Registry entry

Ontario Business Corporation Incorporation (Articles of Incorporation, Form 5351E)

Incorporate a business corporation in Ontario by filing Articles of Incorporation (Form 5351E) under the Business Corporations Act (OBCA) with the Ontario Business Registry (Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement). Scoped to the single-director, single-individual-incorporator case most relevant to an individual forming their own corporation (the Ontario counterpart to gb/companies-house/company-incorporation-in01, ie/cro/company-incorporation, and us/ca/sos/business-entity-llc-formation): an English proposed name or a number name, a standard (non-rural) registered office address, pre-defined or custom shares-and-provisions text, and one individual incorporator. Out of scope, and not modelled: French and bilingual corporation names, the legal-opinion-for-identical-name pathway, lot/concession (rural) registered office addressing, multiple directors/incorporators, and corporate (rather than individual) incorporators — all rarer paths through Form 5351E; see VERIFICATION.md. Also out of scope: the director's and the individual incorporator's own address structure when that address is not simply 'same as the incorporator' (see the `directorAddressForService`/`incorporatorAddress` field notes and VERIFICATION.md for why). This document does not submit the filing; the live Ontario Business Registry and ontario.ca sources are always authoritative.

Registry entry

ca/on/registration/business-incorporation

Jurisdiction
Canada · Ontario (subnational)
Version
1.0.0
Verification
draft
Authority
Ontario Business Registry (Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement)

GovSchema spec v0.3

Authoritative source Form 5351E (2025/01) — Articles of Incorporation, Business Corporations Act

Machine access

Schema document
registry/ca/on/registration/business-incorporation/1.0.0/schema.jsonapplication/schema+json
Verification record
registry/ca/on/registration/business-incorporation/1.0.0/VERIFICATION.mdtext/markdown
Registry catalog
registry/index.jsonone record per schema id

Field reference

44 fields across 8 steps, read from the published schema.json — names, types, requiredness, and validation as the document states them. The live government form remains the authoritative source.

Contact information

  • contactFirstName string required

    First name of the person to contact regarding this filing. This person receives official documents, notices, and correspondence related to the filing.

    length: 1–30classification: pii
  • contactMiddleName string optional

    Optional middle name of the filing contact.

    length: 0–13classification: pii
  • contactLastName string required

    Last name of the filing contact.

    length: 1–50classification: pii
  • contactTelephoneCountryCode string optional

    Country calling code for the contact's telephone number, e.g. '1' for Canada/US.

    length: 0–12
  • contactTelephoneNumber string required

    Telephone number of the filing contact.

    length: 1–12classification: pii
  • contactTelephoneExtension string optional

    Optional extension for the contact's telephone number.

    length: 0–5
  • contactEmail string required

    Email address of the filing contact.

    length: 1–50classification: pii

Corporation name

  • corporationNameType enum required

    number_name = the corporation is assigned an Ontario corporation number as its name (e.g. '1234567 Ontario Inc.'), with a chosen legal element only; proposed_name = the applicant proposes a specific English name, which must be supported by a NUANS Report (see nuansReportReferenceNumber/nuansReportDate). This document models the English-name path only; French and combined/equivalent English-and-French names (also offered by Form 5351E) are out of scope — see VERIFICATION.md.

    enum: number_name | proposed_name
  • numberNameLegalElement string optional

    The legal element (e.g. 'Inc.', 'Limited', 'Corporation') appended to the Ontario corporation number to form the corporation's number name. Form 5351E does not publish a fixed list of permitted legal elements on its face; recorded as free text pending confirmation of the exact enumerated options against the live Ontario Business Registry form (see VERIFICATION.md).

    length: 1–30
  • proposedCorporationName string optional

    The proposed English corporation name, as it appears on the supporting NUANS Report. Must not be identical or confusingly similar to an existing registered name.

    length: 1–120
  • nuansReportReferenceNumber string optional

    Reference number of the NUANS (Newly Upgraded Automated Name Search) Report confirming the proposed name is not identical or confusingly similar to an existing registered name.

    length: 1–10
  • nuansReportDate date optional

    Date the NUANS Report was issued. A NUANS Report is generally only accepted for a limited period after issuance.

General details

  • requestedIncorporationDate date optional

    An optional future effective date for the incorporation, if the applicant does not want it to take effect on the date the Ontario Business Registry processes the filing.

  • primaryActivityCode string required

    The code classifying the corporation's primary business activity, as required by the Ontario Business Registry.

    length: 1–6
  • officialEmailAddress string required

    An official email address for the corporation, required for administrative purposes and which must be kept current. All official documents, notices, and correspondence to the corporation are sent here.

    length: 1–50

Registered office address

  • registeredOfficeStreetNumber string required

    Every corporation must have a registered office address in Ontario, set out in full; a post office box alone is not acceptable. This document models the standard-address path only; the lot/concession (rural) address path offered by Form 5351E is out of scope.

    length: 1–6
  • registeredOfficeStreetName string required

    Street name of the registered office address.

    length: 1–45
  • registeredOfficeUnitNumber string optional

    Optional unit or suite number of the registered office address.

    length: 0–8
  • registeredOfficeCity string required

    City or town of the registered office address.

    length: 1–45
  • registeredOfficeProvince enum required

    An Ontario corporation's registered office must be located in Ontario; the live form pre-populates and locks this value rather than asking the applicant to type it, which is why it carries no mandatory asterisk on the source form itself.

    enum: Ontario
  • registeredOfficePostalCode string required

    Canadian postal code of the registered office address, format A1A 1A1.

    patternlength: 0–7

First director

  • directorCountType enum required

    fixed_number = the corporation will always have exactly a fixed number of directors; minimum_and_maximum = the corporation's articles instead set a minimum and maximum number of directors, allowing the actual number to vary within that range.

    enum: fixed_number | minimum_and_maximum
  • fixedDirectorCount integer optional

    The fixed number of directors of the corporation.

    range: 1–∞
  • minimumDirectorCount integer optional

    The minimum number of directors the corporation's articles permit.

    range: 1–∞
  • maximumDirectorCount integer optional

    The maximum number of directors the corporation's articles permit. Must be greater than or equal to minimumDirectorCount.

    range: 1–∞
  • directorFirstName string required

    First name of the corporation's first director. This document scopes to a single first director; Form 5351E supports adding multiple directors, out of scope here. A director must always be an individual (a body corporate may not act as director), unlike an incorporator.

    length: 1–30classification: pii
  • directorMiddleName string optional

    Optional middle name of the first director.

    length: 0–13classification: pii
  • directorLastName string required

    Last name of the first director.

    length: 1–50classification: pii
  • directorEmail string optional

    Optional email address of the first director.

    length: 0–50classification: pii
  • directorIsResidentCanadian boolean required

    Form 5351E still asks this question, but it is informational only: the OBCA's requirement that at least 25% of an Ontario corporation's directors be resident Canadians was repealed effective 2021-07-05 (Better for People, Smarter for Business Act, 2020). A 'No' answer does not gate any other field in this document.

  • directorIsAlsoIncorporator boolean required

    When true, the director's address for service is the incorporator's own address (incorporatorAddress) and no separate address is collected on the live form. When false, the live form instead presents a distinct 'Address for Service' subform for the director; see directorAddressForService.

  • directorAddressForService object optional

    The director's address for service, only collected when the director is not also the incorporator. Carried opaquely: the live form's own developer notes state this Address for Service subform (and its Canada/U.S.A./International country choice) is dynamically shown/hidden by form logic not present in this static extraction, so its exact sub-field breakdown is not independently confirmed from source — see VERIFICATION.md. Expected to resemble a standard mailing address (street/unit/city/province-or-state/postal-or-zip/country).

Shares and provisions

  • sharesProvisionsTextType enum required

    predefined = use the Ontario Business Registry's own suggested boilerplate text for a private company's classes of shares and provisions (an unlimited number of common shares, with no transfer/business/other restrictions beyond the pre-defined text itself); custom = the applicant supplies their own text for each of the five provisions fields below (legal advice suggested).

    enum: predefined | custom
  • classesOfSharesDescription string optional

    The classes of shares, and any maximum number of shares, that the corporation is authorized to issue.

    length: 1–900000
  • sharesRightsPrivilegesRestrictionsConditions string optional

    Rights, privileges, restrictions, and conditions (if any) attaching to each class of shares, and directors' authority with respect to any class of shares that may be issued in series. Enter 'Not Applicable' if there is only one class of shares.

    length: 1–900000
  • shareTransferRestrictions string optional

    Whether the issue, transfer, or ownership of shares is restricted, and if so how. Enter 'None' if there are no restrictions.

    length: 1–900000
  • businessOrPowersRestrictions string optional

    Restrictions, if any, on the business the corporation may carry on or the powers it may exercise. Enter 'None' if there are no restrictions.

    length: 1–900000
  • otherProvisions string optional

    Any other provisions of the corporation's articles. Enter 'None' if there are none.

    length: 1–900000

Incorporator

  • incorporatorFirstName string required

    First name of the individual incorporator. This document scopes to a single individual incorporator; Form 5351E also supports a corporation registered in Ontario, or a corporation not registered in Ontario, as incorporator (each with its own field set), both out of scope here — see VERIFICATION.md.

    length: 1–30classification: pii
  • incorporatorMiddleName string optional

    Optional middle name of the individual incorporator.

    length: 0–13classification: pii
  • incorporatorLastName string required

    Last name of the individual incorporator.

    length: 1–50classification: pii
  • incorporatorAddress object required

    The individual incorporator's address, carried opaquely for the same reason as directorAddressForService: the live form's Canada/U.S.A./International address subform for this section is dynamically populated by form logic not present in this static extraction, so its exact sub-field breakdown is not independently confirmed from source — see VERIFICATION.md. Expected to resemble a standard mailing address (street/unit/city/province-or-state/postal-or-zip/country).

Authorization and signature

  • authorizationConfirmed boolean required

    Confirmation that the form has been signed by all the required person(s). See documents[].authorizationAttestation for the verbatim statement text.

  • signatureFullName string required

    The full name of the signing individual, typed into the fillable PDF's signature field in place of a wet signature.

    length: 1–30classification: pii

Verification record

This file is the source-review record for this document version, per the manual-source-review-v1 practice.

Current claim

  • status: draft
  • verification.method: manual-source-review-v1
  • verification.lastVerifiedAt: 2026-07-02

The document was derived directly from the Ontario Central Forms Repository's official fillable Form 5351E (edition 2025/01). It remains draft, not verified.

Sources examined

  • Document (id, version): ca/on/registration/business-incorporation / 1.0.0
  • Spec version: GovSchema 0.3.0
  • Authority: Ontario Business Registry (Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement, "OBR").
  • Primary source: Form 5351E (2025/01), "Articles of Incorporation — Business Corporations Act" — https://forms.mgcs.gov.on.ca/dataset/654ab672-9802-4978-8c48-4164cfdb3742/resource/8e2b1618-2359-4df3-ad6a-9a5a13083b97/download/5351e.pdf — retrieved directly (HTTP 200, no access block encountered; this forms.mgcs.gov.on.ca / ontario.ca-family domain is unaffected by the canada.ca block recorded for ca/cra/individual-income-tax-and-benefit-return-t1).
  • Field extraction method: this is a dynamic Adobe LiveCycle Designer (XFA) form, not a flat AcroForm — pdfjs-dist's ordinary getDocument().getFieldObjects() returns null for it, and rendering the document without XFA support produces only a static placeholder page reading "The document you are trying to load requires Adobe Reader 8 or higher." Fields were instead extracted by opening the document with enableXfa: true and reading PDFDocumentProxy.allXfaHtml — pdfjs's own flattened HTML-equivalent tree of the XFA template — which exposes every input/select element's dataId (the XFA field's internal name), aria-label (the field's full section/question text as read by assistive technology), and constraints such as maxLength. This is a different extraction technique from the AcroForm getFieldObjects()/annotation approach used for us/irs/employer-identification-number-ss4 and ca/cra/individual-income-tax-and-benefit-return-t1, and is recorded here as the reference method for any future GovSchema XFA-form authoring.
  • Retrieved / reviewed: 2026-07-02.
  • Reviewer: GovSchema Engineering (Standards Engineer — initial authoring source review).

What was confirmed against the source

| Source element | Field(s) | |---|---| | Section 1, Contact Information | contactFirstName through contactEmail | | Section 2, Corporation Name (number name / English proposed name / NUANS report) | corporationNameType, numberNameLegalElement, proposedCorporationName, nuansReportReferenceNumber, nuansReportDate | | Section 3, General Details | requestedIncorporationDate, primaryActivityCode, officialEmailAddress | | Section 4, Address (Standard Address only) | registeredOfficeStreetNumber through registeredOfficePostalCode | | Section 5, First Director(s) | directorCountType through directorIsAlsoIncorporator | | Section 6, Shares and Provisions | sharesProvisionsTextType through otherProvisions (including the form's own stated 900,000-character-per-text-box maximum) | | Section 7, Incorporator(s) — Individual | incorporatorFirstName through incorporatorLastName | | Section 8, Authorization / Required Signature | authorizationConfirmed, signatureFullName, documents[].authorizationAttestation (statement quoted verbatim) |

maxLength constraints on every string field were taken directly from the XFA field's own maxLength attribute, not estimated.

What is NOT independently confirmed / out of scope

  • French and bilingual corporation names. Section 2 also offers a French name, a combined English-and-French name, and an equivalent-but-separate English/French name pathway (each with its own NUANS Report sub-fields, e.g. corpNameF/refnoF/dateF in the source's internal field names). Only the English-name pathway is modelled, consistent with the English-only scoping already used across this registry (e.g. gb/companies-house/company-incorporation-in01, ie/cro/company-incorporation).
  • The legal-opinion-for-identical-name pathway (Section 2's "Select this if you have a Legal Opinion for an identical name" checkbox and its four-part lawyer-opinion declaration, lawyer name/firm/phone/email, and address). A rare pathway (used only when incorporating under a name identical to an affiliated, successor, or dissolved corporation's name), out of scope.
  • Lot/Concession (rural) registered office addressing (Section 4's alternative to the Standard Address). Out of scope; only the Standard Address sub-fields are modelled.
  • Multiple directors. Form 5351E supports adding any number of directors via a repeatable "Add Director (+)" control; this document scopes to a single first director, the same single-entity scoping convention used for ie/cro/company-incorporation's single director/secretary/subscriber. GovSchema v0.3's field model is flat with no array/repeated-group construct (SPEC.md §6.1), so a genuinely multi-director schema would need either a future array-capable spec version or a fixed set of numbered director2FirstName-style fields, neither of which this cycle introduces.
  • Corporate incorporators ("Corporation registered in Ontario" and "Corporation not registered in Ontario," each with their own corporationName/OCN-or-address/signing-representative field set). Out of scope; only the single individual incorporator pathway is modelled.
  • The exact sub-field breakdown of directorAddressForService and incorporatorAddress. The live form's own developer notes, printed directly on page 1 of the PDF, state: "Section 5: Is this director also an Incorporator? For 'No' option subform is manually hidden not in the code[.] Section 2, 5, Section 7: Address for Service: Canada, USA, International subforms are manually hidden not in the code." Consistent with that note, the static allXfaHtml extraction surfaces the Canada/U.S.A./International country-choice checkboxes for the director's address-for-service (Section 5) and the incorporator's registered/head office address (Section 7), but no corresponding address-line/city/ province/postal-code input elements anywhere beneath them — unlike the registered office address (Section 4), whose Standard Address sub-fields are fully present in the static extraction. This is a genuine tool/source limitation, not a search miss: the same pattern was independently checked and confirmed absent for all three "Address for Service"/country-choice instances in the document (Section 2's now-out-of-scope lawyer address, Section 5, and Section 7). Rather than fabricate a plausible-looking address field set unconfirmed against the live form, directorAddressForService and incorporatorAddress are modelled as opaque type: object fields (SPEC.md §6.2, "a composite value carried opaquely") with a description noting the expected shape. Open item for a future revision: a reviewer who can drive the live, JavaScript-enabled form (e.g. in Adobe Reader, or the Ontario Business Registry's own online filing interface) should confirm the exact address sub-fields and, if GovSchema still lacks a nested-object field model at that time, either flatten them here (MINOR version bump, additive) or record the gap against the flat-fields limitation already noted in SPEC.md §16.
  • The exact permitted values for numberNameLegalElement. Form 5351E's "Legal Element for the Number Name" field carries no visible enumerated option list in the static extraction (only an info-icon tooltip, not rendered as text). Commonly known OBCA legal elements are "Incorporated" / "Inc.", "Limited" / "Ltd.", and "Corporation" / "Corp.", but this was not independently confirmed against the live form's own picklist (if any), so the field is modelled as free text rather than a closed enum — avoiding asserting exact values not confirmed from source.
  • Fees. Not modelled as authoritative data, consistent with every other schema in this registry.

Scope and jurisdiction notes

  • Conditional requiredness is expressed with requiredWhen (GSP-0013), targeting spec v0.3, following the nz/ird/individual-tax-return-ir3 and ca/cra/individual-income-tax-and-benefit-return-t1 precedent.
  • directorIsResidentCanadian and directorIsAlsoIncorporator are marked fieldRole: eligibility: both are binary gate questions on the source form. directorIsResidentCanadian is retained because the live form still asks it, but is documented as informational-only since the OBCA's resident- Canadian-director requirement was repealed effective 2021-07-05 by the Better for People, Smarter for Business Act, 2020 (confirmed via independent secondary coverage — Stikeman Elliott, Fasken, DLA Piper, Bennett Jones, and Dentons client alerts, all dated April-July 2021, corroborating the same repeal date and mechanism). directorIsAlsoIncorporator genuinely gates directorAddressForService's requiredness, per the form's own developer note quoted above.
  • crossFieldValidation's maximumDirectorCountNotLessThanMinimum rule applies the compare shape (SPEC.md §8.3) to maximumDirectorCount/ minimumDirectorCount, both of which are only populated when directorCountType is minimum_and_maximum; a consumer evaluating this rule against a fixed_number submission (where neither field is present) has nothing to compare and should treat the rule as vacuously satisfied, the same way requiredWhen/visibleWhen treat an absent/hidden field's requiredness as false (§6.7) — no registry schema has yet exercised a compare rule against optionally-absent fields, so this interpretation is flagged here for reviewer attention rather than assumed silently.
  • This is the fourth company-formation jurisdiction in the registry, after gb/companies-house/company-incorporation-in01, us/ca/sos/business-entity-llc-formation, and ie/cro/company-incorporation — closing the catalog candidate note's "fourth company-formation jurisdiction" gap.

Path to a verified claim (next step)

To advance to status: verified, a reviewer drives the live Ontario Business Registry online filing flow (or the JavaScript-enabled PDF in Adobe Reader) with a mock filing, confirms the directorAddressForService/ incorporatorAddress sub-field breakdown and the numberNameLegalElement picklist noted above, and records the outcome here — shipping a new schema version if discrepancies are found (VERSIONING.md §3, immutability).

Re-verification

Per the practice's Cadence, nextReviewBy is set to 2027-01-01 (6 months).

View the raw record (VERIFICATION.md)

Version history

  • 1.0.0 draft latest this page has verification record schema.json

Independent and non-affiliated

GovSchema is an independent, open-source project. This reference is not produced, reviewed, or endorsed by Ontario Business Registry (Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement) or any government. The authoritative source is always the live government form and its official instructions.