Government of Canada Organization Names and Codes

Introduction

This page provides machine-readable reference data and supplementary information in support of the Data Reference Standard on Government of Canada Organization Names and Codes.

The reference data provides a list of values for all Government of Canada (GC) departments, agencies, and other institutions, together referred to as federal organizations. There are several official sources of these names and codes, such as the Financial Administration Act (FAA), Government-wide Chart of Accounts and GC Infobase. These various sources serve different purposes. However, having multiple ways of describing federal organizations makes it difficult to integrate datasets across government.

Purpose

The reference data provides a standard way to present federal organization names and codes in datasets and to users. This standardization improves interoperability and data quality.

Application

The reference data contains two main fields:

GC OrgID – This is a numerical primary key which is independent of existing keys from the Receiver General or Infobase.
Harmonized GC Name – This provides up-to-date names using the organization’s applied title when possible and legal title if there is no applied title. This gives data systems a simple list of federal organization titles to present to clients.

For information on how departments are required to use the GC OrgID and Harmonized GC Name, refer to the Data Reference Standard on GC Organization Names and Codes.

The reference data also contains supplementary information to provide users with further context and to allow them to filter data as needed. This includes information the following:

ministerial portfolio and relevant schedule of the Financial Administration Act
organization status (those that have a status of “t” or “d” are no longer considered active)
end date if applicable

There is no requirement for existing systems and policies to be changed to align with the reference data. There are several large existing systems and policies that organize federal organizations in specific ways for financial, reporting or historical purposes.

A concordance table is available to help users who are not able to incorporate the reference data into their existing systems and policies. The concordance table provides a connection between the GC OrgID and various other codes and names used in other GC systems. It combines several data sources to map values from the primary key to other enterprise lists of department names or numbers.

Roles and responsibilities

Data reference standard steward

Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Strategic Communications and Ministerial Affairs, Federal Identity Program

Data reference standard custodian

Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. Office of the Chief Information Officer, Data and Digital Policy Sector

Recommended review period

This standard will be updated frequently, when changes to names or departments are made.

Find more resources with the keyword “reference data”

Datasets available for download

Additional Info

Field	Value
Last Updated	October 20, 2025, 02:28 (UTC)
Created	October 20, 2025, 02:28 (UTC)
Domain / Topic Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.
Title Title for the Dataset.	Government of Canada Organization Names and Codes
Description A description of the dataset.	Introduction This page provides machine-readable reference data and supplementary information in support of the Data Reference Standard on Government of Canada Organization Names and Codes. The reference data provides a list of values for all Government of Canada (GC) departments, agencies, and other institutions, together referred to as federal organizations. There are several official sources of these names and codes, such as the Financial Administration Act (FAA), Government-wide Chart of Accounts and GC Infobase. These various sources serve different purposes. However, having multiple ways of describing federal organizations makes it difficult to integrate datasets across government. Purpose The reference data provides a standard way to present federal organization names and codes in datasets and to users. This standardization improves interoperability and data quality. Application The reference data contains two main fields: GC OrgID – This is a numerical primary key which is independent of existing keys from the Receiver General or Infobase. Harmonized GC Name – This provides up-to-date names using the organization’s applied title when possible and legal title if there is no applied title. This gives data systems a simple list of federal organization titles to present to clients. For information on how departments are required to use the GC OrgID and Harmonized GC Name, refer to the Data Reference Standard on GC Organization Names and Codes. The reference data also contains supplementary information to provide users with further context and to allow them to filter data as needed. This includes information the following: ministerial portfolio and relevant schedule of the Financial Administration Act organization status (those that have a status of “t” or “d” are no longer considered active) end date if applicable There is no requirement for existing systems and policies to be changed to align with the reference data. There are several large existing systems and policies that organize federal organizations in specific ways for financial, reporting or historical purposes. A concordance table is available to help users who are not able to incorporate the reference data into their existing systems and policies. The concordance table provides a connection between the GC OrgID and various other codes and names used in other GC systems. It combines several data sources to map values from the primary key to other enterprise lists of department names or numbers. Roles and responsibilities Data reference standard steward Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Strategic Communications and Ministerial Affairs, Federal Identity Program Data reference standard custodian Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. Office of the Chief Information Officer, Data and Digital Policy Sector Recommended review period This standard will be updated frequently, when changes to names or departments are made. Find more resources with the keyword “reference data”
Tags / Keywords Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.	Government and Politics organization name reference data
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc) File format of the dataset.
Dataset Size Dataset size in megabytes.
Metadata Identifier Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
Published Date Published date of the dataset.	2024-05-30
Time Period Data Span (start date) Start date of the data in the dataset.
Time Period Data Span (end date) End date of time data in the dataset.
GeoSpatial Area Data Span A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.

Field	Value
Access category Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
License License used to access the dataset.	Open Government Licence - Canada
Limits on use Limits on use of data.
Location Location of the dataset.	https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/57180b36-3428-4a7f-afe3-2161a6b44ec5
Data Service Data service for accessing a dataset.
Owner Owner of the dataset.	Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat \| Secrétariat du Conseil du Trésor du Canada
Contact Point Who to contact regarding access?
Contact Point Email The email to contact regarding access?
Publisher Publisher of the dataset.
Publisher Email Email of the publisher.	[email protected]
Author Author of the dataset.
Author Email Email of the author.
Accessed At Date the data and metadata was accessed.

Field	Value
Identifier Unique identifier for the dataset.
Language Language(s) of the dataset
Link to dataset description A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
Persistent Identifier Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
Globally Unique Identifier Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
Contains data about individuals Does the data hold data about individuals?
Contains data about identifiable individuals Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
Contains Indigenous Data Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
Portal Type Platform type of the source portal.

Field	Value
Version Version of the datatset	None
Source Source of the dataset.	None
Version notes Version notes about the dataset.
Is version of another dataset Link to dataset that it is a version of.
Other versions Link to datasets that are versions of it.
Provenance Text Provenance Text of the data.
Provenance URL Provenance URL of the data.
Temporal resolution Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
GeoSpatial resolution in meters Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions) Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.

Field	Value
Indigenous Community Permission Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
Community Permission Community permission (who gave permission).
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about Indigenous communities from which data is derived.

Field	Value
Number of data rows If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
Number of data columns If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
Number of data cells If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
Number of data relations If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
Number of entities If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
Number of data properties If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
Data quality Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
Metric for data quality A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.

Government of Canada Organization Names and Codes

Datasets available for download

Additional Info

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