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Not all businesses must have a BIN. The Ontario Business Names Act administered by
the Companies and Personal Property Security Branch applies to:
sole proprietorships (one owner) carrying on business under a name other than
the individual’s full name;
partnerships carrying on business under a firm name other than the full names of
the partners;
corporations carrying on business under a name other than their corporate name;
an existing general partnership or limited partnership registering a business
name different from the registered firm name;
limited liability partnerships;
extra-provincial limited liability partnerships; and
extra-provincial limited liability companies
If employers need more information, they may contact the Companies and Personal
Property Securities Branch at 1-800-361-3223.
BN and BIN collection on COJG Employer Application Form
Both numbers are mandatory fields in the application and must be filled out.
The BIN is less commonly used by employers. If the employer does not know their BIN
they should be instructed to refer to their Master Business Licence.
Alternatively, they can use the first 9 digits of their HST account number. An account
number is a 15-digit number which consists of the employer’s unique 9-digit, two letters
to identify the government program, and four digits to identify a specific government
account. For example, if an HST account number is 123456789SK0001, the BN would
be the 12345679 (first 9 digits).
If the employer cannot use either of those methods, they may contact the Companies
and Personal Property Securities number listed above.
In the cases where the employer does not have a BIN number, they should be advised
to put in their BN again and add a 1 to the last digit (for example, if the BN is
555555556, put 555555557 in the BIN field). If the employer uses their BN plus a 1 at
the end as their BIN number, a note should be made in the employer service plan with
the reason why the employer does not have a BIN number.
CaMS System Rules
The information on the application form is pulled into CaMS to populate the employer
service plan.
System rules only allow unique BIN numbers for employers (for example, two
employers could not each have 111111111 as a BIN). In addition, the BN and BIN
cannot be the same number for an employer.
For further questions, please contact your ETC.