Setting Up a Medical Professional Corporation in Alberta: The Physician's Step-by-Step Guide

Most physicians incorporate because their accountant recommends it. Whether it makes sense for you depends on your billings, how much of them you need to live on, your family situation and any other income. That is tax planning, and we do not give tax advice.

What we do is the corporate side, done in CPSA's order, with articles that match both the College's rules and your accountant's plan. If your CPA has not yet given you a share structure, ask for one before Step 3; it is much cheaper to get the classes right now than to amend them later.

Everything that follows rests on six CPSA rules:

• Voting shareholders must be physicians with active CPSA registration.
• Non-voting shareholders may only be the spouses, common-law partners and children of those physicians.
• The name must follow the naming section of the CPSA Bylaws.
• The order is: articles signed by the physician → CPSA articles submission form → CPSA-endorsed articles filed with Corporate Registry → PC Application Form + Certificate of Incorporation + fee.
• CPSA's processing time is within 15 business days.
• The permit is renewed annually alongside the practice permit.

For how physicians compare with dentists, lawyers, CPAs and engineers, read Alberta professional corporations explained.

Your articles set out the classes of shares the corporation can issue and the rights attached to each. For a medical professional corporation, the voting class can only be held by physicians with active CPSA registration. If your spouse is also a CPSA-registered physician, they can hold voting shares too; otherwise they cannot.

If your CPA's plan includes family, the articles need a non-voting class as well, and CPSA limits who may hold it to spouses, common-law partners and children of the physician shareholders. A parent, a sibling or a holding company is not on that list. Decide this now, because the non-voting class must exist in the articles before CPSA endorses them.

The corporation's name must follow the naming section of the CPSA Bylaws, so check the current wording before you fall in love with a name. A professional corporation is a named corporation, which means it needs an Alberta NUANS report, a name search that reserves the name for 90 days and must be less than 91 days old on the day the articles are filed.

Watch the clock here. CPSA's review can take up to 15 business days, and the NUANS report has to still be valid when the endorsed articles reach Corporate Registry. We time the order so the report is fresh at filing.

You, the physician, sign the Articles of Incorporation. They go to CPSA with the CPSA articles submission form. CPSA reviews the name, the share classes and the shareholder restrictions against its rules and, if everything fits, returns endorsed articles within 15 business days.

Our part is to draft articles that pass this review the first time: a CPSA-compliant name, a voting class restricted to physicians with active CPSA registration, a non-voting class restricted to spouses, common-law partners and children, and any other provisions your CPA asked for. A CORES-trained agent checks every clause before the package goes to you for signature.

Alberta incorporations are processed in CORES, the Corporate Registry System run by Service Alberta, and only authorized service providers such as licensed registry agents can file in it. The package is the endorsed articles, a Notice of Address for the registered office, a Notice of Directors, a Notice of Agent for Service naming an individual located in Alberta, the NUANS report and your valid ID. The government fee is $275.

ACS is a private company: our CORES-trained agents prepare the filing and submit it through a licensed Alberta registry agent. We are not a government office or a registry agent. Endorsed packages received before 3:00 pm MT are filed that day, and your Certificate of Incorporation, filed articles and notices come back by email.

The Certificate of Incorporation is not the permit. With the certificate in hand, you submit the PC Application Form to CPSA together with the certificate and the fee (see the CPSA fee schedule). CPSA processes the application within 15 business days. Until the permit is issued, the corporation exists but is not yet permitted to practise medicine, so do not bill or sign clinic agreements in its name before then.

The permit is the start of the corporation's ordinary life. Work through these in order:

1. Minute book. Issue the shares exactly as the articles and CPSA rules allow, appoint officers, and keep the registers and annual resolutions. Alberta corporations must keep these records, and it is the first thing a bank or a future clinic partner asks to see.
2. CRA business number. Registered with the Canada Revenue Agency, not Alberta Corporate Registry, along with a payroll account when you pay yourself or staff.
3. Bank account. Ask your branch what it wants to see, then bring the certificate, the articles and the organizational resolutions.
4. Billing. Moving your Alberta Health billings to the corporation is a separate arrangement with Alberta Health. Ask your CPA and billing office.
5. Annual return. Due every year in the anniversary month of incorporation, starting the year after you incorporate, with a $50 government fee. Miss it and Corporate Registry sends notices; keep missing it and the corporation is struck (dissolved).
6. Permit renewal. The CPSA professional corporation permit is renewed annually alongside your practice permit. Put both on the same reminder.

Allow for CPSA's 15 business days at each CPSA stage. If the College uses its full time at both, the sequence from signed articles to permit runs roughly seven weeks. Do not promise a clinic a start date under the corporation until the permit is in hand.

The share rules are the part physicians most often get wrong, because a well-meaning accountant in another province may suggest a structure Alberta does not allow.

• Voting shares: physicians with active CPSA registration, and nobody else.
• Non-voting shares: spouses, common-law partners and children of those physicians, and nobody else.
• Holding companies and family trusts: not on CPSA's list of permitted shareholders, so not in the articles.

Whether to issue non-voting shares to family at all is a tax question; ask your CPA. What we make sure of is that the classes exist in the articles from day one, because adding a class later takes Articles of Amendment, a second registry filing and, in practice, another submission to CPSA.

Our prices are total fees before GST (5%), government fee included. Government fees mentioned in this guide are current as of September 2026; confirm against the Alberta Registry agent product catalogue.

For the yearly costs of running any Alberta corporation, and when a lawyer's fee is worth paying, read how much it costs to incorporate in Alberta.

• Filing the articles at Corporate Registry before CPSA has endorsed them. The order is sign, CPSA, registry, permit.
• Voting shares for a spouse who is not a CPSA-registered physician, or for a holding company. Voting shares are for physicians with active CPSA registration only.
• A name that ignores the CPSA Bylaws naming section. It fails at CPSA before it ever reaches the registry.
• A NUANS report that expires during CPSA's review. It must be less than 91 days old at filing.
• Treating the Certificate of Incorporation as the permit. The corporation cannot practise until CPSA issues the professional corporation permit.
• Share classes that do not match the CPA's plan. Fixing them means Articles of Amendment and another round with CPSA.
• Missing the permit renewal or the annual return. One is renewed with your practice permit; the other is due in the anniversary month every year.