Selling online into Quebec: what the law requires of your store

If you sell to customers in Quebec, your store has to offer a French version of comparable quality, as easy to reach as the English one. A translated home page with an English catalogue behind it does not meet that bar. On top of the language rules sit disclosure requirements that govern what you show before checkout, and they are stricter than most of North America.

The catch: the requirement comes from a general rule about commercial communications rather than anything written for websites, which is why so many merchants selling into Quebec have no idea it applies to them.

Does Quebec law reach a business outside the province?

Usually, yes. The Charter of the French Language, as amended by Bill 96, gives Quebec consumers the right to be informed and served in French, and that right extends to catalogues, brochures and any other document of a commercial nature, printed or online.

What matters most is who you sell to. A business offering goods or services to Quebec consumers can be covered whether it is based in Laval, Toronto or California; how far the obligations reach depends on its activities and its ties to the province. The practical effect is real. Radio-Canada reported on a US company that stopped shipping to Quebec consumers altogether rather than produce a French version of its site.

If you also employ people in Quebec, a second layer applies. Since June 1, 2025, businesses with 5 to 24 employees in Quebec must declare to the enterprise register how many staff cannot communicate in French, and those with 25 or more for six months must register with the OQLF and complete the francization process; that registration threshold used to sit at 50. Those obligations are about the workplace. They sit on top of the customer-facing rule, which applies to businesses of every size.

What "comparable quality" means for a storefront

A store is not one page. The entire purchase path is a commercial communication, and every step counts:

• ◆Product pages, including descriptions, dimensions and variants
• ◆Categories, filters and search
• ◆Cart and checkout
• ◆Transactional emails: order confirmation, shipping notice, invoice
• ◆Return policy, shipping terms, FAQ
• ◆Error messages and tooltips, usually missed because they ship with the theme

Comparable is the word that does the work. A full English store with a translated landing page does not meet the standard, because the content and functionality are not equivalent. A language toggle in the header solves nothing if it leads to a French version missing half the catalogue.

This is the most common technical trap on Shopify and WooCommerce. Both platforms handle multiple languages. Neither translates your product pages for you, and both leave untranslated strings scattered through themes and apps. A bilingual store gets verified page by page, in both languages.

Your terms of sale are an adhesion contract

Here is the rule almost nobody writing about Bill 96 mentions, and it is the one that lands closest to a storefront.

In practice, the "I agree to the terms of sale" checkbox at checkout has to lead to a French version as visible and as easy to reach as the English one. For a contract concluded online, the OQLF also accepts a French version accessible through the French storefront. English terms with a small "français" link underneath fail the "at least as prominent" test.

It is also the cheapest item on this list to fix, because it touches one document and one link.

What you have to show before checkout

The Office de la protection du consommateur governs distance contracts, which covers every online sale. You are required to disclose a specific set of information before the transaction closes:

• ◆Your full business name and street address, with a phone number and an email address
• ◆A clear description of each item: dimensions, weight, size, quantity, format, with representative images
• ◆The price of each item, applicable taxes, delivery charges and the total payable
• ◆The shipping method, the carrier's name, and the delivery date or timeframe
• ◆Your cancellation, return and refund policies, if you have them

Two of these deserve extra attention if you are selling in from outside Quebec.

The advertised price has to include the total amount payable, with narrow exceptions for GST and QST. And your terms cannot strip the customer of access to the courts. A mandatory arbitration clause, or one that forces disputes to be settled outside Quebec, is prohibited. Standard US terms-and-conditions boilerplate contains both of those clauses almost by default, so a template pulled from an American store is non-compliant the day you paste it in.

The obligations continue during the order. Before the sale concludes, you have to expressly give the customer the chance to accept your offer, correct it or refuse it. A checkout that skips the order-review step misses this requirement.

They continue after it too. You have to send the customer a copy of the contract within 15 days of the sale, in a form they can easily keep and print. A confirmation email carrying the essential terms does that job.

Customers keep recourse. They can cancel if the goods are not delivered within 30 days of the date stated in the contract or, when no date is stated, within 30 days of the order. If the mandatory disclosures were missing or the contract copy never arrived, an additional cancellation right opens. After a cancellation, reasonable return shipping is on you and the refund is due within 15 days.

Taxes and customer data: settle them before launch

Two items that are quick to settle during the build and expensive to discover after launch.

Taxes. On a taxable sale, GST is 5 percent and QST is 9.975 percent, and both generally apply to delivery charges as well; registration, exemptions and out-of-province sales change the treatment case by case. Your platform calculates those amounts from the regions you configure. It does not determine whether you need to register for GST and QST, which products are taxable in your case, or how to handle out-of-province sales, refunds and business-to-business orders. Those questions belong to Revenu Québec and your accountant.

Data. A store collects far more personal information than a brochure site: customer accounts, shipping addresses, purchase history, plus analytics and retargeting cookies. Quebec's Law 25 applies in full, it belongs in the build plan from the start, and checkout is where consent is won or lost. Our Law 25 compliance guide covers that ground properly, so I will not repeat it here.

The fines, and how a complaint actually starts

Since June 1, 2022, a business faces $3,000 to $30,000. The amount doubles on a first repeat offence and triples after that.

The mechanism matters more than the ceiling. Many files start with a complaint: one frustrated customer who cannot find the French version, or one competitor who notices your unilingual storefront, is enough to open one. The Office also has inspection and investigation powers. It can order you to fix the problem within a deadline, and the fine follows if nothing changes.

The actual amount depends on the offence, the company and whether it has happened before. The fine is rarely the heaviest cost anyway: the order abandoned by a customer who could not read your product page repeats every week, in a market where being served in French is a right.

Where to start

Work through it in this order. It clears the most ground fastest.

1. ◆Open your store in French and complete a full purchase, from product page to confirmation email. Note every string still sitting in English.
2. ◆Confirm the French version of your terms of sale is provided first, or presented at least as prominently in a bilingual version.
3. ◆Check your product page against the OPC list above: address, phone, delivery timeframe, total payable.
4. ◆Read your terms and strip any mandatory arbitration or out-of-Quebec venue clause.
5. ◆Confirm your tax registration with your accountant.

Building from scratch, all of this gets handled during the build and costs close to nothing. It is what we do by default on every online store we ship. If your store already exists, our digital audit covers these points alongside performance and SEO. For where this sits in an overall budget, our guide on what an online store costs in Quebec gives the real ranges.

One caveat. This guide is a starting point and does not replace legal advice. For anything specific, the OQLF on French, the Office de la protection du consommateur on selling rules and Revenu Québec on tax remain the official sources.