The Open Database of Businesses
The Open Database of Businesses (ODBus) is a collection of open data containing the names, addresses, and industry information of a selection of businesses across Canada - made available under the Open Government Licence - Canada.
This database aims to enhance access to a harmonized collection of business data across Canada and is a component of the Linkable Open Data Environment (LODE).
Data sources and methodology
The inputs for the ODBus are primarily datasets provided by municipal, regional, or provincial sources available to the public through open government portals under various types of open data licences, or otherwise published on their webpages and released under an open licence with their permission.
The current version of the database (version 1.0) contains approximately 450,000 records. The individual datasets were collected from May 2022 to December 2022 and processed and harmonized into the ODBus. Not all variables from the original data are retained. For reference, the original sources are linked in the metadata document that accompanies the ODBus.
The ODBus does not contain all businesses within Canada and is separate from the Statistics Canada Business Register.
A selection of variables included in the ODBus are listed below:
- Name
- Business Sector
- Business ID number
- Licence Number
- Licence Type
- NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) Code
- Number of Employees
- Status
- Address
- Municipality Name
- Province
- Postal Code
- Census Subdivision Name
- Longitude
- Latitude
For the full list of variables, their definitions, and more information on how the variables were compiled, see the metadata document that accompanies the ODBus data download.
Downloading the ODBus
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