The Business Names Act (Ontario) governs the registration of Ontario sole proprietorships. Another name for a Ontario Sole Proprietorship is an Ontario trade name. It would be advisable to read the statute to ensure that you operate your business in compliance with the statute requirements.

The statute provides that no individual shall carry on business or identify his or her business to the public under a name other than his or her own name unless the name is registered by that individual. Therefore you can carry on business under your own personal name and not register.

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.

Registration of an Ontario sole proprietorship expires after 5 years. When you receive your registration it will be called a Master Business Licence. The Master Business License is usually issued in the form of a pdf document when it is provided to you by the service provider. It will have an expiry date on the form. The government will not remind you to renew your sole proprietorship registration so you must put some kind of tickler in place to remind you.

Just to clarify, Ontario company names are unique and no one can register a company with the exact same name as another company. It is only business names that are not protected.

If any information on the Ontario sole proprietorship changes you must file an amendment within fifteen days. You cannot amend the name of an Ontario sole proprietorship. If you wish to change the name you must register a new Ontario trade name.

A dissolution of an Ontario sole proprietorship must be filed if you no longer wish to carry on business under the name you have registered.

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.

Resources for Canadian Business Owners handles legal and government registrations and can assist you with an Ontario Trade Name and Ontario Nuans Name Searches

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • •

Filed under: Law

Print This Post Print This Post

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!