Licensing - Employment Agencies

The Employment Standards Act requires that a person must not operate an employment agency unless the person is licensed under the Act. An employment agency is defined as “a person who, for a fee, recruits or offers to recruit employees for employers”. If a person is operating an employment agency for the sole purpose of hiring employees exclusively for one employer, a licence is not required.

• Follow this link to the Employment Agencies Factsheet
• Follow this link to the Foreign Workers Factsheet

For more information, see the following links to the Interpretation Guidelines Manual:

• Definition of an employment agency
• Employment agencies must be licensed
• Licensing of employment agencies
• Cancellation or suspension of employment agency licence
• Rules about licenses
• If a licence is refused, cancelled or suspended
• Surrender of licenses
• Appeals from the refusal, cancellation and suspension of a licence

Employment agency licence application and renewal forms are available to download in PDF. You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer before you can view PDF files. Download Adobe Acrobat Reader for free.

You must print off the form, fill it out and mail, fax or drop it off to the Employment Standards Branch office nearest you. The form cannot be submitted online.

• Follow this link to obtain an application form for an employment agency licence
• Follow this link to obtain an application form for an employment agency licence renewal

List of Employment Agencies - as of May 10, 2012

• Licensed agencies sorted by Agency name [pdf]
• Licensed agencies sorted by location [pdf]

For more information, please contact the Employment Standards Information Line: 1 800 663-3316