Annual return (corporate filing)

A seller’s company can look healthy on paper and still be behind on its registry filings. The annual return is one filing to check when asking whether the company is in good standing. Which registry it goes to depends on where the company was incorporated, and the rules are not the same everywhere.

Federal corporations

Corporations Canada says every federal corporation must file its annual return every year, and that filing avoids the potential administrative dissolution of the corporation. It also stresses that an annual return and a tax return are not the same thing.

Ontario and Québec

Ontario’s Corporations Information Act requires every corporation, other than a class exempted by the regulations, to file a return each year, in the manner and within the time the regulations prescribe. In Québec, every enterprise in the enterprise register must file an annual updating declaration during the prescribed period, even if nothing has changed. Other provinces have their own regimes.

• Which registry the company files with
• Proof of the most recent filing from the registry itself, not only the seller
• Whether any filing is overdue, and what the registry says about it