Starting a Private Practice in Ontario: The Complete 2026 Checklist

Launching a practice is mostly a sequencing problem: dozens of small tasks, each easy, that stall people because the order is unclear. Here's the order.

1. Regulatory foundations

Confirm your registration status permits independent practice (CRPO RPs: check your category; CPO members: your certificate class and supervised-practice conditions). Verify any title-use rules for advertising. If you'll see clients in other provinces virtually, check each college's cross-border stance.

2. Business structure and protection

• Register a business name (or practise under your own).
• Professional liability insurance at your college's required minimum, plus commercial general liability if you'll rent space.
• A business bank account — separating money from day one saves your accountant hours and you money.

3. Money decisions

Set your fee against local market rates and your college's guidance; decide sliding-scale policy now, not client by client (see how to run a sliding scale). Psychotherapy delivered by many registered professionals is HST-exempt in Canada as of recent changes — confirm your specific designation's status with your accountant before registering for HST.

4. Clinical infrastructure

This is where the record-keeping obligations bite: PHIPA-aligned software with Canadian data residency, locked signed notes, retention-safe archiving, and audit trails. Set up intake and consent forms (treatment consent, telehealth consent, privacy notice), a fee agreement, and your assessment battery before the first client, ever try writing a consent process while a client waits.

5. Presence and pipeline

A simple professional page with your focus areas, fees, and online booking outperforms an expensive brochure site (PsychApp publishes one for you — see the website builder). List on Psychology Today and your association's directory. Tell your network you're accepting referrals: former colleagues remain the best first-client source.

6. The first-week test

Before launch, run a full fake client through your system: book online, complete intake, hold a video session, sign the note, send the invoice, take the payment, issue the receipt. Every gap you find is a client who won't hit it. PsychApp's free trial is a convenient sandbox for exactly this dry run.