Open or manage an account – Register

Mandatory registration

The effective date of registration may be different depending on the type of business you are registering.

Your effective date of registration is usually the day you stop being a small supplier. It can also be an earlier date. For more information about the small-supplier limits for different types of businesses, see When to register for and start charging the GST/HST.

Taxi operator or commercial ride-sharing driver

Your effective date of registration is the day you start supplying taxable passenger transportation services, even if you are a small supplier.

Voluntary registration

If you request your GST/HST account when you are still a small supplier, your effective date of registration is usually the date of your request. It may also start up to 30 days before that day.

Know your fiscal year

Usually, your fiscal year for GST/HST purposes is the same as your tax year for income tax purposes. Generally, the tax year of the following persons is a calendar year:

• individuals and certain trusts
• professional corporations that are members of a partnership (such as a corporation that is the professional practice of an accountant, a lawyer, or a doctor)
• partnerships, where at least one member of the partnership is an individual, a professional corporation or another affected partnership

However, some persons use non-calendar tax years. If you are a person described above that uses a non-calendar tax year approved by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), you may want to use that same year as your GST/HST fiscal year.

A corporation generally uses the same fiscal year for both income tax purposes and GST/HST purposes. However, if a corporation has a non-calendar tax year for income tax purposes, it can elect to use a calendar year for its GST/HST fiscal year.

If you are a corporation that uses a non-calendar year for both income tax purposes and GST/HST purposes, and you change to another non-calendar tax year for income tax purposes, inform the CRA of the change as soon as possible and your GST/HST fiscal year will be changed to match it. For more information, see Open or manage an account – Make changes: Fiscal year.

To calculate your total annual revenue, include revenues from:

• your taxable sales, leases, and other supplies, including supplies that are zero-rated
• taxable supplies of all your associates

Do not include revenues from:

• exempt supplies
• financial services
• sales of capital property
• goodwill from the sale of the business

New businesses

If you are just starting your business, you may give the CRA a reasonable estimate of your income for the year.

Personal information

If you are a business owner or third-party requester, you must provide the last names of the business owners.

For digital applications, you must also provide all of the following information about the business owners:

• social insurance number (SIN) 
• date of birth 
• personal postal code (where you live)

How the CRA uses your personal postal code (where you live)

The CRA uses your personal postal code to verify your identity. The CRA checks the postal code you enter against the postal code we have on file for you as an individual, not the one on file for your business.

If you have recently moved, you should make sure we have the right postal code on file for you by calling Individual Income Tax Enquiries.

Basic business information

You must provide the following information about your business:

• business name
• BN (if the business already has one)
• type of business or organization (such as sole proprietor, partnership, corporation, registered charity)
• name and SIN of all owners
• physical address
• mailing address (if different from the physical address)
• description of major business activity