Addison Cameron-Huff, Cryptocurrency Lawyer

Over the last three years there's been a noticeable increaese in the number of Federal for-profit incorporations (CBCA). The graph above shows the increase in incorporations since January of 2016. This data is based on an analysis of over 150,000 Federal incorporations, indexed using the "Monthly Transactions" published by Corporations Canada (e.g. August 2019). The reports were aggregated, parsed, and then merged to create the above chart.

Federal incorporations are increasing every year, likely at the expense of provincial incorporations. This may be due to the better online services that Corporations Canada offers vs. the provincial incorporation authorities. I often recommended Federal corporations to startup clients for the better online services than are on offer from the Ontario government, and this graph should be a sign that Ontario needs to improve its corporate services.

Comments on Data Quality

The annual troughs are the months of December, which sees about 25% fewer incorporations than the previous month, across years. This isn't surprising, and provides some comfort in the quality of the data.

I suspect that the monthly transaction reports for the first few months of 2016 were not accurate and that explains the dip at the beginning of the chart.

Where Are Federal Companies Based?

An analysis of the provinces of incorporation for the Federal corporate registry shows that the majority of Federal companies are headquartered in Ontario. More than 2/3 of Federal companies have an Ontario registered office.

The above table gives the number of CBCA companies incorporated from January, 2016 to August, 2019, by the province of the registered office address (which may not necessarily be where the company's primary activities take place).