What Canada’s corporate registers reveal.
Original empirical research on corporate compliance, registry accuracy, beneficial ownership and the corporate lifecycle in Canada — computed from the registers’ own published data, with the method published in full so the work can be checked.
Published research
Each report takes one question about the corporate record and answers it with counted evidence.
Active Does Not Mean Compliant
Annual filing default as a measure of statutory non-conformity in Canada's federal corporate registry
What does “Active” on the federal register actually prove?
Nobody had measured it publicly in fifteen years. Corporations Canada last published a compliance figure for 2011–12. This report computes it directly from the registry’s own bulk data.
Access the research- 20.02% of active federal corporations with a return due are in default — 15.39% among seasoned corporations
- Only 26.5% of corporations actually in default carry any public warning on the register
- 4 to 1 — struck off for non-filing versus voluntary wind-up: 76,632 against 17,376 annualized
- One in eight declaring corporations reports no timely annual meeting on the return it just signed
Corporations Canada bulk data · August 2026
Immatriculée Does Not Mean Compliant
Annual declaration default as a measure of statutory non-conformity in Quebec's enterprise register
Is the problem confined to empty shell companies?
The natural objection to any registry compliance statistic is that defaulters are dormant shells. Quebec’s register carries a declared employee count, which allows the objection to be tested directly.
Access the research- 18.20% of registered Quebec corporations are in default — 109,909 of 603,880 past deadline
- 34,110 have never filed a declaration at all
- Small employers default most. Corporations declaring 1–5 employees default at 20.59%, against 18.08% for those declaring none
- 696,902 struck off ex officio against 694,339 currently registered — 86.7% of removals involuntary
Registre des entreprises · extract 1 August 2026
Countdown to Dissolution
Administrative strike-off as the dominant pathway out of corporate existence in Canada — federal and Quebec evidence
How do Canadian corporations actually cease to exist?
The CBCA provides an elaborate apparatus for ending a corporation — liquidation, court supervision, creditor protection. Almost none of it is used. The dominant path is a certificate issued because a form was not filed.
Access the research- 68.2% of 723,987 federal dissolutions were for non-compliance, not by anyone’s decision — 493,923 against 226,425
- Near-deterministic timing. Of corporations dissolved in 2026, none was struck off earlier than three years after its last filing, and over 99% fell in the three-to-four-year band
- Enforcement runs in cycles unrelated to corporate behaviour: 10,057–17,076 a year across 2012–2019, collapsing to 4,059 in 2020
- Quebec shows the same pattern on a longer series: more corporations removed over the register’s life than it currently holds
Corporations Canada · Registre des entreprises
Also in the programme
Further reports in the series. Subscribers receive each one on publication, with the findings, the figures and the limitations together.
On method. Every figure in this programme is computed from official open data — Corporations Canada’s Federal Corporations datasets and monthly transaction extracts, and the Registre des entreprises open dataset via Données Québec — or from preregistered sampling of the public record where bulk data does not reach. Each report states its extract date, its confidence grading and its limitations, including what it deliberately does not claim.
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