Business
Starting a business in Fredericton
Seven steps, in the order they actually happen. Fredericton is unusually light on municipal red tape (there is no general business licence), so most of the work is provincial and federal, online, and cheaper than people expect.
-
Service New Brunswick, Corporate Registry
Pick a structure and register it
Everything runs online through the Corporate Registry; there is no counter to visit. A sole proprietorship or partnership registers a business name for $112 (that includes the mandatory $12 Royal Gazette notice) and renews every five years for $62. A New Brunswick corporation costs $262 filed online, $312 on paper, with a $60 annual return. A named corporation needs a NUANS name-search report less than 90 days old; a numbered company skips it. Federal incorporation through Corporations Canada is $200 online with a $12 annual return, and the name search is bundled into the process.
- Sole proprietorship: cheap, fast, and you are personally liable.
- Corporation: dearer, an annual return to remember, and your house is not on the line.
Sources: SNB business name fees · SNB corporation fees · Corporations Canada fees
-
Canada Revenue Agency
Get a business number, and decide about HST
A CRA business number is free and comes with the accounts you need (payroll, import, GST/HST). You must register for HST once taxable sales pass $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters; cross it in a single quarter and you register immediately. Below that you are a small supplier and may register voluntarily to claim input credits. New Brunswick’s HST is 15 percent (5 federal, 10 provincial). Taxi and ride-share drivers register regardless of revenue.
- Register early if your customers are businesses: they claim the HST back anyway, and you get to claim yours.
Sources: CRA: when to register · GNB: HST
-
City of Fredericton, Community Planning
Check the zoning before you sign anything
Zoning By-law Z-5 decides what a given address may be used for. Ask Community Planning for a zoning confirmation letter ([email protected], 506-460-2020) with the PID, civic address and intended use before you sign a lease. Home-based businesses are permitted in any zone that allows a single detached dwelling or mini-home, under the home occupation rules in Section 7.3.
- A landlord saying “it was a shop before” is not a zoning confirmation.
Sources: City: zoning and land use
-
City of Fredericton, Service Fredericton
Permits: fewer than you think
Fredericton has no general business licence; the City’s permits page points you to BizPaL instead. What does need a permit: any new or replacement sign (Section 6 of Z-5, applied for through Building Inspections); any building work beyond cosmetic, at $8 per $1,000 of construction value, trackable through AccessFredericton; sidewalk cafés; taxis and vehicles for hire. Liquor licences and food premises are provincial, not municipal. Service Fredericton is at 397 Queen Street, 506-460-2020, weekdays 8:15 to 4:30.
- Run your address and business type through BizPaL: it lists every permit at all three levels in one pass.
Sources: City: business permits and licences · City: building permits · BizPaL, New Brunswick
-
Downtown Fredericton Inc and Business Fredericton North
Downtown or Main Street? Budget for the levy
Fredericton has two Business Improvement Areas, each funded by a levy on non-residential assessment that arrives with your property tax: 20 cents per $100 in 2026 for both. Inside the downtown district (roughly Government House to the walking bridge, river to mid-block) that money runs Downtown Fredericton Inc, at 349 King Street, Suite 100, 506-458-8922, [email protected]. On the north side it runs Business Fredericton North, at 102 Main Street, Unit 18, 506-459-8689, [email protected]. The levy makes you a member: both offer façade grants, and DFI adds security, parking-lot and beautification grants.
- If you are inside a boundary you pay whether you join or not, so use the grants and go to the meetings.
- Ask which side of the boundary line an address sits on before you sign; a block can be the difference.
Sources: DFI: about · Business Fredericton North · 2026 provincial rate table
-
WorkSafeNB, CRA, Employment Standards
Hiring your first person
Three registrations and one number. WorkSafeNB coverage is mandatory once you have three or more workers at any point in the year, and you register within 15 days. You open a CRA payroll account for source deductions. New Brunswick’s employment standards set the floor: minimum wage has been $15.90 an hour since April 1, 2026 (indexed to inflation each April; overtime at $23.85). The Employment Standards Branch answers questions at 1-888-452-2687.
- Contractors who work only for you, on your schedule, with your tools, are employees in the eyes of the CRA whatever the invoice says.
Sources: WorkSafeNB: accounts and coverage · GNB: minimum wage · GNB: employment standards
-
Ignite, the Chamber, ONB, CBDC
Plug into the people whose job is helping you
Ignite (40 Crowther Lane, Suite 100) is the Capital Region’s economic development agency and runs free courses: Business Basics, Marketing Basics, Planning for Growth and the Business Builder Bootcamp, plus Planet Hatch, the incubator and coworking floor. Opportunities NB’s Business Navigators (1-833-799-7966) are a free provincial concierge for permits and regulations. The Fredericton Chamber of Commerce charges $365.70 including HST for a one-to-two-person business, with a $143.75 start-up tier. CBDC Southwest in Hanwell (506-454-2747) is the community lender for York County.
- Take Business Basics before you spend money on a logo. It is free and it will change the plan.
Sources: Ignite: start programs · ONB: Business Navigators · Chamber: membership dues · CBDC
Every figure on this page was read off the linked primary source on September 19, 2026. Fees, thresholds and intake windows move; the sources are there so you can check the day you need them, and if we are wrong, tell us.
Who speaks for you
The organizations that represent, levy, lend to or serve you, with what each costs and what you get.
The numbers
Fredericton, by the figures that matter to a business
Next
Now, the money.
Twenty programs with the amounts and the catch: loans built for starting out, the contributions and grants, the tax credits, the wage subsidies, and what has closed.
Funding a businessAsk Freddy, owner edition
The questions you’d rather not phone City Hall about
Keep reading