Music Licensing in Canada: SOCAN, Re:Sound and the Two-Licence Trap (2026 Guide)

Canadian businesses face TWO mandatory music payments — SOCAN for compositions and Re:Sound for recordings — now bundled through Entandem. Background music starts around $1.23 per square metre per year, but Canada has a unique wrinkle every "royalty-free" claim needs to survive. VibeBeats is direct-licensed background music for cafés, restaurants, bars, gyms, retail stores, salons, spas, clinics and hotels. No music licensing/PRO fees (*No OneMusic, ASCAP, BMI, PPL PRS or SOCAN licence needed for VibeBeats music.) Other music sources may still require licensing. The AI DJ reshapes each playlist through the trading day.

Canada is the market where we tell operators to ask the hardest questions — including of us. The country runs a dual-society system with an unusually assertive position on streamed background music, and any provider claiming to remove all Canadian licence obligations deserves scrutiny.

The two-licence system

Canadian public performance of recorded music engages two separate rights, administered by two separate organisations:

• SOCAN collects for composers, songwriters and publishers — the composition. • Re:Sound collects for performers and record labels — the sound recording.

These are separate legal obligations. Paying SOCAN does not settle Re:Sound, and vice versa. Since 2019 the two have operated a joint venture, Entandem, which sells both on a single invoice — the same structural move local PRO licensing made in international markets and PPL PRS made in the UK.

Rates are not set by the societies alone. They are proposed as tariffs and certified by the Copyright Board of Canada, which is why Canadian figures come with certification years attached and why some tariffs sit in limbo between certifications.

What it costs

SOCAN Tariff 15.A covers background music where the business is not using a licensed supplier: CA$1.23 per square metre per year, minimum CA$94.51, with a half-rate available for premises open fewer than six months a year. Verify the current certification status for the 2025–27 period before budgeting from it — Copyright Board certification cycles run behind.

Re:Sound Tariff 3.B adds the recording-side fee for background music, calculated on admissions, capacity or area depending on the establishment type. The exact tables live in the certified tariff PDF, and we won't reproduce numbers we haven't checked against the current certification.

Fitness venues engage Re:Sound Tariff 6.B alongside SOCAN Tariff 19, both calculated on weekly participant numbers. Again: check the current certified figures rather than trusting a secondary source.

As an estimate rather than a quote, a small Canadian venue playing background music should expect roughly CA$200–500 per year across both societies. Larger premises, higher capacity and featured music push that up quickly.

One important structural note: if your music supplier holds SOCAN Tariff 16 and Re:Sound Tariff 3.A licences, the supplier can cover the venue. That is how most commercial background music services operate in Canada. The question to put to any provider is simply: which Canadian tariffs do you actually hold, and what does that cover me for?

Enforcement

Both societies pursue establishments that decline to obtain required licences, through the courts where necessary — Re:Sound sets this out in its own FAQ. In practice, enforcement usually begins with correspondence and escalates from there.

Consumer streaming

Same story as every other market. Personal Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube accounts are licensed for personal use only, and their terms prohibit commercial use. No Canadian tariff payment fixes a platform terms-of-service breach — they are unrelated problems.

The Canadian wrinkle

Here is why this post exists.

Re:Sound's FAQ states that royalties are payable on recordings streamed by a service regardless of whether they are within Re:Sound's repertoire. That is the most assertive position any collecting society we've reviewed takes anywhere in the world.

Compare it to the UK, where PPL PRS publishes in plain language that no licence is needed when a business plays only royalty free or copyright free music. In Britain, the direct-licence position is confirmed by the society itself. In Canada, for streamed background music services, that same position is contested terrain.

So we'll be direct rather than convenient: we do not claim VibeBeats removes all Canadian music licence obligations. A business in Canada considering directly licensed music should take advice on how its provider's specific delivery model interacts with the Re:Sound tariffs, and should ask that provider exactly which Canadian tariffs it holds and what it indemnifies.

If that sounds like an odd thing for a music platform to publish, consider the alternative: a provider that tells you Canada is simple is a provider that hasn't read the FAQ. Canada is the market where you most need to ask your music supplier hard questions — and our answer to those questions is documentation rather than assurance. Our piece on AI music generators versus a licensed platform covers why chain-of-title paperwork is the thing that actually matters.

Canada versus international markets

— — Canada — international markets — — --- — --- — --- — — Composition rights — SOCAN — local composition PRO — — Recording rights — Re:Sound — local recording PRO — — Joint storefront — Entandem (2019) — local PRO licensing (2019) — — Rate setting — Copyright Board certification — Society-published schedules, indexed annually — — Background music pricing — Per square metre (SOCAN 15.A) plus Re:Sound tariff — Seats or area, plus source tier — — Repertoire position on streamed services — Re:Sound asserts payment regardless of repertoire — Repertoire-based, with a published partial-rights discount —

Two dual-rights systems that solved the invoicing problem the same way in the same year — but with materially different positions on non-repertoire music. Our guide to the true cost of commercial music licensing and our international café, retail and gym licensing guide show what the international side looks like in practice.

The honest bottom line

Canada charges twice, bills once, and takes an aggressive view of streamed background music. Whatever provider you choose, get in writing which tariffs they hold and what happens if a society disagrees.

If you want to hear what directly licensed, dayparted curation actually sounds like, start a free trial or book a live demo at app.vibebeats.ai/demo — and talk to us about your market before you switch anything.

Sources

• SOCAN tariffs and Tariff 15.A background music rates: https://www.socan.com/ • Copyright Board of Canada certified tariffs: https://cb-cda.gc.ca/en • Re:Sound tariffs and FAQ (including the repertoire statement): https://www.resound.ca/ • Entandem (SOCAN / Re:Sound joint venture): https://entandem.ca/ • UBC Copyright Office summary of SOCAN tariff rates: https://copyright.ubc.ca/

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