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Public Records Search — Quebec

Short answer

Quebec has the most generous corporate registry in Canada. The Registraire des entreprises is free, name-searchable, and publishes shareholders as well as directors. Plumitifs provide party-name court docket search through SOQUIJ, and the registre foncier and RDPRM are both cheap and searchable.

Governing privacy statute: Law 25 (Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector). Population 9,030,000. 3 documented gaps in what this province publishes.

Run a free scanQuébec · QC

Records landscape

What Quebec publishes, by registry

Four registry families answer four different questions. A province can be excellent at one and unusable for another, and knowing which before you start is most of the skill.

Corporate registry

Which companies is this person behind?

The Registraire des entreprises du Québec is the best free corporate registry in the country. Search is free and by name, and filings disclose directors, officers, and — uniquely among Canadian registries — shareholders, along with addresses and the declared principal activities. For beneficial ownership questions anywhere in Canada, the REQ is worth searching even when the subject is not obviously connected to Québec, because a Québec filing may name the shareholders that other provinces' registries hide.

Court records

Has this person sued, or been sued?

Plumitifs, accessible through SOQUIJ, provide party-name docket search across civil, criminal, and penal matters. Coverage and usability are much closer to British Columbia than to Ontario. Fees apply per search.

Land registry

What real property does this person own?

The registre foncier du Québec is online, searchable, and unusually inexpensive — often around a dollar per document. Coverage is comprehensive and the civil-law cadastral system makes parcel identification straightforward.

Personal property security

What is already pledged, and to whom?

The RDPRM is Québec's register of personal and movable real rights, the civil-law analogue to the common-law PPSA registries. It supports name, date of birth, and vehicle searches at roughly three dollars, making it the cheapest such search in Canada.

Unusually good here

What Quebec does better than most provinces

  • REQ is free, name-searchable, and publishes shareholders
  • Plumitifs offer real party-name court docket search
  • Registre foncier is comprehensive and very cheap
  • RDPRM is the least expensive personal property search in Canada

Gaps and limitations

What Quebec does not let you search

These are structural limits of the province's systems, not paywalls and not gaps in our coverage. Where one applies, the report says which courthouse or registry office a manual retrieval would need.

  • Records are predominantly in French, so extraction needs bilingual handling
  • Law 25 imposes stricter obligations than PIPEDA, including a private right of action
  • Civil-law terminology does not map cleanly onto common-law concepts in reports

Legal basis

Privacy law here

Searching statutory public registries and court records requires no notice to the subject — they are two of the five categories the Regulations Specifying Publicly Available Information treat as collectable without consent. See acceptable use for the purposes we decline.

3 cities

City-level notes in Quebec

A city page exists only where there is something city-specific to say — which courthouse hears its matters, which land registry division covers it, and the local quirks that cause failed searches.

  • Montreal

    Palais de justice de Montréal, 1 rue Notre-Dame Est

    3 local notes · 1,760,000 people

  • Quebec City

    Palais de justice de Québec, 300 boulevard Jean-Lesage

    1 local note · 550,000 people

  • Laval

    Palais de justice de Laval, 2800 boulevard Saint-Martin Ouest

    1 local note · 440,000 people

Questions

Quebec public records — common questions

Is the Quebec enterprise registry free to search?

Yes. The Registraire des entreprises du Québec offers free name search and free access to enterprise statements, which disclose directors, officers, shareholders, and addresses. It is the most open corporate registry in Canada and materially better than the fee-bearing registries in Ontario and Alberta.

What is a plumitif and how do I search one?

A plumitif is a Quebec court docket. Plumitifs are searchable by party name through SOQUIJ, covering civil, criminal, and penal matters. This gives Quebec court records research capability much closer to British Columbia's than to Ontario's, where no equivalent public docket search exists.

Does Quebec's Law 25 change what I can search about someone?

It changes obligations more than availability. Public registries and court records remain publicly accessible. What Law 25 adds is stricter duties on anyone holding personal information about Quebec residents — including de-indexing and cessation-of-dissemination rights, mandatory breach reporting, and a private right of action for damages. It is the most consequential privacy statute in Canada for a data business to get wrong.

Related

Where to go next

Services in Quebec

Guides

Compare provinces

The same search concludes differently one border over.

All provinces and territories

A Quebec search runs against the registries above and states its own coverage: what was searched, what returned nothing, and what would need a manual retrieval. How it works.

Markdown /locations/quebec.md — the same content with no navigation chrome, for machine readers.

Quebec Public Records Search | Sleuthify