Starting a Business

Select Your Business Name & Have it Approved by BC Registry Services

Perhaps by this point, you have already chosen, or are thinking about, a name for your business. The first step in the registration process is securing approval of your business name. You must have your name approved if you are:

• Incorporating a company, society or cooperative
• Registering a Partnership or Sole Proprietorship

Download Name Approval Form

Filling out the Name Approval Request Form

You may put up to three choices of names on a Name Approval Request form. The Corporate Registry will only examine the request until a name is approved – if your first choice is approved they do not search the remaining two. Your business name must have two components. The first part of your name must start with a distinctive non-descriptive word or phrase. e.g.: a geographical location, your name, a made-up word or phrase, or initials. The second part of your name must describe what type of business you are in, e.g.: shoe store, investments, or dog wash. A name that would meet the criteria would be John’s Shoe Store or Vancouver Doggy Wash. Names that would not be approved are The Shoe Store or The Doggy Wash.

If you are incorporating a company you must add a third component called the corporate designation: e.g. Limited, Ltd., Corporation, Corp., Incorporated, Inc.

If you are registering a Sole Proprietorship or Partnership, a corporate designation is not used.

Processing of your Name Approval Request form.

If your request was mailed to the Corporate Registry, it normally takes three weeks and more to process the request and have your results mailed back to you. If you are doing your Name Approval at the Richmond Chamber of Commerce, the staff will contact you when your results are in – this can take from week to 3 weeks.. If you would like your request to be given priority status there is an extra charge of $100 – results within 24 hours.

Register Your Business with BC Registry Services

If one of your names is approved, the name will be reserved for 56 calendar days. During this time you must submit your declaration form for a Sole Proprietorship or Partnership. This can be done on-line at www.onestopbc.ca. You may mail a registration form to Ministry of Finance, Corporate and Personal Property Registries, PO Box 9431 Stn Prov Govt, Victoria, BC V8W 9V3. You must register your incorporation on-line at www.corporateonline.gov.bc.ca. If your documentation is not submitted within the 56 days, your name reservation will expire.

Apply for a Business License

After your business is registered provincially, you can apply for a business license in the municipality in which you will be operating. If you’re applying for a City of Richmond Business License, details can be found online at Richmond.ca.