Corporate Registry Connects to National Business Number

• What is a Business Number?
• Corporate Registry's Role

What is a Business Number?

The Business Number (BN) is a unique number assigned to a corporation, business or society by the Canada Revenue Agency. Corporations, businesses or societies use this number to identify themselves when in contact with many federal, provincial or local government program.

Each registration with a Business Number partner creates a program account, which consists of three parts - the business number, the program account identifier and the program account sequence number. The entire number has 15 characters:

• nine digits to identify the company (the Business Number);
• two letters to identify the type of account; and
• four digits to identify each account.

Corporate Registry's Role

The Corporate Registry issues Business Numbers automatically through the Corporate Registry online applications.

For new corporations, businesses or societies, the Corporate Registry automatically requests a Business Number from the Canada Revenue Agency. After the request, the Canada Revenue Agency generates and sends the new Business Number to the Corporate Registry. Then the registry will notify the corporation, business or society.

For certain other filings, the Corporate Registry requests the existing Business Number and sends it to the Canada Revenue Agency.

For assistance or additional information, contact the Canada Revenue Agency at 1 800 959-5525 from 8:15 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding statutory holidays. You can also visit their website for information.

Business Number (BN9):
When a B.C. corporation, business or society is first created the Canada Revenue Agency assigns it a nine-digit Business Number (BN9). The Business Number stays the same for a corporation, business or society no matter how many or what types of program accounts it has.

Program Account (BN15):
When a corporation, business or society registers for its accounts for coverage with WorkSafeBC, Liquor Control and Licensing Branch, or GST/HST, corporate income tax, payroll deductions or import/export tax with CRA an additional six characters are added to the number. This creates a unique identifier of 15 digits called the program account (BN15).

For example:

Agencies that use the Business Number include WorkSafeBC, Canada Revenue Agency, Corporate Registry, OneStop Business Registry and the Liquor Control and Licensing Branch.