online | Email or mail | Processing time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Incorporate a corporation | $200 | $250 | 1 business day online, 10 by mail |
| Amend the articles of incorporation | $200 | $250 | 1 business day online, 10 by mail |
| Amalgamate corporations | $200 | $250 | 1 business day online, 10 by mail |
| Continue a corporation into the federal regime | $200 | $250 | 1 business day online |
| Letter of satisfaction to leave the federal regime | $200 | $250 | 1 business day online |
| Revive a corporation | $250 | $250 | 10 business days |
| Reorganize a corporation | $250 | $250 | 10 business days |
| File an annual return | $12 | $12 | 1 business day |
| File restated articles of incorporation | — | $100 | 10 business days |
| Certificate of compliance or of existence | $10 | $20 | 1 business day online |
| Revoke an intent to dissolve | $50 | — | 1 business day |
| Apply for an arrangement | — | $505 | 5 business days |
| Apply for a cancellation or correction | — | $250 | 10 business days |
| Apply for an exemption | $250 | $250 | 30 business days |
| Copies of corporate documents | Free | $40 per document | 1 business day online |
What is free at the federal level
One notable difference from Québec: several routine steps cost nothing at Corporations Canada.
- Dissolve a corporation
- Declare an intent to dissolve
- Update the directors
- Update the registered office address
- View or update individuals with significant control
- Pre-approval of a corporate name
- Order a corporate profile
The federal annual return, for its part, costs $12 and remains mandatory every year. Watch for the most frequent trap: it does not replace the Québec annual updating declaration. A federal corporation operating here files two, one per register, with two separate deadlines. Our article on the federal annual return sets this out.
How long each step takes
Corporations Canada publishes its processing times alongside its fees, which the Québec registrar does not. That is useful information because it is met: a file submitted online on a Tuesday morning generally comes out on the Wednesday.
Three orders of magnitude are worth remembering. The most common online steps, including constitution and amending the articles, are processed in one business day. The same steps filed by email or mail move to ten days. Applications that call for an examination, such as an exemption, rise to thirty days.
The $100 express service applies only to steps that are already fast, and brings the delay down to four hours. It gains nothing on applications examined on their merits: paying to speed up an exemption has no effect.
These times run from the filing of a complete file. It is almost always the preparation that determines the release date, not the channel chosen.
The real cost of a federal corporation in Québec
It pays under both regimes. At constitution: $200 federally, $397 to register with the Québec enterprise registrar, plus the NUANS report. Every year after that: $12 for the federal annual return and $106 in Québec annual duties, plus the two declarations to file.
That arithmetic is why the federal regime is not automatically the better choice, even for a business looking beyond Québec. Our Québec or federal comparison sets out the criteria that actually count, beyond cost. The Québec amounts are in our page on the registrar's fees.
What these fees do not cover
The NUANS report, required for a federal constitution with a name, is bought from a private supplier and costs about fifteen dollars. Pre-approval of a corporate name by Corporations Canada is free but takes ten business days and does not replace the report. Professional fees and their taxes are added as well.
As in Québec, these fees are revised by regulation. We update this page with each published change, and the revision date appears at the top.