Canada Company Data — Federal + British Columbia (Corporations Canada, OrgBook BC)

Need authoritative, official-registry data on Canadian companies — for KYC, due diligence, or building a lead list? This Actor turns Canada's official open-data registries into clean, flat firmographic records: Corporations Canada (ISED) at the federal level — hundreds of thousands of active CBCA corporations plus not-for-profits, cooperatives and boards of trade — and OrgBook BC for British Columbia. Search by name, corporation / registration number, or browse a whole organisation type.

Built on official government open data (Open Government Licence – Canada / – British Columbia) — free to reuse. No API key, no login, no fragile HTML scraping — so it doesn't break when a website changes.

• 🇨🇦 Federal + British Columbia — Corporations Canada (CBCA + non-CBCA: not-for-profits, cooperatives, boards of trade) and OrgBook BC, merged in one run
• 🔢 Business Number (BN9) — the 9-digit CRA number for record-matching and KYC, on federal records and (with enrichment) BC records
• 🗂️ Browse by organisation type — list every federal not-for-profit, cooperative or board of trade, optionally narrowed by province — no name needed
• ⚡ One run → one clean, flat dataset (JSON / CSV / Excel / API) — no proxies or third-party keys required

Quick start (API)

Get up to 100 federal not-for-profits registered in Ontario, in one call:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/foxlabs~canada-company-data/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "category": "nonprofit", "province": "ON", "maxResults": 100 }'

Prefer no code? Open the Input tab, set your filters, and click Start — then download the results.

What you get

One clean, flat record per company. Federal records carry the full firmographics; British Columbia records are leaner (OrgBook does not expose address or director data).

Field	Type	Description
jurisdiction	string	Federal (CBCA) or British Columbia
corporateName	string	Current registered legal name
corporateNameSecondary	string	Secondary name form, if any (federal)
corporationNumber	string	Federal corporation number, or BC registration number
businessNumber	string	9-digit CRA business number (BN9); the BC value is fetched per entity when enrichment is on
governingLegislation	string	CBCA, CNCA, Cooperatives Act, …, or British Columbia
status	string	Active / Inactive / Dissolved (normalised to English)
anniversaryDate	string	Anniversary / coming-into-existence date, ISO (federal)
yearOfLastFiling	string	Year of the last annual filing (federal)
lastAnnualMeeting	string	Date of the last annual meeting, ISO (federal)
registrationDate	string	BC registration date, ISO (BC)
street / city / province / postalCode / country	string	Registered address (BC exposes province + country only)
directorsMin / directorsMax	number	Min / max directors permitted by the articles (federal)
source / sourceUrl	string	Provenance label and link to the official record
scrapedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp of retrieval
searchQuery	string	The name/number you searched that matched this record (BC)

Missing values are returned as null — never guessed.

Sample output

Federal (Corporations Canada):

{
  "jurisdiction": "Federal (CBCA)",
  "corporateName": "SHOPIFY STUDIOS HOLDINGS INC.",
  "corporateNameSecondary": null,
  "corporationNumber": "11125885",
  "businessNumber": "721968915",
  "governingLegislation": "Canada Business Corporations Act",
  "status": "Active",
  "anniversaryDate": "2018-12-03",
  "yearOfLastFiling": "2025",
  "lastAnnualMeeting": "2025-12-03",
  "street": "151 O'Connor Street, Ground Floor",
  "city": "Ottawa",
  "province": "ON",
  "country": "CA",
  "postalCode": "K2P 2L8",
  "directorsMin": 1,
  "directorsMax": 10,
  "source": "Corporations Canada (ISED) — Open Government Licence – Canada",
  "sourceUrl": "https://ised-isde.canada.ca/cc/lgcy/fdrlCrpDtls.html?corpId=11125885",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-28T11:55:38.593Z"
}

British Columbia (OrgBook BC):

{
  "jurisdiction": "British Columbia",
  "corporateName": "LULULEMON ATHLETICA CANADA INC.",
  "corporationNumber": "BC0578072",
  "businessNumber": "872184155",
  "governingLegislation": "British Columbia",
  "status": "Active",
  "registrationDate": "1999-01-12",
  "province": "BC",
  "country": "CA",
  "source": "OrgBook BC — Open Government Licence – British Columbia",
  "sourceUrl": "https://orgbook.gov.bc.ca/entity/BC0578072",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-28T11:55:49.137Z",
  "searchQuery": "Lululemon"
}

Input & filters

• Company names — substring search across Federal + BC (e.g. Shopify → SHOPIFY INC., Shopify Studios Holdings Inc., …). One per line.
• Corporation / registration numbers — a federal corporation number or a BC registration number for an exact, instant lookup.
• Category (organisation type) — browse/list federal corporations by corporate form: business corporation (CBCA), not-for-profit (CNCA), cooperative, board of trade, or other. Works with no name/number. Federal only.
• Province / territory — narrow federal results (e.g. all not-for-profits in Ontario), or filter a name search.
• Jurisdiction — Both (Federal + BC), Federal only, or British Columbia only.
• Include inactive / dissolved — federal: also stream the dissolved/inactive corporations file (larger, slower).
• Fetch BC business number (BN9) — one extra OrgBook call per BC result to retrieve the CRA business number (on by default; turn off for faster BC runs).
• Max results — hard cap on records, up to 50,000.

Why "category" = organisation type? The Canadian federal open data has no industry / NAICS codes, so the category filter is the corporate form (CBCA business corp vs not-for-profit vs cooperative, etc.). Category / province browse is federal only.

Example inputs (copy & paste)

// 1) Name lookup across Federal + BC
{ "companyNames": ["Shopify", "Lululemon"], "jurisdiction": "both", "maxResults": 50 }

// 2) Browse: every federal not-for-profit registered in Ontario
{ "category": "nonprofit", "province": "ON", "maxResults": 5000 }

// 3) Exact, instant lookup by corporation number
{ "corporationNumbers": ["8660115", "11125885"] }

// 4) Lead list: federal business corporations in Alberta
{ "category": "business", "province": "AB", "jurisdiction": "federal", "maxResults": 2000 }

// 5) Cooperatives nationwide (federal), including dissolved
{ "category": "cooperative", "includeInactive": true, "maxResults": 1000 }

// 6) BC-only name search, skipping the extra BN9 call for speed
{ "companyNames": ["Lululemon"], "jurisdiction": "bc", "bcBusinessNumber": false }

// 7) Boards of trade across Canada (niche federal category)
{ "category": "board-of-trade", "jurisdiction": "federal", "maxResults": 500 }

Use cases

• KYC / KYB & due diligence. Onboarding a Canadian counterparty? Pass its corporationNumbers (or name) and get the verified legal identity, business number (BN9), status, governing legislation, registered address and filing recency — the fields your compliance checks require, from the official register, in one call.
• Outbound sales & lead lists. Build a targeted federal list by organisation type and province — e.g. category: "nonprofit" + province: "ON" — to get a CRM-ready roster of entities with identity, status and address, no manual list-building.
• Market sizing & sector research. Pull every federal corporation of a given form (business / not-for-profit / cooperative / board of trade) to count the players, their status mix and legal forms and size a segment.
• CRM enrichment & cleanup. Already have Canadian names or corporation numbers? Feed them in to append BN9, current status, legislation, address and filing dates. Missing fields return null, never a guess.
• Grant, membership & non-profit research. The federal not-for-profit and cooperative registers are first-class here — list and profile CNCA not-for-profits and cooperatives by province for grant screening or membership vetting.
• Cross-jurisdiction matching. Set Jurisdiction = Both to catch a company registered federally and in British Columbia, and reconcile the two records by name and business number.

Performance & throughput

• Number lookup is instant and cheap — one official JSON call per corporation number, no CSV scan.
• Name search & category browse stream the official bulk CSV(s) once and stop as soon as your maxResults cap is reached, so they are fast for typical caps. A rare name with no match scans the full active dataset (~100 MB) once.
• BC adds one lightweight OrgBook call per result, plus one more per company when Fetch BC business number is on (turn it off for faster BC runs).

Throughput is bounded only by your Apify plan — there are no external API keys, no required proxies, and no third-party rate limits. Datacenter proxy is sufficient; the official open-data sources don't block.

Integrations

JavaScript (apify-client):

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('foxlabs/canada-company-data').call({
  companyNames: ['Shopify'], jurisdiction: 'both', maxResults: 50,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

Python (apify-client):

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("foxlabs/canada-company-data").call(run_input={
    "companyNames": ["Shopify"], "jurisdiction": "both", "maxResults": 50,
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["corporateName"], item.get("businessNumber"))

Also works with Make / n8n / Zapier (Apify app → run this Actor, map the input), scheduled runs, webhooks, and the Apify MCP server for AI agents.

Data quality

Measured across the full active CBCA dataset (~643k corporations):

Field	Fill / validity
Corporate name, number, legislation, status, address, director counts	~100% (federal active)
Business number (BN9)	99.8%, all valid 9-digit (federal active)
Postal code format	100% valid
Year of last filing / last annual meeting	~65–75% (newer corporations haven't filed yet)
BC business number (with enrichment on)	~90%

British Columbia records are leaner by design — identity, status and registration date are complete; some BC firms/partnerships have no CRA business number. Contacts and financials come only from the official registers — never fabricated; missing values are null.

Pricing

Pay per result — you're billed per company record returned ($2.50 / 1,000 results). Number lookups are instant and cheap; name search and category browse stop as soon as your maxResults cap is reached. There's an Apify free tier ($5 monthly platform credit covers roughly your first ~2,000 results) to evaluate the full feature set before you scale. No proxies or third-party costs.

FAQ

Can I use this data commercially / resell it? Yes — the sources are published under the Open Government Licence – Canada and – British Columbia, which permit commercial reuse and redistribution with attribution. Records carry a source provenance label.

Do I need an API key or a government account? No. No key, no login — it reads official open data.

Which provinces are covered? Federal corporations Canada-wide (CBCA + non-CBCA), plus British Columbia via OrgBook. Other provincial registries (Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, …) are not included yet.

What is the "category" filter? Organisation type (business corporation, not-for-profit, cooperative, board of trade, other). The federal open data has no industry / NAICS codes, so category is the corporate form. Category / province browse is federal only.

Are director names included? No — this version returns director counts (min/max permitted by the articles). Individual federal director names live behind a separate free-account API and are a planned later phase.

How do I look up one specific company? Put its federal corporation number or BC registration number in corporationNumbers — that's the exact, instant path.

Is the business number (BN9) included? Yes — on federal records (measured 99.8% of active corporations), and on BC records when Fetch BC business number is on (search results alone rarely carry it).

How fresh is the data? It reads the registries' official open-data drops, refreshed by ISED / the Province of BC. Each run pulls the current data.

What export formats are available? JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML, XML, or via the Apify API / integrations.

How many companies can I get in one run? Up to 50,000 via maxResults.

Troubleshooting

• 0 results from a category / province browse → category and province browse is federal only. Set Jurisdiction to Federal only or Both.
• A name search returns too many entities → it's a substring match, so common words (e.g. Holdings) match many companies. Set maxResults to control volume, or use a corporation number for a single guaranteed match.
• No results at all → your filters are too narrow, or you provided neither a name/number nor a category/province. Widen the filters or add a browse dimension.
• A BC record has no businessNumber → some BC firms and partnerships have no CRA business number, and enrichment must be on (default). That's the register, not a miss — the value is null, never fabricated.

Notes, limits & legal (honest)

• Sources & licences. Federal data is from Corporations Canada (ISED) under the Open Government Licence – Canada; British Columbia data is from OrgBook BC under the Open Government Licence – British Columbia. Both permit commercial reuse and redistribution with attribution; records carry a source label.
• Coverage limits. Federal (CBCA + non-CBCA, optionally dissolved) plus British Columbia only — other provincial registries are not included. No industry / NAICS codes exist in the federal source. Director names are not included (counts only).
• Personal data. This version exposes no individual director/officer names — only director counts on federal records. There is no personal-name data to redistribute in this release.
• Not affiliated with ISED / Corporations Canada or the Government of British Columbia; this Actor redistributes their public open data.

Support

Questions, a field you'd like added, or a custom build (another province, industry codes, director names)? Open the Issues tab on this Actor, or email info@foxlabs.com.tr. We reply fast.

If this Actor saves you time, a ⭐ review really helps.

Changelog

0.2 — 2026-07-05

• Reworked docs: API quick-start, Field | Type | Description table, real sample output (Federal + BC), integration snippets (JS / Python / Make / MCP), data-quality table, FAQ & troubleshooting.
• Documented the searchQuery field emitted on British Columbia records.
• Store metadata: SEO title, keyword-rich description, categories.

0.1 — 2026-06-28

• Federal lookup by corporation number (official legacy JSON) and by name (official bulk CSVs), English-normalized status & legislation, director counts.
• Number lookups now include filing dates (anniversary, year of last filing, last annual meeting) from the corporation's annual-return history.
• British Columbia search via OrgBook BC, with per-entity business-number (BN9) enrichment (search results alone rarely carry it).
• Category / province browse — list federal corporations by organisation type (business / not-for-profit / cooperative / board of trade) and/or province, no name required.
• Robust bulk-CSV streaming that settles correctly on early abort when the result cap is reached.

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Part of the foXLabs data platform — official public-data company, contact, ownership, jobs, charity, location & AI-search intelligence scrapers. Browse the full suite at data.foxlabs.com.tr.