By Theresa L.M. Man

On January 18, 2025, the Ministry of Public and Business Services Delivery and Procurement announced new enhancements to the Ontario Business Registry (OBR), designed to improve the overall user experience.  The Ministry is seeking user feedback to evaluate the impact of these changes in order to help the Ministry to refine improvements and better understand which changes you value most for the user. Users are encouraged to participate in a brief survey at Rate our Service – Ontario Business Registry Survey.

The following features have been introduced:

• New Proof of Filing Document: A Proof of Filing document is now available for the Corporations Information Act (CIA) when filing Initial Return, Annual Return, or Notice of Change for corporations under the Business Corporations Act (BCA) and Not-for-Profit Corporations Act, 2010 (ONCA). Note that this document will not be generated when only updating a corporation’s or entity’s official email address or primary activity code.
• Rich Text Editor Functionality: A rich text editor has been integrated into the Purposes & Provisions sections of the Articles of Reorganization under the ONCA. This enhancement allows better formatting and an increased character limit of up to 900,000 characters.
• Corrected Certificate List Update: Restated Articles of Incorporation under both BCA and ONCA have now been added to the Corrected Certificate list.
• Automatic Email Address Updates: When an entity's (corporation or partnership) updates its official email address, the official email address for all associated entities (such as a business name linked to a corporation or partnership) will also be automatically be updated.
• Incorporator Section Update: The Incorporator section of the BCA and ONCA Articles of Incorporation now includes an option allowing entities to be listed as Incorporators without requiring an Ontario Corporation Number (OCN).

​Read the April 2025 Charity & NFP Law Update