Key takeaways
- A CA Identification Number is a registration number issued by the Competition Bureau that a dealer may print on a textile label in place of their name and full address.
- The number is optional — Canada's Textile Labelling Act lets a consumer textile label carry either the dealer's name and address or a CA Identification Number, which makes the number the privacy-friendly choice.
- Registering a CA number still requires a real Canadian dealer name and address, and that record is publicly searchable — so the privacy win comes from registering a commercial address, not your home.
- Don't confuse the Canadian CA number with the US RN number. The RN is a United States Federal Trade Commission identifier and does not satisfy Canadian labelling rules.
Short answer: what a CA Identification Number is
A CA Identification Number is a number the Competition Bureau issues to a Canadian dealer so it can be printed on the label of a textile article instead of the dealer's name and full postal address. It usually appears on a sewn-in or attached label as CA followed by an assigned number — for example, CA 12345.
It exists because of two pieces of federal law: the Textile Labelling Act and the Textile Labelling and Advertising Regulations. Those rules say a consumer textile article — clothing, bedding, towels, and most fabric goods sold to the public — has to be labelled with who stands behind it. The dealer can satisfy that requirement one of two ways: print its name and full address, or print a CA number that maps back to that name and address in the Competition Bureau's records. The Bureau states it plainly:
"It is not required to have a CA Identification Number but it may be used in place of a name and address on the label of textile articles."
The Competition Bureau administers this labelling regime under the Textile Labelling Act — a separate function from its better-known work enforcing false or misleading advertising. For a small clothing or accessories seller, the practical takeaway is the part most short summaries skip: the CA number is the mechanism that lets you keep a personal name and a home address off every garment you ship.
What a consumer textile label has to show
The Textile Labelling and Advertising Regulations set out what a label on a consumer textile article must disclose. There are really only two mandatory pieces, and the CA number only touches one of them.
| What the label must show | Detail | Can a CA number replace it? |
|---|---|---|
| Fibre content | The generic name of each fibre, by weight (e.g., "100% cotton", "60% cotton 40% polyester") | No — fibre content is always required |
| Dealer identity | The dealer's full name and postal address, or a CA Identification Number | Yes — the CA number stands in for the name and address |
| Care instructions | Wash and care symbols | Voluntary in Canada under a separate care-labelling program |
So a CA number does not let you skip the fibre content, and it isn't a care symbol — careless summaries sometimes blur all three into one "label requirement." It does exactly one thing: it replaces the human-readable name and address with a registered number. That single substitution is the whole privacy story.
How a CA number keeps your home address off the label
Without a CA number, a one-person clothing brand that sews its own labels has to print something in the dealer-identity slot. For a sole proprietor working from home, the default is usually a personal name and the home address — which then rides out on every garment to every customer, every wholesale buyer, and every returns desk.
A CA number breaks that chain. The label reads CA 12345, the customer sees a registered number instead of where you live, and the name-and-address that the number maps to lives in the Competition Bureau's records rather than on the fabric. This is the same instinct that drives the broader home-address privacy decision for Canadian sole proprietors — the difference is that the textile label is one of the few places where a number, not an address, is an officially blessed substitute.
A common misconception is that the CA number itself makes your address private. It doesn't, and it's worth being precise about why — which is the next section.
Who can register a CA number, and why it's optional
A CA Identification Number is issued to a Canadian dealer — broadly, a person who, in the course of business, manufactures, processes, finishes, imports, distributes, or sells consumer textile articles in Canada. That covers most of the people who actually need a label: the indie designer cutting and sewing in a home studio, the importer bringing in blank apparel to brand, and the reseller relabelling finished goods under their own name.
Two things are worth stating clearly:
- It's optional. Nothing in the Act forces you to obtain a CA number. You can always print your name and full address instead. The number is the alternative you reach for when you'd rather not do that.
- Registering one is a one-time $100 government fee. Applying for a CA number through the Competition Bureau is a single $100 registration payment, not an annual charge. (This is the registration itself — the address you attach to it is a separate question, below.)
Because it's optional and costs only a one-time $100 fee, the CA number is one of the cleaner privacy tools available to a small Canadian apparel seller. The catch is what address you register it against.
Register the CA number to a real business address — not your home
Registering a CA number does not make your address secret. To issue the number, the Competition Bureau records the dealer's legal name and a Canadian business address, and that record is searchable in the Bureau's public CA Identification Number database. Anyone can enter a CA number and see the name and address behind it — that's the point of the system, so that a regulator or a consumer can trace who is responsible for a textile article.
That means the privacy benefit is specific, and worth stating without exaggeration:
- The CA number keeps your name and address off the garment label.
- If you register the number to a commercial address instead of your home, your home address also stays off the public database the label number points to.
Register the number to your home, and you've simply moved your home address from the fabric to a searchable government record — barely an improvement. Register it to a real commercial address, and your home is off both surfaces at once.
The address you register has to be a real Canadian street address that can actually receive mail — the Competition Bureau, like the business registries and the CRA, will not accept a PO Box for a dealer of record. A virtual mailbox issues exactly that: a commercial street address in Canada Post Unit/# format (for example, 405-123 FRONT ST W TORONTO ON M5J 2M2), not a PO Box and not a PMB. The Canada Post address format guide explains why the Unit/# shape is the one that institutions accept and the PMB shape is the one they reject.
Auteur is a Canadian-owned mailbox service with addresses in Toronto and Vancouver, both issued in Unit/# format, and the same commercial address can carry your CA registration, your CRA Business Number, and your GST/HST file — so a single address handles the textile-label side and the tax side together.
CA number vs RN number: don't import the US system
This is the mistake most likely to trip up a Canadian seller, because both numbers show up on the labels of clothing sold in North America and they look almost identical.
An RN number ("Registered Identification Number") is a United States identifier issued by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for use on labels under American labelling law. A CA Identification Number is the Canadian equivalent issued by the Competition Bureau under the Textile Labelling Act. They are not interchangeable.
| CA Identification Number (Canada) | RN Number (United States) | |
|---|---|---|
| Issued by | Competition Bureau (Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada) | U.S. Federal Trade Commission |
| Governing rules | Textile Labelling Act + Textile Labelling and Advertising Regulations | United States textile, wool, and fur labelling laws |
| Who uses it | A Canadian dealer of consumer textile articles | A U.S. business |
| Format | CA followed by an assigned number | RN followed by an assigned number |
| Satisfies a Canadian label? | Yes | No — an RN does not meet Canadian requirements |
If you sell clothing into Canada, an RN on its own does not satisfy the dealer-identity requirement here — you need either a name and address or a Canadian CA number. The reverse is also true: a CA number is a Canadian instrument and doesn't carry the United States obligations. When you're looking at a blank-apparel supplier's specs or a label template that mentions "RN," treat it as the US system and register the CA number you actually need for the Canadian market.
How Toronto and Vancouver sellers set this up
If you sell finished clothing on Etsy or Shopify, you're juggling two different "labels," and it's easy to conflate them. One is the Canada Post shipping label on the outside of the parcel; the other is the textile care label sewn into the garment. They're governed by completely different rules — the shipping label by Canada Post's parcel requirements, the garment label by the Textile Labelling Act — and a privacy plan has to cover both.
The pattern most established Canadian apparel sellers settle on:
- Reserve a commercial address in the city you operate from — Toronto for Ontario, Vancouver for BC — in Canada Post Unit/# format.
- Register the CA number to that address with the Competition Bureau, so the public database points to the commercial address, not your home.
- Print the CA number in the dealer-identity slot on the sewn-in label instead of a name and home address.
- Use the same address as the return/shipping address so the home address doesn't reappear on the parcel exterior.
For the parcel-and-returns side of that workflow — why Etsy won't take a PO Box on a shipping label and which address buyers actually see — see Canadian Etsy Seller Business Address and, for the platform's own verification, Shopify Business Address in Canada. Both cover the shipping label; this guide covers the sewn-in label that the two rarely mention.
Auteur's Toronto and Vancouver addresses are built for exactly this kind of multi-surface use: a real Unit/# commercial street address you can register your CA number to, receive returns at, and run your CRA and GST/HST files against — all from one dashboard, without your home address on any of them. (Reserve a Toronto or Vancouver address.)
FAQ
Do I have to put a CA Identification Number on my clothing labels? No. The CA number is optional. Canada's Textile Labelling Act requires a consumer textile label to identify the dealer either by full name and address or by a CA number — you choose which. Most small sellers who care about privacy choose the CA number specifically so a personal name and home address don't appear on the garment.
Can I use a US RN number on a label for clothing sold in Canada? No. An RN number is issued by the United States Federal Trade Commission for the US market and does not satisfy Canadian dealer-identity requirements. To sell consumer textile articles in Canada you need either the dealer's name and address or a Canadian CA Identification Number from the Competition Bureau. The two numbers look alike on a label but are not interchangeable.
Will a CA number hide my home address completely? Partially, and it's worth being precise. The CA number keeps your name and address off the garment label itself. But the registration record — the name and address the number maps to — is searchable in the Competition Bureau's public CA Identification Number database. So the number only fully protects your home if you register it to a commercial address. Register it to your home and the address is simply moved from the label to a public record.
Bottom line
A CA Identification Number lets a Canadian textile dealer put a registered number on a label instead of a name and a home address — and it's optional, obtained with a one-time $100 registration fee. The honest limit is that the registration itself is public: the number only keeps your home off the record if you register it to a real commercial address. A Toronto or Vancouver virtual mailbox in Canada Post Unit/# format gives you that address, and the same one can carry your CA registration, your CRA Business Number, and your GST/HST file at once.
Reserve a Toronto or Vancouver address and you can register a CA number, label your garments with the number alone, and accept returns — all without your home address appearing on the fabric or in the public database behind it.