Somewhere in the listing paperwork you will be asked for a piece of government photo identification and a short form. Sellers are usually more surprised by this than buyers are, on the reasonable logic that you are the one receiving money rather than sending it.
It applies to both sides of a transaction, and it is federal law rather than a Chestnut Park policy.
The short version
The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada is the country's financial intelligence unit. Under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, real estate brokerages are reporting entities in the same way banks and accountants are, and the obligations attach to the purchase or sale of real property.
Property is where large sums of illegitimate money have historically gone to rest. The rules follow from that, and they have tightened rather than eased. For an ordinary seller the whole thing is a licence, a form, and about four minutes at the listing appointment.
These particular requirements attach to purchases and sales. A residential lease does not trigger the FINTRAC identity process, which sometimes confuses owners who do both. See Selling a Tenanted Property.
What I need from you, and when
At the listing appointment, alongside the listing agreement. Doing it then means it is finished long before an offer is on the table, which is when nobody wants to be looking for a passport.
Every registered owner. If the property is in two names, I need both. If an owner is abroad or unwell, tell me early, because the remote route has its own requirements and a little notice makes it simple.
Corporate or trust ownership needs the underlying individuals identified: typically anyone holding twenty-five per cent or more, plus directors. Bring the articles and the register. This is the one version of the process that takes real time, so it is worth starting before the photographs are booked.
An estate sale needs the executor identified, along with the authority to sell. Again, early rather than late.
The ways identity can be verified
One of these is enough, and the first covers nearly everybody.
- Government photo identification that is authentic, valid and current: a driver's licence or a passport. Check the expiry date, which is where this usually stalls.
- The credit file method, using a Canadian credit file at least three years old that matches your name, address and date of birth.
- The dual-process method, combining two pieces of information from two independent, reliable sources. This is the route for an owner without a Canadian credit history.
It reaches your buyer too, which is to your benefit
The buyer's own brokerage verifies the buyer. Since 1 October 2025 the requirement also extends to unrepresented parties, so a buyer arriving without an agent of their own gets verified as well. That gap used to exist and it no longer does.
You are about to hand over a title to somebody on the strength of a promise to pay. A regime under which every party to the transaction has been identified, and every deposit has a documented source, is protection for you rather than an imposition on you.
The deposit
When your buyer's deposit reaches the listing brokerage, a receipt of funds record is created: the amount, the account it came from, and who sent it.
This is one of several practical reasons a deposit should arrive as a bank draft or a wire from an account in the buyer's own name. A deposit arriving from an unrelated third party is not fatal, but it needs explaining and documenting, and it is far better established before you accept an offer than after. See How Deposits Work.
Where $10,000 or more arrives as physical cash within twenty-four hours, a large cash transaction record is required. In practice this effectively never happens on a residential sale.
Where your information goes
It is held securely for five years, and the brokerage must be able to produce it to FINTRAC within thirty days if asked.
Nothing routine is reported. Being identified does not generate a report about you. Your details are not sent to FINTRAC, to the CRA, or to anyone else in the ordinary course.
Reporting is reserved for suspicious and specified transactions, a threshold an ordinary sale does not approach. Where such a report is made, the law prohibits telling the person concerned, which is what stops somebody being tipped off.
FINTRAC identification has nothing to do with capital gains, the principal residence exemption, or your reporting obligations to the CRA. Those are a different subject and they are dealt with in Capital Gains. If you are a non-resident selling Canadian property, there are withholding and clearance certificate requirements that genuinely do matter to your proceeds, and your lawyer and accountant should be on that early.
Making it painless
- Have valid identification for every owner ready at the listing appointment.
- Flag corporate, trust or estate ownership as soon as we start talking, not the week the offers come in.
- If an owner is out of the country, tell me at the outset so we can arrange the remote route properly.
- Ask me anything about the form before you sign it. I am happy to walk through what each line is for.