Short answer: in 2026, faxing is still an officially listed channel at several Québec and federal bodies — Revenu Québec, the RAMQ, Retraite Québec, the CNESST, some Service Canada and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) offices for specific requests — as well as across a large share of clinics, family medicine groups (GMFs), pharmacies and CIUSSSs. But the rules have shifted: the fax is almost never the recommended channel, it is the fallback channel for cases that do not fit into an online service (Mon dossier, clicSÉQUR, My Service Canada Account, the IRCC portal). So before sending, check three things: the correct fax number for the correct office, the required cover sheet (name, social insurance number or health insurance number, file number), and the local time if you are faxing from Europe.
About MondialFax. This article is a practical guide, independent of any Canadian or Québec public body. MondialFax sends faxes free of charge and without registration to seven destinations, including Canada — see the Canada page. It does not assign a number and does not provide reception: the reception scenarios mentioned here assume a third-party provider.
Why Québec still faxes
Seen from Europe, North America's attachment to the fax is surprising. It comes down to three factors that have nothing to do with technology.
The legal framework is favourable. Québec's Act to establish a legal framework for information technology (LCCJTI, CQLR c. CCQ-1.1) enshrines the principle of technological neutrality: a document retains its legal value regardless of its medium, provided its integrity is ensured. A fax is therefore not a second-class document. In France, by contrast, judges assess it at their discretion and case law often treats it as nothing more than the beginning of proof.
The healthcare network operates in silos. The Dossier Santé Québec (DSQ) and the digital health record currently being rolled out cover lab results, imaging and medication, but not every exchange between a GMF, a specialist in private practice, a community pharmacy and a long-term care facility (CHSLD). As long as referral requests and group insurance forms have no interoperable equivalent, the fax machine remains the lowest common denominator.
Copper is not dead. Unlike France, where the shutdown of the switched telephone network follows a tight national timetable, Canada has no single cut-off date for the PSTN. The CRTC has eased the obligation to provide landline service in areas served by competing networks, and the major carriers are migrating to IP at their own pace. The result: a Canadian fax number can easily stay active for years to come, sometimes behind an ATA gateway its owner has no idea exists.
Public bodies: where the fax still exists, and what for
The key point: no agency will ask you to fax a complete file that can be submitted online. The fax is for supporting documents, signed forms, authorisations and non-standard requests.
Revenu Québec
Revenu Québec pushes hard towards Mon dossier (individuals) and Mon dossier pour les entreprises (businesses), both accessible through clicSÉQUR. Document submission is built in. Faxing survives in dealings with certain divisions: audit, collections, estates, authorised representatives. In practice, when you receive a notice of assessment or an audit letter, the fax number for your file appears on the letter — that is the one to use, not a generic number found online. Always include the file number, the account holder's exact name and, for a business, the Québec enterprise number (NEQ).
RAMQ
The Régie de l'assurance maladie du Québec handles some of its professional requests by fax: exception drug forms, authorisation requests, correspondence from healthcare providers. For insured individuals, the online portal and the telephone cover most needs, but forms signed by a physician still very often travel by fax from the clinic. Include the health insurance number (NAM) and its expiry date on the cover sheet.
Retraite Québec, CNESST, SAAQ
Retraite Québec (pensions, child assistance) and the CNESST (occupational health and safety, labour standards) publish regional fax numbers for receiving documents. The CNESST in particular still receives heavy fax traffic for medical certificates and employer reports. The SAAQ, for its part, has largely moved its services online; faxing there is residual.
Service Canada and IRCC
At the federal level, My Service Canada Account handles Employment Insurance, Old Age Security and the Canada Pension Plan. Faxing survives for specialised offices and for certain authorisation forms. On the immigration side, IRCC is explicit: the online portal and the secure account are the normal route, but fax numbers remain published for targeted purposes — notably withdrawing an application, adding a representative, or urgent procedures for which an office specifies a number itself. For a French-speaking expatriate in France or Belgium, this is often the only option when transatlantic mail is too slow.
Golden rule: never fax a number found on a forum. Canadian agencies regularly reorganise their processing centres; an obsolete number sends your pages into the void, with no visible rejection. Use the number from the letter you received or from the form's official page.
Health, pharmacy, insurance: where the real volume is
While public bodies fax little, the private and quasi-public network faxes a great deal. In 2026, these are the Québec workflows where the fax machine still dominates:
| Workflow | Who sends | Why the fax holds on |
|---|---|---|
| Specialist referral request | GMF, clinic | No unified channel to private practices |
| Prescription to a pharmacy | Clinic, CHSLD | E-prescribing is growing but not universal |
| Group insurance form | Physician, employer | Insurers require a signed form |
| CNESST / SAAQ medical report | Clinic | Standardised paper form |
| Exception drug authorisation | Physician | Long-standing RAMQ process |
For a French SME working with a Québec partner, the fax also shows up in credit departments, with customs brokers and at some carriers: a bill of lading or a signed letter of guarantee goes by fax because the other party refuses PDFs sent over unencrypted email. If you receive this kind of document often, a document scanner with an automatic feeder is a game changer: it turns the stack of signed paper into a clean PDF, ready to be faxed from an online service, with no analogue hardware involved.
Sending a fax to Québec without a fax machine
Three routes, depending on your volume.
1. An online sending service. You upload a PDF, enter the number, and the service handles transmission. This is the scenario covered on the MondialFax home page: free sending, no registration, to Canada as well as the six other destinations served. No hardware, no line. Limitation: it is sending only, and volume is capped to prevent advertising faxes — see the daily sending limit.
2. A fax-to-email subscription with a number. If your Québec correspondent needs to reply by fax, you need a receiving number from a provider. Our fax-to-email guide explains how it works. A Canadian number (area codes 418, 438, 450, 514, 579, 581, 819, 873 for Québec) often reassures the recipient, but a European number works just as well technically.
3. Fax software with a modem. This is the most misunderstood option. Free fax software for Windows or macOS sends nothing on its own: it needs a USB fax modem and a live analogue line. On a French IP router, transmission depends on T.38 and often fails on a transatlantic call. Reserve this for situations where you genuinely have a copper line.
The five traps of faxing transatlantic to Québec
1. The dialling code
From France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy or Portugal, a Canadian number is written +1 followed by the three-digit area code and the seven local digits: +1 418 123 4567. No intermediate 0. The classic trap is the long-distance 1 that Quebecers themselves write down (1 800 ...): it duplicates the country code. A number entered as a single block, without dashes, avoids any ambiguity.
2. The time zone
Québec is on Eastern Time: UTC−5 in winter, UTC−4 on daylight saving time, six hours behind Paris. A fax sent from Paris at 9 a.m. arrives in Montréal at 3 a.m. That is not a problem for a machine, but it becomes one if the receiving fax machine is switched off overnight or if its memory fills up. And the seasonal switchover dates do not match Europe's exactly: every spring and every autumn, a two- to three-week window shifts the gap by an hour. For a filing subject to an end-of-day Eastern Time deadline, this works in your favour: you have until 5 or 6 a.m. Paris time the next morning.
3. The cover sheet
Canadian agencies are strict about identification. A cover sheet must show: recipient and department, sender with a reachable phone number, total number of pages, file number, and a confidentiality notice. Without a file number, a fax arriving at a processing centre that receives hundreds of them cannot be matched to anything.
4. Legibility
Faxing works in black and white, at 200 × 100 or 200 × 200 dpi. Québec forms often include fine check boxes and greyed-out areas that simply vanish. Scan in line art or text mode, not photo mode, and avoid fluorescent highlighter, which comes out as solid black. A black ballpoint pen for filling in forms spares you the disappointment of pale blue ink that is illegible after transmission.
5. Proof of sending
Always keep the transmission report or the confirmation email: it attests to the date, the time, the number dialled and the page count. It does not attest that the right person read the document. For a sensitive file, follow up with a phone call on the next business day — again bearing the time difference in mind. A desk clock or simply a dual-time-zone clock next to your workstation cuts down on calls placed at 7 a.m. Montréal time.
Vocabulary: speaking Québec French avoids misunderstandings
A detail that saves time on the phone with a Canadian service:
- télécopieur (for the machine, rather than "fax"), télécopie for the document
- courriel (not "e-mail"), pourriel for spam
- NAM: health insurance number (Québec); NAS: social insurance number (federal)
- GMF: family medicine group; CIUSSS / CISSS: integrated health and social services centres
- clicSÉQUR: Québec's government authentication system
What about advertising faxes?
A word of warning if you are a European business tempted to use faxing as a prospecting channel into Canada. The CRTC's Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules tightly regulate commercial faxing: consent, full sender identification, an opt-out mechanism, permitted hours. The fines are real. On the European side, the GDPR and national marketing rules likewise require prior consent for advertising faxes. That is precisely why free services cap the number of daily sends to any one recipient. A practical guide to compliant B2B marketing is a better investment than a purchased list of numbers.
Frequently asked questions
Can I send a fax to Canada free of charge from France?
Yes. An online sending service accepts a PDF and a number in +1 ... format, with no hardware or subscription. Sending is free and requires no registration with MondialFax; daily volume is capped. Receiving, however, requires a number from a third-party provider.
Is there a free fax machine that works without a phone line?
Not as a device, no: a physical fax machine needs a line. But an online sending service performs the same function for outgoing faxes, with no hardware at all. Downloadable "free fax software", by contrast, requires a USB fax modem and an analogue line.
Does Revenu Québec still accept documents by fax?
For exchanges relating to an open file, yes, using the number given on the correspondence you received. For everything else, secure transmission through Mon dossier (clicSÉQUR) is the expected route and leaves a time-stamped record on the agency's side.
Does IRCC accept a fax for an immigration application?
Not for submitting a complete application: the online portal is mandatory for most programs. Fax numbers remain published for targeted operations, such as withdrawing an application or adding a representative. Always check the official page for the form concerned.
What is the cut-off time for a filing due "by end of day"?
Deadlines are almost always understood in Eastern Time. Count six hours behind Paris, five or seven during the fortnight when the clock changes are out of sync. Better to send the evening before, European time.
Do I need a Canadian number for my fax to be accepted?
No. The recipient receives the pages regardless of where they came from. A local callback number is reassuring, but what really matters is the cover sheet: name, file number, and a phone number reachable during Québec business hours.
Key takeaways
- Faxing remains an official fallback channel in Québec and federally, never the recommended one: online services (Mon dossier, clicSÉQUR, My Service Canada Account, the IRCC portal) come first.
- The real fax volume is in health, pharmacy and insurance, not in public administration.
- Use the number shown on the letter you received, not a generic one; without a file number on the cover sheet, a fax is unusable.
- Dialling format: +1 + area code + 7 digits, without a duplicate long-distance 1.
- Allow for a six-hour time difference with Paris, plus annual windows when the gap becomes five or seven hours.
- To send without hardware, an online service is enough; to receive, you need a number from a third-party provider.
- Advertising faxes to Canada are regulated by the CRTC: consent, identification, opt-out mechanism.
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