Two separate bills, and only one of them shows up on a regulator's fee schedule. The other — incorporation and ongoing corporate compliance — is priced by your accountant, not RECO or BCFSA.
Short answer
It depends which province, and the two cost categories don't overlap. In BC, BCFSA charges a real, quoted licensing fee on top of your own — a $50 amendment fee plus a pro-rated licence fee, renewed together every two years. In Ontario, RECO does not separately register or license the corporation at all. Neither regulator prices the ordinary corporate costs — incorporation, an annual return, bookkeeping — that exist regardless of which province you're in.
BCFSA's own Personal Real Estate Corporation page sets out a real, quoted fee: “an individual licence amendment fee of $50” when you first apply, plus a licence fee for the corporation itself — pro-rated to match your own licence's expiry date, since both licences must renew together every two years. Surrendering the PREC licence later carries the same $50 amendment fee again.
RECO's own PREC guidance describes the corporation as exempt from separate registration — only the individual agent maintains RECO registration. The PREC checklist lists an ongoing obligation instead of a fee: the registrant must notify RECO in writing of the PREC's legal name and address for service before it receives any remuneration, and of any change in circumstances “within five days after the change takes place.” The compliance cost in Ontario is closer to paperwork than to a bill.
Both regulators point the same direction on the number: BCFSA's guidance recommends getting “professional accounting and legal advice before establishing a personal real estate corporation,” and RECO's own page carries the same recommendation. Neither publishes what that advice typically costs, and this research found no Canadian regulator that does — it's a market rate an accountant quotes, not a figure a regulator sets.
Once it's running, record retention shifts too: ITR 5800(1)(a)–(b) requires a corporation's minute books and share-ownership records to be kept two years after the corporation is dissolved — a shorter clock than a sole proprietor's six-year rule, but one that only starts running once the PREC actually winds down.
See how the structure itself differs by province and what it can do with money once it's inside.
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