Bill 96 and Your Quebec Trade Website: What Is Required
If you run a plumbing, electrical, roofing, or HVAC business in Quebec and you have a website, that website is a commercial publication under Quebec law. The Charter of the French Language governs the language your business uses with the public, and the 2022 reform known as Bill 96 (adopted as the Act respecting French, the official and common language of Quebec) tightened several of those rules. This guide is a plain summary of what a trade-business owner should know, drawn from the OQLF’s own public guidance and from public explanations by Quebec legal sources.
This is not legal advice, and it is not a compliance opinion on your specific site. The Charter, its regulations, and how the OQLF enforces them can change, and the right answer for your business depends on facts this guide does not know. For anything that carries real consequences, confirm the current rules with the Office quebecois de la langue francaise (OQLF) or a qualified professional such as a lawyer or notary. Where a point below depends on a rule or an effective date that can be amended, we say so.
1. Who these rules apply to
The obligation is tied to doing business in Quebec, not to where your company is registered. The OQLF states that the commercial publications of businesses carrying on activities in Quebec must be in French (“Les publications commerciales des entreprises qui exercent des activites au Quebec doivent etre redigees en francais”) and that this covers commercial messages on the websites of businesses doing business in Quebec (OQLF, Langue du commerce et des affaires, oqlf.gouv.qc.ca). For a local trade serving homeowners in Quebec, that means the website is squarely in scope. Some obligations also scale with headcount, so the exact set of duties can depend on your number of employees; public legal summaries note thresholds tied to business size (Langlois Lawyers, langlois.ca). If your size sits near one of those thresholds, confirm which duties apply to you specifically.
2. Your website has to exist in French
The core rule for a trade website is straightforward: a French version has to be available, and it has to be a real, complete version rather than a token page. Educaloi, a public legal-information organization, states that a business with a Quebec presence serving Quebecers must have a French version of its website, that versions in other languages are permitted alongside French, and that for e-commerce all purchase-related information (product details, order forms, invoices, receipts) must be available in French (Educaloi, Language laws and doing business in Quebec, educaloi.qc.ca). The OQLF frames consumers as having the right to access complete French versions of business websites, not partial ones (OQLF, oqlf.gouv.qc.ca).
For a trade site, the practical reading is that every customer-facing route needs a French equivalent: your services pages, your service-area pages, your quote-request or contact form, and any confirmation or thank-you page a customer sees after submitting. An English-only page with no French counterpart is the common gap.
3. French is not the afterthought
The Charter does not treat French as a translation bolted onto an English site. It treats French as the baseline the public is entitled to, with other languages permitted in addition. Educaloi notes that other-language versions are acceptable where the French version is of comparable quality (Educaloi, educaloi.qc.ca). In plain terms, a French page that is visibly thinner, older, or more broken than its English twin is the kind of thing the rule is meant to prevent. If you maintain both languages, keep them at parity: same pages, same information, same working forms.
Because “comparable quality” is a judgment rather than a pixel measurement, treat it as a direction rather than a precise test, and confirm anything borderline with the OQLF or a professional.
4. Public signs and commercial advertising: French markedly predominant
Beyond straight publications, Quebec has a stricter standard for public signage and commercial advertising, and this is where Bill 96 and its regulations made the most visible change. For public signs, posters, and commercial advertising, French must be “markedly predominant” over any other language. Public sources describe the regulatory definition of markedly predominant as French text occupying at least twice the space of the other language, with legibility and visibility at least equivalent (DLA Piper, Quebec’s language laws changed this week, dlapiper.com; OQLF, oqlf.gouv.qc.ca). Legal summaries tie the current signage and advertising provisions to Charter articles in the 58 series (Langlois Lawyers, langlois.ca).
Public sources report that enhanced requirements for public signs, posters, and commercial advertising came into force on June 1, 2025 (DLA Piper, dlapiper.com). If your trade runs paid advertising, wrapped trucks, storefront or yard signage, or promotional banners aimed at a Quebec audience, this “twice the space” standard is the one to check against, and because it is set by regulation and can be amended, confirm the current wording before relying on a specific ratio.
5. The trademark exception is narrow
Business owners sometimes assume an English business name or logo is automatically exempt. The exception is real but narrow. Public sources report that, as of June 1, 2025, a trademark may appear in a language other than French on products, signs, and advertising only where it is a recognized trademark under the Trademarks Act and no corresponding French version is entered in the trademark register, and that any generic term or description inside the mark must still appear in French (DLA Piper, dlapiper.com; Langlois Lawyers, langlois.ca, referencing the 58.1 and 68.1 article series). This is a specific legal test, not a general pass for English branding. If you intend to rely on it, that is a question for a professional rather than something to assume from a website.
6. Contracts, quotes, and terms the customer cannot negotiate
Trade work often involves fixed terms a customer accepts as-is: booking or service terms, cancellation policies, standard-form agreements. Public summaries state that a contract of adhesion (a standard-form contract the other party cannot negotiate) must be drawn up in French, and that the customer may agree to another language only after being presented with the French version, with no fee for the French version (Langlois Lawyers, langlois.ca, referencing Charter article 55; OQLF, oqlf.gouv.qc.ca). For a trade site, that means any policy or terms page a customer must accept should be available in French first, with English offered in addition rather than instead.
7. If you sell or label products
Most trades sell a service, but some also sell or supply products (fixtures, parts, units, materials). Public sources state that inscriptions on a product, its packaging, and accompanying documents must be in French, with other languages permitted at no greater prominence, subject to defined exceptions (Educaloi, educaloi.qc.ca; Langlois Lawyers, langlois.ca, referencing Charter article 51). If your website presents or sells products, the same French-first expectation extends to how you describe them online. The detailed product-inscription and product-name rules also changed on June 1, 2025 per public reporting (DLA Piper, dlapiper.com), so treat product-labeling questions as their own topic to confirm.
8. Enforcement, and who to ask
The OQLF is the body that administers and enforces the Charter (OQLF, oqlf.gouv.qc.ca; Educaloi, educaloi.qc.ca). Public legal information describes financial penalties for non-compliance, with higher amounts for repeat offences (Educaloi, educaloi.qc.ca). The specific figures are set out in that public source, and penalty amounts and enforcement practice can change, so confirm the current details with the OQLF rather than relying on this page. The constructive way to read enforcement is not fear of a fine but the plain point underneath it: in Quebec, a French-first site is the expected default, and building it that way from the start is simpler than retrofitting it later.
9. A short practical checklist for a trade website
Pulling the above together, the questions a trade-business owner can reasonably ask about their own site, all subject to confirmation with the OQLF or a professional:
- Does every customer-facing page have a complete French equivalent, including forms and confirmation pages? (Educaloi, educaloi.qc.ca)
- Is the French version genuinely comparable to any English version, not thinner or out of date? (Educaloi, educaloi.qc.ca)
- If you show a language switcher, does it avoid presenting English as the default for a Quebec audience? (This is our own read of the French-first principle above, not a specific OQLF rule on language switchers.)
- For paid ads and signage aimed at Quebec, is French markedly predominant, per the twice-the-space standard? (DLA Piper, dlapiper.com)
- Are any terms or policy pages a customer must accept available in French first? (Langlois Lawyers, langlois.ca)
- If you rely on an English trademark, have you confirmed the narrow exception actually applies to you? (DLA Piper, dlapiper.com)
None of these require a lawyer to spot. Acting on them, and confirming the borderline ones, is where a qualified professional or the OQLF comes in.
Where this fits with your website
For a Quebec trade business, a French-first website is not only a legal expectation, it is how most of your customers actually search and read. A site built in French from the start, with a complete English version alongside where you want one, tends to be both closer to the Charter’s baseline and closer to how a Quebec homeowner expects to be spoken to.
Tradesmaster builds bilingual websites for plumbers, electricians, roofers, and HVAC businesses in Quebec, with the French version treated as a first-class site rather than a translation layer. We are a web-design agency, not a law firm, and nothing here or in our work is legal advice: questions about your specific obligations belong with the OQLF or a qualified professional. If you want a straight read (a design read, not a legal compliance check) on whether your current site is built French-first the way a Quebec trade site should be, tell us about your project using the contact form on this page.
Websites built for your trade
Bill 96 lands differently depending on how your business quotes and contracts. See the trades we build for, including our websites for electricians and general contractors.