Registering a Business Name in British Columbia

By Martin Sanderson | September 26, 2018

In most cases, regardless of whether one’s business is a sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation, one’s business’s name must be registered with BC Registry Services to conduct business in British Columbia. There are some exceptions. For example, sole proprietors doing business under their own name need not reserve a name; but generally, reserving a business name is an important first step in setting out to do business.

If a partnership wishes to do business in British Columbia, or a sole proprietor wishes to do business in British Columbia under any business name other than their own name, the partnership or proprietor must register their business with BC Registry Services. The registration of a partnership or sole proprietorship under a desired name will not be approved unless the applicant has first had the name approved and reserved by BC Registry Services.

Corporation Name or Number

If one wishes to create a BC corporation, one must either choose a name for the corporation or accept an assigned number. If, as most small business owners do, one wants their company to do business under name rather than a number, the name must first be approved and reserved by BC Registry Services before an application to incorporate in that name will be approved by the Corporate Registry.

An existing federal corporation need not reserve a name if it wishes to do business in BC. It has already had its name scrutinized and approved by Industry Canada, which will have reviewed a NUANs search that should have revealed conflicts with names reserved in BC at the time of the federal incorporation.

In Closing

Despite a common misconception, registration of a business name in BC does not provide complete assurance that the same or a similar business name might be used by another business in BC. While registration of a business name in BC has the potential to reduce the chances that a similar name may be registered by another business in BC or a federal corporation, it does not provide a fulsome assurance that this will not occur. It also provides no proprietary interest in the name.

A business owner may wish to trademark their business name to achieve more robust protection – a point we will discuss further in a future post.

Posted in Did You Know?