A name reservation sets your name aside in the register for 90 days, while you finalize your incorporation. Labo Legal searches availability and files the application for $140.83 all in, registrar fees included.
The short answer: in Québec you can reserve a business name with the enterprise registrar for 90 days, while you finalize your constitution or your registration. The reservation stops anyone else from registering the same name in the meantime. It costs little, is processed quickly, and avoids the worst disappointment of starting out: losing the perfect name a few weeks before launch.
Why reserve rather than wait?
Because between the idea and the business there is always a delay: a financing to confirm, an agreement among founders to sign, a business plan to finish. During that delay your name is floating, at the mercy of whoever gets there first, an inspired competitor or pure coincidence. The reservation freezes the situation: for 90 days the name waits for you in the register. For a founder who has already invested in a logo, a domain or promotional material, it is insurance at a trivial price.
What to check before reserving?
A reservation protects a name; it does not make it compliant. Before filing the application you must make sure the name is available, that it does not cause confusion with existing names, that it complies with the Charter of the French language and that it does not collide with a registered trademark. Reserving an invalid name is reserving a problem. Our service moreover includes those searches before filing: if the name carries a risk, you know it before paying fees for nothing.
How does a reservation work in practice?
The application is filed with the registrar together with government fees of $27. Once accepted, the reservation runs for 90 days, during which you alone can register a business or constitute a corporation under that name. You then use the reserved name in your registration declaration or your articles of constitution, and the reservation has done its work. Our complete package, search included, is $99 plus taxes, registrar fees included.
Reservation, registration, trademark: three different protections
Keep the hierarchy in mind. A reservation protects the name for 90 days, with a view to registration. Registration or constitution establishes your use of the name in Québec, durably. A registered trademark protects the name across Canada and against broader uses. Depending on the project’s ambition, you stack these layers in that order, and a consultation with a lawyer helps decide how high to go.
Three layers of protection that stack, from the lightest to the strongest.
| Réservation | Registration or constitution | Trademark | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Durée | 90 jours | As long as the business is active | Renewable periodically |
| Territoire | Le Québec | Le Québec | Le Canada |
| What it prevents | That someone else registers this name | That someone else registers a confusingly similar name | Use of the sign by a third party |
| What it does not prevent | A claim based on a trademark | A claim based on a trademark | A similar name in an unrelated field |
| Search done | Apparent compliance | Apparent compliance | In-depth examination |
| Next step | Register or constitute | Consider the trademark | — |
Reserve now, or move straight to the next step.
What a reservation does not do
One has to be precise about its reach, because the word “reservation” suggests more than it gives. It prevents the registration of the same name in the Québec register while it runs. It confers no right of ownership in the name, does not authorize you to begin operating under that name before registering your business, and does not immunize you against a trademark owner who considers your name encroaches on their rights.
Nor does it cover the other provinces. An Ontario or federal business already using a similar name will not be pushed aside by your Québec reservation. For a project meant to reach beyond Québec’s borders, the reservation is therefore only a first brick, and the availability search has to be run more broadly.
The registrar’s acceptance is not a final green light
An essential nuance, and regularly a source of unpleasant surprises. The examination made on filing verifies the name’s apparent compliance with the applicable rules. It is not a legal opinion on the absence of conflict with someone else’s rights, and it does not extinguish third parties’ remedies.
In other words, a name accepted and then registered can still be challenged afterward by a business that used it before you or by the owner of a registered mark. That challenge, if it succeeds, forces you to change name, with everything that implies in material to redo. It is precisely to reduce that residual risk that the prior search, in the register, on the federal corporations side and in the trademarks database, is well worth the time it takes.
What happens at expiry
A reservation has a term and is not designed to be renewed indefinitely. If you have not registered your business or constituted your corporation while it runs, the name becomes available to everyone again. A founder whose financing drags on can therefore find themselves, on the 91ste day, in exactly the position they wanted to avoid.
The practical conclusion is not to reserve earlier, but to reserve at the right moment: when the project is far enough along that the constitution will follow within weeks. Reserving a name six months before you are ready is an expense that buys nothing.
Reserve, or constitute straight away
If your file is already complete, partners identified, share structure settled, head office address known, the reservation step becomes optional: the name is searched and then assigned at the moment of constitution itself. A reservation comes into its own in the interval, when an outside decision is holding you up and the name matters to you.
It has moreover a less well known use: serving as a test. A name refused at the reservation stage informs you for a few tens of dollars, whereas the same refusal at the moment of constitution holds up your whole file. Our articles on choosing a business name and on the business name set out the criteria that make a name pass, or not.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a name reservation last in Québec?
90 days from its acceptance by the enterprise registrar. That period lets you finalize the constitution or the registration of the business under the reserved name.
What does reserving a business name cost?
At Labo Legal, $99 plus taxes, including $27 in registrar fees and above all the prior search of the name’s availability and compliance, so you do not reserve a problematic name.
Is a name reservation the same as a trademark?
No. The reservation holds the name in the Québec register for 90 days with a view to registration. A trademark is a separate protection, Canada-wide and broader, planned separately.
The current government amounts are set out in the official reservation fee.