Bill 96: what it means for your website in Québec

What Bill 96 changed

Bill 96 is the Québec law that strengthened the Charter of the French language. The Charter already required French in commerce and business; Bill 96 reinforced and extended those obligations, including for businesses' online presence, contracts and communications with customers.

For a website, the principle to remember is simple: a commercial website aimed at Québec must be offered in French, and the French version must be at least as accessible as any version in another language. You can have an English site, a Spanish site or any other language, but not instead of French, and not with a French version that is harder to find or less complete.

This guide gives a practical overview for planning a website. It is not legal advice. The Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) is the authority that applies the Charter and publishes guidance for businesses; for a specific situation, check with the OQLF or a lawyer.

Who is concerned

In practice, this concerns any business that offers products or services to customers in Québec through its website: a Montréal shop, a Québec City restaurant, an Ontario company selling to Québec consumers, or a SaaS with Québec users. Being based outside Québec does not, by itself, settle the question: what matters is whether you address the Québec market.

If you are unsure whether your site is aimed at Québec, ask yourself a few questions: do you ship to Québec, quote prices for Québec, advertise there, or have Québec customers sign up? If the answer is yes, plan for French.

Page-by-page checklist

Equal accessibility means the French experience should be complete, not a summary. Use this checklist on your existing site or your project.

Beyond the website itself, the Charter's rules also touch contracts, invoices, product labelling and the use of trademarks. Those topics go beyond web design: check them with the OQLF or a lawyer.

Common mistakes to avoid

• A French page hidden in the footer while the rest of the site is in English.
• A French version that lags behind: new products, news or promotions published only in English.
• Raw machine translation never reviewed by a person: errors in prices, legal terms or product names can cost you customers.
• English-only checkout or emails, even though the pages are translated.
• Images with English text and no French equivalent.
• English-only PDFs linked from French pages.
• A language switcher that sends visitors back to the home page instead of the same page in the other language.

How to plan a bilingual website

1. 01
   Decide the languages and the default

   For a Québec audience, French first, then English or other languages as needed.

2. 02
   Choose a URL structure

   One domain with language folders (for example /fr and /en) is usually the simplest to maintain and to optimize for search.

3. 03
   Inventory all the text

   Pages, buttons, forms, emails, legal pages, images with text and PDFs. Nothing should be forgotten.

4. 04
   Set up a translation workflow

   Who writes, who translates, who reviews. Professional review is strongly recommended for legal and commercial texts.

5. 05
   Link the versions for search engines

   Each page declares its equivalent in the other language (hreflang tags), so Google shows the right version to each visitor.

6. 06
   Make a publishing rule

   Nothing goes live in one language without the French version going live at the same time.

Planned from the start, a bilingual site costs much less than a French version added afterwards. Our guide to website costs in Canada explains how languages affect the budget.

Keeping two languages in sync over time

Most problems with bilingual sites appear months after launch, when content is added in a hurry. A few habits keep the French version complete without slowing you down.

• One owner per language: a named person checks every new French text before it goes live.
• Publish both versions together: a product, a promotion or a news item goes online in French at the same time as in any other language.
• Use a glossary: keep the French names of your products, services and key terms in one shared document, so they stay consistent.
• Plan translation time in every campaign: seasonal offers and social media campaigns are where French versions are most often forgotten.
• Check the automatic messages: when you change a form, a checkout step or an email template, check its French version too.
• Review the site twice a year: browse it entirely in French, on a phone, as a customer would.

If your website has a content management space, ask your provider to make both languages editable side by side. It is the simplest way to see at a glance what is missing.

French and SEO: an opportunity, not just a rule

A good French version is also a visibility asset. Many Québec customers search in French, and competition on French-language queries is often different from competition in English. Each language version should have its own titles, descriptions and keywords, written for how people actually search, not just translated word for word.

For local businesses, keep your Google Business Profile consistent with the site in both languages. Our local SEO guide explains how.

How we handle French at Ecosystem Annexe

Our team works natively in French and in English. The websites we have built for Québec clients, such as CHMT Design, Coiffure Le Ritz and Vitres et Pavés étudiants, are in French, the language of their customers, and we can add English or other languages with a proper structure for search engines.

Privacy is the other rule every Québec website must plan for: see our Law 25 guide. To discuss a bilingual site, contact us (page in French; we reply in English).