Bill 96 and Your Website: What Quebec's French Rules Require

Bill 96 (now Law 14, An Act respecting French, the official and common language of Québec) is the 2022 reform of Quebec's Charter of the French language. If your business has an establishment in Quebec and sells to Quebec customers, your website must be available in French. You can also have an English version, but French must not be harder to reach or poorer in quality. The same applies to your online store, terms, invoices, product information and social media.

Most of the website rule is older than Bill 96: the Charter has long treated websites as "commercial publications". What Bill 96 changed is the context around it. It wrote in a clear right for consumers to be informed and served in French, it required standard-form contracts to be offered in French first, it tightened the trademark and signage rules from 1 June 2025, and it gave the language office, the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF), more enforcement tools. Below is what that means for your site in plain language, followed by the practical part: how to build a French-first or bilingual site that stays compliant.

This article is general information, not legal advice. If your situation is unusual (no Quebec establishment, a franchise, a lot of trademarked product names), check with a Quebec lawyer or the OQLF.

What is Bill 96, in simple terms?

Quebec's National Assembly adopted Bill 96 on 24 May 2022 and it received assent on 1 June 2022, according to BCF. It amends the Charter of the French language, the 1977 law often called Bill 101. Its provisions came into force in stages between 2022 and 2025.

The Quebec government's own summary of business obligations lists what a business operating in Quebec must do:

• respect consumers' right to be informed and served in French
• write product labels, packaging and instructions in French
• make catalogues, advertising and websites available in French
• make software available in French when a French version exists
• write contracts, invoices, receipts and other consumer documents in French
• keep commercial signs in French, or with French clearly predominant

Does Bill 96 apply to my website?

Yes, if your business has an establishment in Quebec and you target Quebec customers. Section 52 of the Charter requires catalogues, brochures, commercial directories "and similar publications" to be drawn up in French. The OQLF applies this to websites and social media. In a 2022 case published by the Quebec government, a company paid a $1,500 fine because the French version of its website was not available "under conditions at least equal" to the English one. That case cited section 52 of the Charter and section 10 of the Regulation respecting the language of commerce and business.

On who is covered, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) says the translation obligations for online commerce apply to businesses with an establishment in Quebec that are targeting the Quebec market. For businesses without a Quebec establishment, the OQLF currently "opts for an incentive-based approach". Law firm Osler notes one important exception, though: the French-first rule for consumer contracts can apply even when the seller is outside Quebec and has no establishment there. If you sell online to Quebec consumers from Ontario or abroad, your checkout terms still matter.

Bilingual is allowed. English-first is not

You don't have to remove English. As Snell & Wilmer puts it, text in another language is allowed but "may not be given greater prominence than the French text". In practice, that comes down to three things:

• Completeness. Every commercial page in English needs a French equivalent: product pages, service descriptions, promotions, terms, privacy policy, FAQs.
• Access. French must be as easy to reach as English. A French version buried behind an English landing page, or missing from the main navigation, is a risk.
• Quality. The regulation asks for French "under conditions of accessibility and quality at least equal" to the other version. A rough machine translation that leaves English fragments in menus, buttons or checkout errors falls short of that.

Social media counts too

The rule follows your content onto other channels. In February 2026, Global News reported that a family bakery in Montreal's Villeray neighbourhood received an OQLF letter saying its TikTok videos had too much English. The office's position was that English posts are allowed, but the amount of French content must be equivalent.

What Bill 96 requires beyond the website pages

A website is usually more than pages. Here is how the main Bill 96 obligations show up online.

Part of your online business	What the rule requires	Since
Pages, product descriptions, promotions	Available in French; other languages no more prominent	Long-standing (s. 52), confirmed after Bill 96
Customer service (chat, email, contact forms)	Customers can be informed and served in French	1 June 2022
Terms of sale, sign-up terms (contracts of adhesion)	Provided in French first; another language only after the customer has seen the French and chosen it	1 June 2023
Invoices, receipts, order confirmations	In French (may also be in another language)	Long-standing, part of consumer documents
Product names and labels shown online	French, with limits on untranslated trademarks	1 June 2025
Storefront signs with English trademarks	French markedly predominant	1 June 2025

On contracts, CFIB summarizes the rule for contracts signed from 1 June 2023: a contract of adhesion must be drafted only in French, bilingual, or "first offered in French" before a version entirely in another language is used. For a website, the terms customers accept at checkout or sign-up are exactly this kind of contract. Osler warns that if the French version isn't provided at the outset, the Quebec customer could seek to have all or part of the contract declared unenforceable.

On products, Bill 96 narrowed the trademark exception from 1 June 2025. A non-French trademark can stay untranslated in more limited cases, and generic or descriptive words in a product name must appear in French. Snell & Wilmer says products manufactured before 1 June 2025 that don't comply may be sold until 1 June 2027. If your online store lists products, that transition date is worth tracking with your suppliers.

What happens if you don't comply?

Enforcement usually starts with a complaint to the OQLF, which then contacts the business. The penalties are real. CFIB lists fines for companies from $3,000 to $30,000 per day for a first offence, $6,000 to $60,000 for a second and $9,000 to $90,000 for a third. Snell & Wilmer notes that each day of non-compliance can count as a separate offence. Osler adds that Bill 96 lets Quebec residents and businesses bring private actions for damages, including punitive damages, and ask a court for an injunction.

The practical lesson: building French in from the start costs far less than retrofitting it after a complaint.

How to make your website Bill 96 ready: a checklist

Work through this in order. Most of it is about structure, not just translation.

1. Inventory everything customers see. List pages, product data, PDFs, pop-ups, cookie banners, forms, error messages, automated emails, invoices and PDF receipts. Teams usually forget the system texts.
2. Make French the default for Quebec visitors. Either show French first or put a clear, equal language choice on the first screen. Don't send Quebec visitors to an English-only homepage.
3. Use a separate URL for each language. For example, /fr/ and /en/, with each page linked to its counterpart. This makes French easy to reach and easy to show the OQLF. It also helps search engines show the right version to each searcher.
4. Translate the transactional parts first. Checkout, cart, account pages, terms of sale, privacy policy, order and shipping emails, and invoices. These are where contracts and consumer documents live.
5. Get the trademarks and product names right. Make sure generic words in product names appear in French. Confirm which trademarks can stay untranslated, and ask suppliers for French product data.
6. Support French customer service. Contact forms, chat widgets and auto-replies should work in French, and someone should be able to answer in French.
7. Keep both languages in sync. Make it a rule that nothing is published in English until the French is ready, including promotions and social posts. Without that rule, sites easily drift out of compliance.
8. Check quality, not just coverage. Have a fluent French speaker review the site. Pay particular attention to Quebec usage, prices and dates (for example, 19,99 $), and the tone of the legal texts.

Building a French-first site: plugin or built bilingual?

There are two common routes:

	Translation plugin added to an English site	Site built bilingual from the start
Speed to start	Fast	Slower to plan
French completeness	Gaps are common (checkout, emails, PDFs, third-party widgets)	Every template, email and document planned in both languages
Keeping in sync	Easy to publish English-only by mistake	The workflow can require both languages before publishing
URLs and search	Depends on the plugin	Separate language URLs planned in the structure
Ongoing cost	Plugin subscription plus translation	Translation plus maintenance of one structure

A plugin can work for a small brochure site, especially if a human checks the French. It gets harder for an online store or a site with customer accounts. Much of the text there comes from the shop system, the payment provider and the email service, not from your pages.

Having it built for you

If you would rather have a French-first or bilingual site designed, built and looked after for you, Buildly does that on a monthly subscription. It covers business websites and online stores. You send a free brief and get a written scope and price. Then you approve each stage: scope, wireframes, design, build and launch (how it works). The structure, language switching and both language versions of templates and emails can be planned in that scope from the first wireframe. You provide or approve the French and English content.

A small business website fits the Essential plan: a $35/month launch price (regular $60), which subscribers keep for as long as they stay subscribed. It has a $100 setup fee, the initial build at no extra charge, hosting, 2 change requests per year, and you own the source code and database after 12 months. Online stores with accounts and checkout fit the larger plans. See pricing for what each plan includes. Buildly builds and maintains the site. It doesn't give legal advice, so confirm your obligations with a lawyer or the OQLF.

The short version

• If you have an establishment in Quebec and sell to Quebec customers, your website must be fully available in French, and French can't be less prominent than English.
• Your checkout terms must be offered in French first (since 1 June 2023), even for some sellers outside Quebec.
• Invoices, order emails, product information and social posts count too.
• The trademark and signage rules changed on 1 June 2025, and the transition for older products runs to 1 June 2027.
• The cheapest way to comply is to build both languages into the site's structure rather than adding French afterwards.

Ready to plan a site that works in both languages? Send a free brief.