How to start a home care business in Canada: licences, registrations and first steps

Each cell stays close to the official source’s own wording. The notes under the table add what the table cannot.

Ontario

Ontario’s home care page says the government pays for home care for people who qualify, then adds: “You can also pay for your own care through private companies.” That second line is the private-pay market. The WSIB page does not say whether home care is in a mandatory class, so confirm your classification with the WSIB before your first hire.

Source: Home and community care, Government of Ontario (opens in a new tab) and Registration FAQs, WSIB (opens in a new tab), checked October 29, 2026.

British Columbia

The Community Care and Assisted Living Act says a person without a licence must not operate a “community care facility”, and defines one as premises where a person provides care to 3 or more people not related to them by blood or marriage. That is the scope of the licence as the Act sets it out. WorkSafeBC’s page gives no registration deadline, so ask them when you plan your first hire.

Source: Community Care and Assisted Living Act, BC Laws (opens in a new tab) (current to October 27, 2026), checked October 29, 2026.

Alberta

Alberta says it in plain words: “Home and community care providers are not required to be licensed.” That does not mean nobody looks. Assisted Living and Social Services inspects and monitors all 3 types of provider against the Continuing Care Act requirements. And for WCB purposes, workers include part-time, temporary and casual staff, unpaid help and family members.

Source: Become a continuing care provider or operator, Government of Alberta (opens in a new tab) and New account holders (WCB-517), WCB-Alberta (opens in a new tab), checked October 29, 2026.

Quebec

The CNESST defines a personnel placement agency as one that supplies workers to a client business (“entreprise cliente”) to meet its labour needs. Its pages do not mention home care, so if your employees serve private clients at home, describe your model to the CNESST and ask whether the permit applies. Register on time as an employer too: the CNESST charges fees for late registration.

Source: Agences de placement de personnel et agences de recrutement, CNESST (opens in a new tab) and S’inscrire à la CNESST, CNESST (opens in a new tab) (in French), checked October 29, 2026.

Private pay means the client or their family pays your agency directly. Funded means a public program pays, or the province delivers the care itself. The two have very different front doors.

• Ontario: the government pays for people who qualify, and Ontario Health atHome delivers the care through its own staff or its service provider organizations. Eligible clients can also get funding to pay a qualified provider of their choice, and then do the finding, hiring and paying themselves. To provide publicly funded home care, a provider goes through Ontario Health atHome’s prequalification and, once prequalified, can bid on home care procurements.
• British Columbia: publicly subsidized home support is delivered by community health workers after a clinical assessment by a health authority professional, and the client pays a daily rate based on income.
• Alberta: Type 1 care comes directly from the regional health authority, Type 2 from a provider with an agreement with it, and Type 3 is any model where the client hires the provider they choose. Type 3 providers do not have to follow the Continuing Care Health Service Standards but are still inspected and monitored. Assisted Living Alberta picks new providers by public tender, posted on Alberta Purchasing Connection.
• Quebec: public home support falls under the institutions of the health and social services network and is reached through CLSCs. For some services and under certain conditions, a CLSC can call on an external provider, which can be a private company. Since January 29, 2026, the chèque emploi-service has been called the allocation autonomie à domicile (AAD). And a law and a regulation adopted in 2023 limit the use of personnel placement agencies and independent labour in the public health and social services network, applied region by region between April 2025 and October 2026.

1. 1

   Choose a structure and register it

   Sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation. Register through the Ontario Business Registry (opens in a new tab), BC Registries (opens in a new tab) (name request first), an Alberta registry agent (opens in a new tab) or Quebec’s Registraire des entreprises (opens in a new tab).

2. 2

   Get a CRA business number

   You need one (opens in a new tab) if you incorporate, or as soon as you need a GST/HST, payroll or other CRA program account.

3. 3

   Search BizPaL for city licences and permits

   BizPaL (opens in a new tab) helps you find the permits and licences you may need where you operate, including your city’s business licence.

4. 4

   Register with your workers’ compensation board

   Plan it around your first hire: the WSIB (opens in a new tab) (most businesses within 10 calendar days), WCB-Alberta (opens in a new tab) (within 15 days, if your industry is covered), the CNESST (opens in a new tab) (within 60 days of the first day of work, or up to 30 days before) or WorkSafeBC (opens in a new tab) (all employers unless exempt). Confirm your industry classification with the board.

5. 5

   Open a CRA payroll account

   Register before your first remittance is due (opens in a new tab), and deduct CPP, EI and income tax. For employees in Quebec, QPP, QPIP and Quebec income tax deductions go to Revenu Québec.

6. 6

   Decide on GST/HST

   Check the $30,000 small-supplier test and whether your services are exempt. The next section has the details.

7. 7

   Check the staffing and placement rules

   They can apply if you plan to supply or recruit staff for other organizations. See the section after GST/HST.

8. 8

   Set up privacy practices

   Decide who can open a client chart, how you record consent and how long you keep records.

9. 9

   Arrange insurance and screening

   Talk to an insurer about liability coverage, and decide how you will screen staff before they go into a client’s home.

10. 10

    Write your service agreement and rates

    Then set up your first clients, staff and schedule. Our guide to pricing private-pay home care covers the rates.

It depends on who pays. In GI-166 (opens in a new tab), the CRA defines a home care service as a household or personal care service, such as bathing, feeding, help with dressing or medication, or cleaning, given to someone who needs help because of age, infirmity or disability, in their place of residence. It is exempt if a government or municipality supplies it, or if a government, municipality or organization running a government or municipal program makes a payment for it.

The payment does not have to cover the whole cost. In the CRA’s Example 8, a program subsidy covering 50% of the invoice makes the entire service exempt. Eligibility alone is not enough, though: the CRA says being eligible for government assistance “is not sufficient”, and a service the client pays for out of pocket, with no program payment, is not exempt.

Then there is registration. You are a small supplier (opens in a new tab) if your taxable supplies do not exceed $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters. Go over $30,000 in a single quarter and you must register from the supply that took you over. A business that makes only exempt supplies generally cannot register at all. Our GST/HST on home care services article goes through it in more detail.

These rules can come into play if you supply or recruit staff for other organizations, such as a retirement home or a long-term care home, rather than only serving private clients.

• Ontario: every legal entity that operates as a temporary help agency or acts as a recruiter needs a licence (opens in a new tab), and operating without one has been prohibited since July 1, 2024. A temporary help agency is an employer that employs people to assign them to temporary work for its clients. Unless exempt, each legal entity provides $25,000 in security.
• Quebec: personnel placement agencies need a CNESST permit (opens in a new tab), and the permit application (opens in a new tab) must come with a $15,000 bond that stays valid for the whole permit term.
• British Columbia: an employment agency licence (opens in a new tab) is needed if you charge a fee to recruit, or offer to recruit, employees for employers. Recruiting for only one employer needs no licence.
• Alberta: an employment agency business licence (opens in a new tab) covers businesses that secure people for employment, secure employment for people, or evaluate or test people for employers looking for staff.

None of these pages names home care. If your model is anywhere near the line, describe it to the regulator and ask, rather than sorting yourself into a category.

According to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (opens in a new tab), PIPEDA generally applies to personal information held by private-sector organizations that are not federally regulated. Alberta, BC and Quebec have general private-sector privacy laws deemed substantially similar to it, and Ontario has a health privacy law declared substantially similar with respect to health information. Which one reaches your agency depends on your province and how each law defines who it covers.

The everyday habits are the same either way. Get consent and record it. Limit who can open a chart. Keep a record of who looked at what. Set how long you keep records, and stick to it.

Nothing here replaces the registrations above. This is the daily running of the agency, once they are done.

• Client charts with care plans that keep every prior version.
• A schedule board that flags conflicts as you assign and fills open shifts.
• GPS check-in and check-out at the door on the staff app, with exceptions sent to a queue a person reviews.
• Payroll from verified visits: approve the pay period, then export. Your remittances to the CRA and Revenu Québec stay with you or your payroll provider.
• Invoices from verified visits with the right tax on every line (GST/HST in Canada).
• QuickBooks Online: connect your own company and run a one-way sync when you choose, for clients and payers, staff and invoices billed in Canada, plus a QuickBooks-ready CSV (integrations).
• Staff credentials with expiry dates, consent and retention, and an audit trail that logs sensitive chart views, aligned with PHIPA and PIPEDA.
• English, French and Spanish, and a family portal by invitation, with access granted per client.

Pricing is per client seat in USD, with your whole team included and no client minimum. The 14-day trial gives full access without a credit card.