Annual filing
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Every society files with its province’s registry once a year. What the filing asks, when it is due, and the walk through it, province by province.
Ontario’s annual return
Ontario’s registry filing is the annual return. It follows the year end, not the meeting. It is due inside six months of the year end. It goes to ServiceOntario through the Ontario Business Registry. You sign in with the corporation’s Company Key.
The return states the registered office, the directors and the officers as they stand. It costs nothing to file. It stands on its own: since 2021 it no longer rides with the T2.
Confirm the year the return covers
The return reports the corporation as it stood at the year end: its registered office, its directors and its officers. The year’s close is where the books hold it, with the governance records beside it. A return filed for facts the books cannot back is a story the registry will keep.
If the year has not closed yet, this walk waits: close it first, with the Close the year task.
(Done on the Governance page.)
Prepare the return from the books’ facts
The return carries the corporation as the books hold it: its legal name, its registered office, its directors and its officers as they stand on the People page.
Check those facts first: a director who left in March and still stands on the list is an error for the registry to keep. The return is the registry’s form. The app’s part is that its facts stand true in these books.
(Done on the People page.)
Send the return to the Ontario Business Registry
Filing happens at the registry, not in this app. It is done in the Ontario Business Registry, ServiceOntario’s service: sign in with the corporation’s Company Key, open the annual return and file it with the facts the last step read.
The law sets the window: the return is filed within six months after the year end. Filing costs nothing. The return is a filing of its own — since 2021 it no longer rides with the T2. Keep the registry’s confirmation — the next step records it.
This step is done in the world.
(Done on the by hand page.)
Record the filing in the books
Record the filing in the corporation’s governance records: a record of kind Filing, saying the annual return for the year was filed, with the day and the confirmation the registry gave, in the confirmation field. The treasurer who follows finds the proof here, not in a predecessor’s inbox.
The Tax page carries it in the year’s filings.
(Done on the Governance page.)