Municipal licensing
Incorporating creates your business. Your municipality decides whether it can trade. We read the fee schedules of 23 Ontario municipalities line by line, publish what each one actually charges, and say so plainly where a city publishes nothing at all.
Yes, in most cases, and it is separate from incorporating. Registering or incorporating with the province creates the business. A municipal licence gives that business permission to carry on a specific activity in a specific city, and the two are issued by different governments under different rules. You can be a perfectly legal Ontario corporation and still be trading unlawfully in your own town.
Whether your particular business needs one comes down to the activity rather than the structure. Municipalities licence what they want to be able to inspect, which is why a food truck, a tow truck and a barber shop are licensed in almost every city while a consultancy usually is not. The only reliable answer is your own municipality's by-law, which is why every figure below links straight to it.
Each comparison sets the same business against several municipalities, so you can see what the identical operation costs in each and read the by-law that sets the price.
Food truck licence
Licences required to sell food from a vehicle, trailer or cart. Municipalities cover this under several different names and often split it into more than one licence.
$250 in London to $9,257.29 in Toronto
23 municipalities, first year cost
See the comparisonTaxi and rideshare driver licence
Licences a municipality requires of the person driving passengers for money, and of the companies that dispatch them. Covers taxicabs, limousines and app based rideshare.
$65 in London to $233.78 in Toronto
13 municipalities, first year cost
See the comparisonSalon, barber and tattoo licence
Licences required to cut hair, do nails, perform aesthetics, tattoo, pierce or wax for the public. Municipalities file these under several different headings and some split one salon into more than one licence.
$212 in London to $530.58 in Hamilton
13 municipalities, first year cost
See the comparisonBecause the licence types are not the same set from one municipality to the next, and a tidy grid over them would be confidently wrong. Toronto, Hamilton and Orangeville licence the same food truck under three different names, and two cities can both use Class A while meaning entirely different things by it.
So every record here carries two names. The common name is what you would type into a search box. The local name is what the by-law says, word for word, because that is the phrase you will need on the application form. Searching a city website for the words you use rather than the words it uses is the reason so many people conclude their municipality has no licence for them.
3 licence categories are published across 23 Ontario municipalities, all last checked on or before 2026-09-15. More categories are being added, and the honest position is that this is a start rather than a register of everything Ontario licenses.
We would rather publish a narrow thing that is right than a broad thing that is guessed. Where a municipality does not publish a fee, the page says that it does not publish a fee. Oakville is the clearest example, because its licensing page lists no amounts, so nothing on our page invents one. A gap that is recorded is worth more than a gap that is quietly filled, since a made up number will be repeated as fact long after anyone could trace where it came from.
If a figure here disagrees with your municipality, your municipality is right and we would like to hear about it. Every record links to the source it came from, so the disagreement should be quick to settle. Tell us what we got wrong.
Almost every municipality here wants proof the business exists before it will issue a licence, and several want that proof dated within the last year. It is the step people leave until last and the one that costs them a season.
A sole proprietorship registration satisfies that requirement everywhere we have looked. A corporation satisfies it too, and brings other things with it that matter more once you are serving the public, mainly the separation between your business debts and your house. If you have not settled that question yet, our sole proprietorship versus incorporation guide lays out both sides without a sales pitch, and our pricing shows the government fee at cost so you can see which part is us.
Does incorporating in Ontario mean I am licensed to operate?
No. Incorporation is a provincial filing that creates the company. A municipal business licence is permission from your city to carry on a particular activity there. Most municipalities will ask to see proof that the business is registered before they issue a licence, so the order usually runs registration first and licence second, but one never replaces the other.
Do I need a municipal licence to run a business from home?
It depends on the activity rather than on where you sit. Many municipalities licence trades, personal services, food handling and anything that brings the public to your door, while leaving a laptop consultancy alone. Zoning is a separate question from licensing, and a home business can satisfy one and fail the other, so check both with your own municipality.
Why does every city call the same licence something different?
Because each municipality writes its own by-law and no province wide vocabulary exists. Toronto licenses a Motorized Refreshment Vehicle. Hamilton licenses a Food Service Vehicle. Orangeville licenses a Mobile Food Vendor. All three mean a food truck. We publish the local name next to the common one rather than inventing a tidy category, because applying for the wrong thing is the most common way people lose a month.
Do I need to incorporate before applying for a licence?
No municipality covered here requires a corporation. Every one of them accepts a sole proprietorship registration as proof the business exists. Incorporating is a decision about personal liability, tax and credibility, and it is worth taking on its own merits rather than because a licensing clerk appeared to demand it.
How current are these figures, and who checked them?
Every figure is read from the municipality's own published fee schedule or by-law, and each record carries the by-law citation, a link to the source and the date a person last confirmed it. The most recent check was 2026-09-15. Ontario fee schedules commonly reset in January, so follow the source link before you budget rather than treating anything here as a quote.
Before you apply
Your municipality will ask for proof the business is registered, and most want it recent. Filed with the Ontario Business Registry in one to two business hours, flat service fee, government fee at cost.
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