Key takeaways
- The CRA accepts a business address change through three channels: the My Business Account portal, the phone line 1-800-959-5525, and the CRA's paper address-change request mailed to your regional tax centre.
- The CRA file separates a Mailing Address from a Physical Address, and your books and records location has its own audit-access rule — changing one field does not change the others.
- Updating the CRA does not automatically update your provincial or federal corporate registry — that is a separate filing you have to do yourself.
- The reliable switchover order is CRA first, then the corporate registry, then banks and payment processors — done in that sequence so each record cross-checks cleanly.
The three CRA channels for changing a business address
The CRA gives you three ways to change the address on a Business Number, and they differ in speed and in which account programs they touch.
- My Business Account portal. Sign in to My Business Account, open the Profile section, and edit the address. This is the fastest channel and lets you change the address per program account (GST/HST, payroll, corporate income tax) rather than all at once. If you have a representative, they make the change through Represent a Client.
- Phone — 1-800-959-5525. The CRA's business enquiries line can typically update the address over the phone after identity verification. Useful when you do not have portal access yet.
- Paper — the CRA address-change request form. The CRA publishes a paper address-change request form on canada.ca; download the current version, complete it, and mail it to the tax centre that serves your region — the form itself lists the mailing addresses. Paper is the slowest of the three and is mostly used when neither portal nor phone is practical.
The mechanism to understand: the CRA processes the change against the specific program accounts you identify. A Business Number can carry several program accounts, and an address change applied to one (say, the GST/HST account) does not silently propagate to the payroll account unless you say so. The portal makes the per-account scope explicit; on the phone, state every program you want updated.
Mailing Address vs Physical Address vs books and records
The CRA does not hold one address per business. The record distinguishes at least two address types, and the location of your books is a third, separate concept.
- Mailing Address — where CRA correspondence is sent (Notices of Assessment, review letters, statements). This is the field most people mean when they say "change my CRA address."
- Physical Address — where the business is actually located/operated. For many small businesses the mailing and physical address are the same; when they differ, the CRA holds both.
- Books and records location — the place where your accounting records are kept. Under the Income Tax Act the CRA must be able to access those records in Canada if required. A virtual mailbox receives mail; it is not where your books physically live unless you also keep records there. Keep the books-and-records location answer accurate to where the records actually are.
When you switch to a virtual address, the common and correct move is to change the Mailing Address to the virtual commercial address so all CRA paper reaches you reliably, while answering the books-and-records question with wherever the records are actually maintained. Conflating the two is the most frequent mistake on a switchover.
This post is about the change procedure. The separate question of what makes an address valid for the CRA in the first place — the no-PO-box rule, the deliverable-street-address standard, the home-address privacy trap — is covered in Does your Canadian business need a registered address? What the CRA actually requires. Confirm the new address meets that standard before you file any change.
The registry the CRA does not update for you
This is the trap the search engine's own answer summary flags, and it is the single most common reason a switchover looks complete but is not.
Changing your address with the CRA does not change it on your provincial or federal corporate registry. The CRA and the corporate registries are separate systems. A clean Business Number profile in My Business Account can sit next to an Ontario or BC registry record still showing the old address — and the registry record is the one that is public and that banks and registries cross-check against.
| Record | Who holds it | Updated when you change CRA? | How you actually update it |
|---|---|---|---|
| CRA Mailing/Physical Address | Canada Revenue Agency | — | Portal / 1-800-959-5525 / paper form |
| Federal corp (CBCA) registered office | Corporations Canada | No | Online Filing Centre — separate Change of Registered Office filing |
| Ontario corp registered office | Ontario Business Registry | No | Ontario Business Registry filing (and the annual return) |
| BC corp registered office | BC Registries | No | BC Registries notice of change of address |
| Business Number profile cross-check | Banks, Stripe, payment processors | No | Re-verify after both CRA and registry are updated |
For federal corporations specifically, the registered-office change goes through the Corporations Canada Online Filing Centre as its own filing — it is not a side effect of the CRA update. And because a corporation can carry up to three distinct addresses on its books, fixing one without the others is exactly the failure mode described in Registered Office vs Records Office vs Head Office in Canada. Treat the CRA change and the registry change as two separate jobs on the same checklist.
The switchover checklist: CRA, then registry, then banks
When you move an existing registered business address to an Auteur virtual address, do it in this order so each record validates against the previous one:
- Confirm the new address is valid first. It has to be a real Canadian street address in proper Canada Post Unit/# format that can receive mail and courier — not a PO box. (Validity standard: the CRA requirements post.)
- Change the CRA Mailing Address. Use the My Business Account portal for the fastest result, or 1-800-959-5525, or mail the CRA's paper address-change form. Apply the change to every program account on the Business Number (GST/HST, payroll, corporate income tax) — not just one. Confirm the books-and-records location answer separately.
- Update the corporate registry. Federal: file the Change of Registered Office through the Corporations Canada Online Filing Centre. Ontario: file through the Ontario Business Registry. BC: file the notice of change of address with BC Registries. Sole proprietors update the trade-name record with the province.
- Re-sync the Business Number profile downstream. Once CRA and the registry both show the new address, update the address on the business bank account and any payment processors (Stripe, payment platforms). These verify against the CRA/registry record, so doing them last avoids a failed check during the window where the records disagree. The Business Number itself does not change — only the address attached to it; see Business Number (BN) for a Canadian Small Business for how the BN profile feeds those cross-checks.
- Watch the old address for mail tail. Correspondence already in transit, and any processor that re-verifies on a delay, can still reach the old address for weeks. Keep an eye on it until a full cycle (a Notice of Assessment or statement) has arrived cleanly at the new one.
Done out of order — banks before the registry, or registry before CRA — you create a window where one record contradicts another and a verification fails. The sequence is the whole point.
How Auteur fits the switchover
Auteur is designed to give you a real commercial street address in Toronto or Vancouver in proper Canada Post Unit/# format — the address you put into the CRA change and the registry change. Because it is a real street address that will receive mail and courier on your behalf:
- The CRA Mailing Address change lands on an address that reliably receives Notices of Assessment, review letters, and any paper that reverts from online.
- The same address goes on the corporate registry filing, so the CRA record and the public registry record match.
- Banks and payment processors that cross-check the Business Number profile see one consistent address across CRA and the registry.
- You are notified when anything arrives, so the mail-tail watch in step 5 is just your dashboard.
This is the CRA-ready use case specifically: a single deliverable commercial address that survives the three-record switchover instead of a home address that propagates everywhere or a PO box that fails the validity test before you even start. (Reserve a Toronto or Vancouver address.)
FAQ
Can you update your CRA address online? Yes. The fastest channel is the My Business Account portal — sign in, open Profile, and edit the address per program account. A representative does the same through Represent a Client. If you do not have portal access, the alternatives are the phone line 1-800-959-5525 or mailing the CRA's paper address-change form to your regional tax centre.
How do I change my business address in Canada? Treat it as three separate jobs, in order: change the CRA address (portal, 1-800-959-5525, or the CRA paper address-change form), then update the corporate registry (Corporations Canada Online Filing Centre for federal; Ontario Business Registry or BC Registries for provincial; the trade-name record for sole proprietors), then re-sync the bank and payment processors. The CRA change does not update the registry, and the registry change does not update the CRA — both are required.
How do I change my address with the CRA? Through one of three channels: the My Business Account portal (fastest, and lets you scope the change per program account), the business enquiries line at 1-800-959-5525 after identity verification, or the CRA's paper address-change request form mailed to the tax centre that serves your region. Apply the change to every program account on the Business Number, not just one.
How can an address be changed online? For a business, online means My Business Account: the Profile section holds the Mailing Address and Physical Address fields, edited per program account. For a federal corporation's registered office, "online" is a different system — the Corporations Canada Online Filing Centre — and changing it there is a separate filing from the CRA change, not the same action.
What types of addresses can be changed? On the CRA file the main two are the Mailing Address (where correspondence is sent) and the Physical Address (where the business operates); the books-and-records location is a third, separate concept tied to audit access in Canada and should reflect where records are actually kept. On the corporate registry, the registered office address is its own record that the CRA change does not touch. A switchover usually means moving the Mailing Address and the registered office to the new address while answering the books-and-records question accurately.
Bottom line
Changing a CRA business address to a virtual address is not one action — it is three records updated in sequence: the CRA (via portal, 1-800-959-5525, or the CRA paper address-change form), the corporate registry (which the CRA does not update for you), and the downstream banks and processors that cross-check both. Do them out of order and a verification fails in the gap; do them CRA-first with a real deliverable commercial address and every record lines up.
Reserve a Toronto or Vancouver address and put the same Canada Post Unit/# format address on the CRA change, the registry filing, and every downstream re-verification.