Business Number vs corporation number: two Canadian identifiers

A federal corporation carries two numbers that look alike and are issued by different bodies. Mixing them up is the commonest reason a lookup fails.

The corporation number

Corporations Canada gives each federal corporation a corporation number, usually shown with a hyphen before a final check digit: 426160-7 for Shopify Inc., 439662-6 for Air Canada. It has up to eight digits and identifies the corporation on the federal register. When corporations amalgamate, the amalgamated corporation usually gets a new number.

The Business Number

The Business Number (BN) is a 9-digit identifier issued by the Canada Revenue Agency for tax and other government programs. A federal corporation has one (Shopify's BN is 847871746); so does any other business, including sole proprietors and provincial companies. The CRA adds a two-letter program code and four digits for each account, for example 847871746RC0001 for the GST/HST account, and the 9 digits at the front are the BN.

	Corporation number	Business Number
Issued by	Corporations Canada	Canada Revenue Agency
Shape	Up to 8 digits, 426160-7	9 digits, 847871746, with a 15-character program account
Identifies	One federal corporation	A business for tax; can be shared
Unique per corporation?	Yes	Not always: Air Canada's BN 100092287 appears on the current company and on a predecessor
API parameter	company_number=	business_number=

Searching by either

The first call is an exact match on the corporation number; the hyphen is optional, leading zeros and a # in front are dropped, and the check digit is advisory. The second finds federal corporations carrying that Business Number, and it can return more than one: a successor and the predecessors it amalgamated. A 15-character program account such as 847871746RC0001 names the same BN. A value that cannot be either identifier, such as letters, more than eight digits that is not a 9-digit BN, is a 400 validation_error.

Reading several results

• Use status to pick the live one: active, against merged for an amalgamated predecessor or deregistered for a dissolved or discontinued one.
• The corporation number is the key to store; the BN is the key to join with other systems that carry it, such as a supplier's tax records.
• A BN with no federal match may belong to a sole proprietor, a partnership or a provincial company, none of which is served.

Limits

Only federal corporations are served: those incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act (CBCA) or the Canada Cooperatives Act, plus the historic federal forms that remain on the register. The provincial and territorial registers (Quebec REQ, Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and the others) are not served, and neither are not-for-profit corporations. There is no activity code, no share capital, no officers and no insolvency notices.

Canada is included in every plan at no upcharge. The 14-day free trial includes 500 credits, needs a card and charges nothing; Starter (EUR 9.99 a month, 1,000 credits) follows unless you cancel. A company record costs 1 credit; an error response costs nothing. See pricing for the plans.

Read the full page · Start your 14-day free trial

Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada (Corporations Canada, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada)