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Canada ESA Register
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ESA certificates in Canada: what they are worth

An ESA certificate is a private document a company issues about your pet. That is the whole of what it is, and knowing that up front makes it much easier to decide whether you want one.

What an emotional support animal is, in plain words

Before anything else

There is no official Canadian register, ours included

A certificate can record your pet’s details in a tidy, checkable form, and give you something to hand over in an everyday conversation.

It cannot create a right to housing, a right of access anywhere, or any obligation on anybody to accept your animal. No government in Canada issues or recognises these certificates, and no official register exists for them to point to. It is not a guide dog or service dog certificate under any provincial law.

Any certificate implying otherwise, through words like “official”, “approved” or “registered” doing quiet work in a headline, is describing something that does not exist.

The register card and the letter-size certificate, as they arrive. A real register number takes the place of the dots.

How to judge one before you buy

Does it tell you it carries no legal weight before you pay, or only in the terms? Does it charge every year? Does it ask about your health, and if so, why? Can you find out who you are buying from, with a legal name and an address, and how to reach a person?

Those four questions sort this market fairly quickly, and they are worth asking of us too. Is ESA registration legitimate in Canada?

What ours looks like

A letter-size certificate with your pet’s photo and a unique number, and a register card at true bank-card size with a QR code pointing at a public lookup page. Both carry the line about not being a legal document, printed on the documents themselves rather than hidden on a website.

One payment of $35, and the entry is current for 18 months. The purchase is final once the documents are delivered, and any refund that is ever made marks the entry inactive, so the credential never outlives the thing it confirms.

What the lookup page shows

It confirms that we issued that specific entry and whether it is still current, expired or inactive. It shows your pet’s details and the status, never your name, email address or any contact details.

What there is to buy

The Certificate$35 USD

One payment. Current for 18 months. Prices are in US dollars. Any sales tax is calculated by Creem and shown at checkout before you pay.

Not a legal document. Canada ESA Register is a private service, not a government body, and no official register of emotional support animals exists in Canada. It does not give you a legal right to keep a pet, to housing, or to access with your animal.

Register your pet for $35
A letter for your landlord, on its own or with the certificate, and gifts

Questions, answered plainly

Is an ESA certificate a legal document?

No. It creates no rights and obliges nobody to accept your pet. If a registry tells you otherwise, that is the moment to close the tab.

Is it recognised by the government?

No, and neither is anyone else’s. There is no federal or provincial scheme in Canada for emotional support animals to be recognised by.

Will a landlord accept it?

They may look at it, and nothing obliges them to. In most provinces the lease decides whether pets are allowed; in Ontario a no-pets clause is void once you are a tenant, certificate or not. Pets and tenancy law, province by province.

What happens after 18 months?

The entry stops being current and the lookup page shows it as expired. Nothing is charged. If you want another, you buy another.

Also worth reading

Canada ESA Register is a private service and is not a government body. No official register of emotional support animals exists in Canada, and emotional support animals have no special status as such in Canadian law. This certificate is a keepsake and a convenience credential for everyday conversations. It creates no right of access to housing, transport, shops or anywhere else, and nobody is obliged to accept it. It is not a guide dog or service dog certificate under any provincial law. Whether you can keep a pet in a rental is decided by your province’s tenancy law, your lease and any condo or strata rules. Canada ESA Register is not a law firm and this page is not legal advice.