How to Check That a Lender Is Licensed in Canada

Checking whether a lender is licensed in Canada comes down to two things: work out whether the company is federally regulated or provincially regulated, then find its legal name in the matching public register. Federally regulated financial institutions have their consumer complaints handled by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, while provinces license and supervise most other lenders and each one has a consumer protection office you can contact. The whole check takes about ten minutes, and it is the cheapest piece of due diligence you will ever do.

One thing to be clear about up front: LoanGoose is a loan matching and comparison service, not a lender. We don't make loans, set rates, or make credit decisions. The licence that matters is the one held by the lender you actually borrow from, and it is worth confirming that licence yourself before you sign anything.

Why a licence check comes before a rate comparison

A licence is the difference between a company that answers to a regulator and a company that answers to no one. If a licensed lender breaks the rules, there is somewhere to go: you complain, the regulator can investigate, and the lender can be disciplined. If an unlicensed operation takes your money, your options narrow quickly.

Licensing also sits behind the hard limits on what borrowing can cost. Under the Criminal Code, the criminal rate of interest is 35% per year, a threshold in force since 1 January 2025 and calculated by a defined method that aggregates interest and certain charges, as set out in Criminal Code s. 347 — criminal rate of interest. Payday lending has its own tighter rules, which we come to below.

Who supervises which lender

Canada does not have one single lender registry. It has a federal layer and a provincial layer, and the layer that applies depends on how the company is incorporated and what it sells.

Who supervises what in Canada

Type of lender	Who supervises it	Where to check
Banks and other federally regulated financial institutions	Federal regulator; consumer complaints go to the FCAC	The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada
Payday lenders	The province or territory, where a licensed regime exists	The provincial regulator or consumer protection office
Most consumer finance and loan companies	The province or territory where they operate	The provincial regulator or consumer protection office
Mortgage brokers and agents	The province or territory	The provincial regulator or consumer protection office
Licensed insolvency trustees	The Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada	The Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada

If you are not sure which row your lender belongs in, start with the FCAC — provincial and territorial regulators page, which points to the right body for each province and territory and saves you guessing.

How to check a lender's licence, step by step

1. Get the legal name, not the brand. Websites trade under catchy names. Ask for the incorporated name that will appear on your loan agreement, because that is the name a register lists.
2. Identify the product. A payday loan, a personal instalment loan and a mortgage are licensed differently in most provinces. Ask which licence category the company holds for the product you are being offered.
3. Find the right register. Federally regulated institutions appear in the federal listings the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada points to. Everyone else appears on a provincial or territorial register.
4. Confirm the licence covers your province. A licence in one province does not automatically let a lender operate in another. Lending to you where it is not licensed is a problem in itself.
5. Ask for the licence number. A licensed lender produces it without drama. Reluctance to name a regulator is already an answer.
6. Check the complaint route before you sign. Ask plainly: if we disagree, which regulator do I complain to? Write down what you are told.
7. Re-check at signing. Licences get suspended, expire and get surrendered. A check you did last month is not a check you have done today.

What a licence tells you — and what it does not

This is where people over-read the result. A licence is a permission slip to operate under rules. It is not a quality rating, and it says nothing about your application.

A licence confirms	A licence does not confirm
The company met the requirements to operate in that jurisdiction	That its rate is competitive — comparing offers still matters
There is a regulator you can escalate a complaint to	That your application will be approved; approval depends on the lender's criteria
The lender can be disciplined for breaking the rules	That the repayment schedule fits your budget
A licence number exists that you can verify	That an advertised rate is the rate you will be offered

Licensing regulates conduct. It does not do your arithmetic for you, and a licensed lender offering terms you cannot carry is still a bad idea.

Red flags that survive a licence check

• No legal entity name anywhere. Not in the footer, not in the contract, not available on request.
• Pressure to sign the same day. Real lenders do not need a countdown timer to close a loan.
• Upfront fees before funds. Ask what each fee is for, in writing, and who receives it.
• A licence claim that does not fit the product. If a company says it holds a federal payday licence, that is a category error — payday lending is licensed by provinces, where it is licensed at all.
• Requests for your online banking password. Nobody needs your credentials to lend you money. If you are concerned about how a company handles your personal information, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada oversees federal privacy law.
• Terms that only exist verbally. If it is not in the document, it is not a term.

The payday lending example

Payday lending is the clearest case of why the check matters. A payday loan is generally up to $1,500 for a term of 62 days or less. Where a province operates a licensed payday lending regime, federal regulations cap the cost of borrowing at $14 per $100 advanced, and a province may set a lower cap, in which case the lower figure applies. Quebec does not license payday lending at all, which effectively prohibits the model there. You can read the federal framing on the FCAC — payday loans page and the regulation itself at Payday Lending Regulations, SOR/2024-114. The practical point: if a payday-style lender cannot tell you which province licenses it, that is your answer.

If something goes wrong with a licensed lender

Complain to the lender first, in writing, and keep the reference number. If it is a federally regulated institution, the next step is the FCAC, and the FCAC — complaints page explains how that process works. If the lender is provincially licensed, escalation goes to that province's consumer protection office. There is no single national complaints desk covering every lender, which is exactly why knowing your lender's regulator in advance is useful rather than academic.

Two checks that pair well with a licence check

Your credit report. Canada has two national credit reporting bureaus, Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada, and a free copy of your credit report is available from each. Order both, because they are separate files. The FCAC — credit reports and scores page walks through how to request them and how to correct errors before you apply anywhere.

Your debt ratios. Before you add a payment, know what you already owe. For context, federally regulated mortgage lenders generally work to a total debt service ratio ceiling of about 44% and apply a qualifying stress-test rate above the contract rate under OSFI Guideline B-20. Non-mortgage lending is not scored the same way, but the underlying question does not change: could you carry another payment if your income dipped?

What to ask before you sign

Four questions cover most of it. Who is the legal lender? Which regulator licenses you for this product in my province? What is the total cost of borrowing, in dollars rather than percentages? And what happens if I pay late or want to pay it off early? A licensed lender answers all four without flinching.

If you are still weighing product types, the FCAC — personal loans page is a plain-language starting point, and FCAC — debt and borrowing covers what to do when a new loan is really about managing existing debt rather than funding something new.

For significant decisions — a mortgage, consolidating debt, anything involving your home — talk to a licensed professional about your own circumstances. Reading a guide is not the same as getting advice.

LoanGoose is a loan matching and comparison service, not a lender. The lowest rates are only available to the most qualified applicants.