Building a Bilingual Website for Québec: Bill 96, Law 25 and Practical Tips

If you sell to customers in Québec, a French version of your website is not a nice extra. Two laws shape what your site needs: the Charter of the French Language, as amended by Bill 96, and Québec's privacy law, as amended by Law 25. This guide covers both, then the practical side: URLs, hreflang, platforms, translation and French SEO.

In short: Businesses that sell to Québec consumers need a French version of their website that is at least as complete, accessible and well written as any other language version. That requirement existed before the June 2025 Bill 96 changes, which mostly affected product labels, trademarks and signage. Law 25 adds privacy duties for your site: a published privacy policy and privacy officer contact, clear consent, and tracking technologies that stay off until users agree.

Important: this article is general information, not legal advice. Laws and how regulators apply them change, so confirm your obligations with a Québec lawyer before you rely on any of it.

Who these rules apply to

The Charter of the French Language applies to businesses carrying on business in Québec. Law firms generally advise that a website aimed at Québec consumers should be available in French even without an establishment in the province, so a Toronto store that ships to Montréal should plan for French.

Law 25 applies to private-sector enterprises in Québec and can reach businesses elsewhere that collect personal information from people in Québec. If you sell or market to Québec residents, assume both laws are relevant.

What the Charter of the French Language requires for websites

Under the Charter, websites are treated much like catalogues and brochures: commercial publications that must be available in French. Bill 96, adopted in 2022, tightened this in two ways that matter for websites.

• Equal footing. A version in another language cannot be made available on more favourable terms than the French version. In practice, French pages should not be missing, hidden, harder to reach or updated less often than English ones.
• Quality. The French version should be at least equivalent in quality and understandable on its own. Raw machine translation is a risk here.

For a typical business site, that means French versions of:

1. Every public page, including product and service descriptions.
2. Checkout, account pages, forms and error messages.
3. Transactional emails such as order confirmations.
4. Downloadable catalogues, brochures and price lists.
5. Customer support when a customer writes to you in French.
6. Social media content aimed at Québec consumers.

Terms of service and contracts of adhesion

Since June 1, 2023, contracts of adhesion (standard contracts the customer cannot negotiate, such as terms of service) must be provided in French first. A customer can be bound by an English version only after receiving the French one and expressly choosing English. A language-selection clause alone is no longer enough, and a non-compliant contract can be declared null. If your site uses click-through or checkout terms, ask your lawyer how this applies.

What changed on June 1, 2025

Several Bill 96 provisions took effect on June 1, 2025. They mostly concern products and signage rather than websites:

• Product inscriptions: generic or descriptive words in a trademark on a product must now appear in French. Products manufactured before June 1, 2025 have a grace period until June 1, 2027, subject to conditions.
• Trademarks: the trademark exception now generally covers registered trademarks only, and only where no French version is registered.
• Signage: where a trademark in another language appears on exterior signage, French must be markedly predominant.
• Francization: businesses with 25 or more employees in Québec (down from 50) now have to register with the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF).

Law firms have pointed out that Bill 96 did not materially change the requirement to have a French website. If your site is not available in French, it was already out of step before June 2025; the June 2025 coverage simply made complaints more likely.

Enforcement

The OQLF can investigate on its own initiative or after a complaint, issue orders and refer cases for prosecution. Fines for companies range from $3,000 to $30,000 per offence, doubling for a second offence and tripling after that, and each day an offence continues can count separately. The OQLF is generally reported to be reasonable with businesses that cooperate.

Law 25: privacy obligations for your website

Law 25 came into force in phases on September 22 of 2022, 2023 and 2024. These are the obligations that most often affect a website.

Penalties are significant: administrative monetary penalties of up to $10 million or 2% of worldwide turnover, and penal fines of up to $25 million or 4% of worldwide turnover, whichever is greater in each case.

Cookies and analytics in practice

The law does not list specific cookie types, and because the regulator has not fully clarified the scope, many lawyers recommend opt-in consent for all non-essential cookies. In practice: a bilingual consent banner, Google Analytics 4 and advertising pixels blocked until the visitor agrees (Google Consent Mode helps), refusing made as easy as accepting, and a way to change or withdraw consent later.

Technical setup for a bilingual site

Choose a URL structure

Language subfolders, such as /fr/ for French, are usually the simplest choice. You keep one domain, all pages share its authority and the setup is easy to maintain. Subdomains or separate domains add overhead with little benefit for an English and French site in the same country.

Add hreflang and canonical tags

Hreflang tags tell search engines which pages are translations of each other. Each page should list every language version, including itself, using codes such as en-CA and fr-CA, plus an x-default for visitors who match neither. The tags must be reciprocal: if the English page points to the French one, the French page must point back. Each language version should have its own self-referencing canonical tag. Never point the French canonical at the English page, or the French page may drop out of search results.

Translate the URLs too

A French page should have a French slug, for example /fr/services/developpement-web rather than /fr/services/web-development. Keep slugs lowercase and hyphenated, and leave accents out of URLs to avoid encoding problems when links are shared.

Detect language without forcing redirects

Do not automatically redirect visitors based on their IP address or browser language. Google advises against it, because it can stop both people and crawlers from reaching every version. Instead, put a language switcher on every page that links to the equivalent page in the other language (not the homepage), and remember the visitor's choice.

Platform options

• Custom builds with Next.js: the App Router supports a locale segment such as app/[lang], with language detection in the proxy file. Pair it with a headless CMS with localized fields, such as Sanity, Contentful or Strapi. See our Next.js development service.
• WordPress: plugins such as WPML and Polylang give each translation its own page, slug and hreflang tags; Weglot adds a translation layer on top. See our WordPress development service.
• Shopify: Shopify Markets serves French from a language subfolder such as /fr, Liquid themes output hreflang tags automatically, and the Translate & Adapt app handles translations. Our Shopify development team sets up bilingual stores end to end.

Details that are easy to miss

• Longer text. French often runs longer than English, so test buttons, menus and headings in both languages.
• Formats. Québec French writes prices as 1 099,00 $ and dates as 23 octobre 2026.
• Hidden text. Meta descriptions, alt text, structured data, form errors, the 404 page and the cookie banner all need French versions.
• Fonts. Check that your web fonts include every accented character, such as é, è, à, ç and œ.

Getting the translation right

A French version is only as good as its translation. A few practices make a large difference:

• Use Québec French. A translation written for France can read oddly to Québec customers. Québec usage favours words such as "courriel" for email and "fin de semaine" for weekend.
• Work with a professional translator who specializes in Québec French, ideally in your industry.
• Build a glossary and style guide for product names and key terms, including whether you address customers as "vous" or "tu". Translation memory keeps those terms consistent and lowers the cost of updates.
• Post-edit machine translation. For large catalogues, machine translation reviewed by a person can work; raw output is a risk under the quality requirement.
• Use free references such as the OQLF's Grand dictionnaire terminologique.
• Keep both versions in sync, so English content never goes live without its French version.

SEO for French-language search

Translating your English pages is a start, but French SEO needs its own research.

• Research keywords in French. People in Québec search with their own vocabulary, and a direct translation of an English keyword is often not the phrase they use.
• Write French titles and meta descriptions for French searchers rather than translating word for word.
• Create French content, not only translations, and earn links from Québec publications, associations and partners.
• Monitor French pages separately in Google Search Console, for example by filtering for /fr/.

Our SEO services cover bilingual keyword research and technical SEO for English and French sites.

Launch checklist

1. French versions of every page, transactional email, form and document.
2. Terms of service presented in French first.
3. A language switcher on every page, linking to the equivalent page.
4. Translated slugs, reciprocal hreflang tags, self-referencing canonicals and a bilingual sitemap.
5. A privacy policy and privacy officer contact details in both languages.
6. A consent banner that blocks non-essential trackers until users agree.
7. A privacy impact assessment for personal information that leaves Québec.
8. Layouts, formats and fonts tested in French, and a workflow that keeps both versions in sync.

Planning your bilingual site

We build bilingual English and French websites and stores for businesses across Canada, including clients selling into Montréal and the rest of Québec. Tell us about your project through our contact page, and we will send a fixed, itemized quote that lists translation, setup and SEO as separate lines. If you are still budgeting, our guide to website costs in Canada explains what drives the price.

Frequently asked questions

Does my website need to be in French if my business is outside Québec?

If you actively sell to or target consumers in Québec, law firms generally advise that you should offer a French version, even without an establishment in the province. How strictly the rules apply depends on your situation. This is general information, not legal advice, so check with a Québec lawyer.

Can I use machine translation for the French version?

Machine translation reviewed by a professional translator can work, especially for large catalogues. Unedited machine translation is risky, because the French version is expected to be at least equivalent in quality to other versions.

Do I need a cookie banner under Law 25?

If your site uses analytics, advertising pixels or other tools that can identify, locate or profile visitors, Law 25 requires those functions to be off by default and turned on only with consent. A consent banner that blocks non-essential trackers until the visitor agrees is the usual way to do this.

Does French have to be the default language of my website?

The website rules focus on the French version being available on terms at least as favourable as other languages, rather than on a specific default setting. In practice, make French reachable from every page with a clear switcher and keep it as complete and current as the English site. Some businesses choose French as the default for their Québec site, and your lawyer can advise on what suits your situation.