Stay compliant with Quebec's Bill 96

Bill 96 hits everything you ship from digital to print. LILT keeps you compliant, continuously.

Quebec Bill 96 explained

What, who, when, and what it costs you?

Bill 96 makes French the required language of commerce, work, and public communication in Quebec. If a customer or an employee can read it, it has to exist in French. Any business operating or selling into Quebec is subject to the commercial requirements. At 25 employees you also register with the Office quebecois de la langue francaise (OQLF) and run a francization programme.

Starting June 2025, signage rules came into effect. The next hard deadline is 1 June 2027, the end of the sell-through grace period for non-compliant product inventory.

If non-compliant, penalties accrue daily, from C$3,000 to C$30,000, and escalate. The harder cost is commercial: inventory you cannot sell, a product launch held at the border, and a brand that reads as indifferent to the market it is selling into. And the obligation renews with every launch and update.

Every translation requirement supported by LILT, handled as it ships

Print or digital: if it carries your brand or your product information into Quebec, it is in scope. This is not an exhaustive list.

Packaging, labels, and what ships in the box

Inscriptions, labels, packaging, containers, wrapping. Plus manuals, warranty certificates, user guides, and anything else in the box. (s. 51)

Descriptive terms inside your trademark

Your non-French trademark can stay. The generic and descriptive terms inside it cannot. Most brands find this one late, because it means reopening artwork, not just copy. (s. 51.1)

Websites, e-commerce, and collateral

Catalogues, brochures, directories, websites, e-commerce, on terms no less favourable than English. Warehouse it elsewhere in Canada and sell online into Quebec, and it still counts. (s. 52)

Software, app, and game interfaces

Operating systems, app interfaces, game UI. Product strings are content, which catches every team whose copy lives in code instead of a CMS. (s. 52.1)

Signage and advertising

Public signage, posters, commercial advertising. Where a non-French trademark appears on exterior signage, French must be markedly predominant. (s. 58)

Contracts, invoices, and employee content

Contracts of adhesion, invoices, receipts, order forms. Collective agreements, policies, intranets, HR systems, training for Quebec staff. Support scripts, chat, and help centres too. (s. 5, 43, 55, 57)

Technology and translation from a single partner

Centralize and streamlined workflows powered by AI, agents, and human experts that reduce cost and complexity to meet Bill 96 requirements today and manage language at scale for the long term.

Ship French as fast as you ship content

Marketing launches a campaign, product ships a release, support publishes forty new articles. All of it needs French before it goes live. With the largest ecosystem of 100+ pre-built connectors, LILT connects into your CMS, PIM, commerce, and support tools, our multilingual AI models that is customized for you and knows your brand voice translates accurately and at speed with human review if needed, so French ships when the content does.

Spend on human review where the risk actually is

A store-locator page and a warranty certificate do not carry the same exposure, so they should not cost the same. You set the tiers: Instant AI for low-traffic and internal content, expert-verified for packaging, contracts, signage, and anything that is high-stakes.

Spend less, while volume grows

Our adaptive AI compounds in quality. Every verifier edit retrains your custom AI model in real time. That means the terminology that took three rounds to settle with other vendors is applied automatically the next time. Each project needs less review than the last, and costs less.

Ready answers for the OQLF, not a compliance fire drill

Enforcement usually starts with a single complaint, and the question is never whether you meant to comply. End-to-end governance gives granular visibility into every version, stamped with who approved it and when. An audit trail you can hand to a regulator or your general counsel.

Run one operation, not multiple vendors

A Quebec agency, a generic AI tool, a French reviewer. Every vendor handoff loses context, and nobody owns the whole picture. With LILT, you get one unified, governed system for efficient operation instead: models, workflows, agentic and human expert verification, connectors, analytics.

Support that covers you around the clock

Round-the-clock coverage across regions and time zones, with a dedicated support team that knows your terminology and your workflows and stands by on Slack, email, or call to help right away, not next business day to help you meet compliance.

One platform, not a patchwork

Keeping up with change

A new quote and a new queue every time content changes

Connected to your CMS, PIM, commerce, and support content and instant AI translation. New content is covered in French as it ships

Review bottleneck

The same corrections re-entered by hand, project after project

Verifier edits retrain the model. Each project needs less review

Audit trail

Evidence reassembled from email threads and vendor invoices

End-to-end governance with audit trails for the OQLF

Risk tiering

One price, one process, whatever the risk

Instant for low-risk content, expert-verified for high-stakes content like packaging, legal, and signage

Cost over time

Full price for the same work again

Adaptive AI self-learns automatically and improves in quality. Your content becomes an asset that compounds

"LILT's vertically-integrated solution has had huge efficiency gains for ASICS. Now I finally have time to think more strategically about how localization can help grow our business instead of spending all my time managing vendors."

Alessandra Binazzi

Director of Localization at ASICS Digital

Frequently asked questions

Who does Bill 96 apply to?

Any business operating in or selling into Quebec. At 25 or more employees in Quebec you also have to register with the Office quebecois de la langue francaise and run a francization programme. Enforcement usually starts with a single customer complaint, not a scheduled audit.

What content does Bill 96 require in French?

Packaging, labels, manuals, and anything supplied with a product. Websites, e-commerce, catalogues, and brochures. Software and app interfaces. Signage and advertising. Contracts of adhesion, invoices, and receipts. Internal policies, HR systems, and training for Quebec staff. The law does not treat digital differently from print.

Does Bill 96 require Canadian French specifically?

In practice, yes. The requirement is French as used in Quebec, so European French does not reliably meet the standard and reads as foreign to Quebec customers. Terminology is the usual failure point, which is why a Quebec French terminology base matters more than translation volume.

What are the penalties for not complying with Bill 96?

For a corporation, C$3,000 to C$30,000 for each day an offence continues, doubled on a second offence and tripled after that. Because it accrues daily, your exposure is really how long the gap goes undetected. Non-compliant inventory also becomes unsellable in Quebec.

What happens on 1 June 2027?

The grace period ends for non-compliant product manufactured before 1 June 2025. Existing stock is sellable until then, and not after. Plan packaging and labelling changes against your next production run, not against the deadline.

Does Bill 96 apply to my website and online store?

Yes. Websites, e-commerce, catalogues, and brochures must be available in French on terms no less favourable than the other language. Warehouse product elsewhere in Canada and sell online into Quebec and it still counts, so a Canada-wide storefront is in scope without a Quebec facility.

Is Bill 96 the same as Bill 101?

No. Bill 101 is the original Charter of the French Language, from 1977. Bill 96 is the 2022 law that amends and strengthens it, adding OQLF registration, the trademark and signage rules that took effect in June 2025, and steeper escalating penalties.

How long does it take to get compliant?

The audit is faster than the remediation. Digital content moves as fast as you can connect it. Packaging and labelling are gated by artwork cycles and production runs, which is why June 2027 should be worked backwards from your next print run.