Independent. No paid placements.Reviewed as findings changeEditorial policyNewsletter
The Credit RecordAn independent record of credit repair and debt settlement companies

Last reviewed: 15 September 2026

Home › The Library › Canadian credit freezes

Credit freezes in Canada: what's actually available, and where

Our own explainer on credit freezes, locks, and fraud alerts covers the U.S., where a 2018 federal law made a security freeze free nationwide, with a legal one-hour deadline to lift it. Canada has no equivalent federal statute, and — the same structural pattern our Canadian credit reporting explainer describes for the file itself — the actual legal right to freeze your credit file in Canada is being built one province at a time, starting in 2023 and still not covering most of the country.

Quebec first, after a specific breach

Quebec's Credit Assessment Agents Act (Bill 53), assented to on October 28, 2020, was a direct legislative response to the 2019 Desjardins data breach, which ultimately exposed the personal information of all 4.2 million of the credit union's members. The Act itself, along with the province's Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) as regulator of "credit assessment agents," came into general force on February 1, 2021, when the AMF formally designated Equifax Canada and TransUnion of Canada as the two agents subject to it — but the specific sections creating the free security-freeze right were deliberately staggered to a later, separately-set date, fixed by a subsequent government decree as February 1, 2023. From that date, both bureaus have been required to let a Quebec resident place and remove a security freeze on their file at no cost — more than three years before any other province had an equivalent legal right.

Ontario next, arriving mid-2026

Ontario followed through Bill 142, the Better for Consumers, Better for Businesses Act, 2023, which received royal assent on December 6, 2023 and enacted a new Consumer Protection Act, 2023 alongside amendments to Ontario's existing Consumer Reporting Act. Those Consumer Reporting Act amendments took effect on July 1, 2026, giving an Ontario resident the right to place a free security freeze with Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada, plus a free monthly electronic credit report from each bureau (replacing the previous once-a-year or mail-request-only access our own Canadian credit reporting explainer describes as the prior norm). One feature was reported as arriving later: the right to temporarily suspend, rather than fully remove and later re-place, an existing freeze — multiple news outlets reported TransUnion specifically was given until July 1, 2027 to build that suspension feature, so a consumer applying for credit before then may need to fully lift and later re-place a freeze rather than pause it.

British Columbia scheduled for 2027

British Columbia is next in line rather than already live. Bill 28, amending the province's Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act, received royal assent on December 3, 2025; the government's own announcement describes free monthly credit reports and scores plus free security freezes and alerts once the amendments come into force, targeted for August 2027, alongside new rules specifically governing credit-monitoring and credit-repair businesses operating in the province.

A concrete example of the difference: the exact same identity-theft scare, experienced by a resident of Quebec, Ontario, and Nova Scotia on the same day in late 2026, produces three different answers. The Quebec resident has had a free, legally guaranteed freeze available for more than three years. The Ontario resident got that same legal right only months earlier. The Nova Scotia resident has no provincial freeze law at all yet, and depends entirely on whether Equifax Canada or TransUnion Canada chooses to offer a comparable tool voluntarily, outside of any legal requirement to do so.

Most of the country still has no legal freeze right

Outside Quebec, Ontario, and B.C.'s scheduled 2027 rollout, no other Canadian province or territory currently has its own statute requiring a credit bureau to offer a security freeze at all. A fraud alert — the weaker tool that flags a file for extra identity verification rather than blocking access to it outright, covered in more detail on our U.S. freeze-and-alert explainer — is offered by both bureaus nationwide regardless of provincial law, but a true freeze, with a legal deadline the bureau actually has to meet, currently exists only where a province has passed a statute creating one.

Compare to the U.S.: the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act made a free freeze a single, nationwide, nearly-instant federal right for every U.S. state at once, effective September 21, 2018. Canada is building the same protection through separate provincial statutes passed years apart, with more provinces likely to follow — check your own bureau's current policy for your province directly, since which legal right actually applies to you can change based on where you live and the effective date named above.

References

  1. Credit Assessment Agents Act, CQLR c. A-8.2 (Quebec, Bill 53) — assented to October 28, 2020; general force and AMF credit-assessment-agent designation effective February 1, 2021; the Act's own security-freeze sections (ss. 8-9) staggered to a separate coming-into-force date, fixed by government decree (published in the Gazette officielle du Québec) as February 1, 2023; independently cross-checked against Légis Québec's own dated statute text, the AMF's and Government of Quebec's own "AMF designates Equifax Canada and Trans Union of Canada as credit assessment agents" releases (Quebec.ca and lautorite.qc.ca), and the National Assembly of Québec's own bill record.
  2. CBC News and Radio-Canada, "Credit freezes help stop identity fraud — so why are they only offered in Quebec?" — independent reporting connecting the 2021 Act to the 2019 Desjardins breach and describing Quebec as the only jurisdiction with a legislated freeze right until Ontario's 2026 law took effect.
  3. Bill 142, Better for Consumers, Better for Businesses Act, 2023, S.O. 2023, c. 22 (Ontario) — received royal assent December 6, 2023, enacting the Consumer Protection Act, 2023 and amending the Consumer Reporting Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C.33, to add a free security-freeze right and free monthly electronic credit reports; independently cross-checked against Blakes, Torys, Osler, and Gowling WLG client-alert summaries of the amendments, and multiple independent news reports (money.ca, Yahoo Finance Canada) of the July 1, 2026 in-force date and TransUnion's reported July 1, 2027 extension for the freeze-suspension feature.
  4. Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act amendments, Bill 28 (British Columbia), royal assent December 3, 2025 — Government of British Columbia news releases "Stronger tools coming to protect people from credit fraud" and "Strengthening consumer protection in B.C." (news.gov.bc.ca), and The Globe and Mail's independent reporting, describing a free security-freeze, alert, and monthly-report right and new credit-repair/credit-monitoring business rules targeted for an August 2027 in-force date.
  5. Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, Pub. L. No. 115-174, § 301 (U.S.; signed May 24, 2018, freeze provisions effective September 21, 2018) — cited here only for the nationwide-at-once comparison; see our own U.S. credit freeze explainer, linked above, for the full mechanics.

Related