Verdict: A registered Quebec nonprofit can run a raffle, and it can sell tickets online, but only through a Class B licence and only if the ticket system does not itself issue the ticket. The RACJ requires the supplier of any true electronic system to hold its own licence and third-party certification. Zeffy holds neither, so treat Zeffy as useful for event tickets, donations, and donor records around your raffle, not as the raffle-ticket system itself.
What works: A Class A or Class B licence from the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux (RACJ), applied for at least 30 days before your first ticket sale, with a finalised prize list and a specific charitable-project description.
What doesn't: Paper-ticket raffles run without a licence, applications built on Form RACJ-4200 (that form and regime are gone since 11 April 2024), and any assumption that Quebec's fee scales with prize value the way Ontario's does. Quebec scales with your gross annual revenue.
Best for: Registered charitable or religious organisations established in Quebec, running a single draw or a 50/50 tied to a fundraising event.
Worth considering if: Your gross annual revenue is under $5,000 (Class C, the lightest path) or under $20,000 (Class A). Above $20,000 you are Class B and only Class B may run a true electronic draw.
Table of contents
Pour la version française de ce guide, consultez Règlements sur les loteries de bienfaisance au Québec. La version française couvre les mmes rgles avec les termes officiels de la Régie.
Does your nonprofit need a licence at all?
In Quebec, yes, if you are drawing for a prize and selling tickets, you need a licence from the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux (RACJ). The statute is the Loi sur les loteries et les appareils d'amusement, RLRQ c. L-6, s.34: no one may run a lottery activity for which a licence is required unless the RACJ has issued that licence. There is no "small raffle" exemption in Quebec the way some provinces have one. What changes with size is the class of licence, not whether you need one.
For a small nonprofit: if you have never applied before, plan on 30 days lead time as a floor and treat six to eight weeks as safer, especially for a first application.
Bottom line: if you are selling tickets and drawing a winner in Quebec, you need a licence, full stop.
The three classes: A, B, and C
Since 11 April 2024, Quebec's lottery-systems regulation (Règlement sur les systmes de loterie, L-6 r.11.1, s.2.1) sorts applicants by gross annual revenue, not by prize value. This is the opposite of Ontario. If you have carried an Ontario-style prize-value chart over from an older guide, throw it out for Quebec.
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| Class A | Up to $20,000 | $16 per type of lottery system (s.6.1), plus the study fee | No |
| Class B | Over $20,000 | 0.9% of estimated total ticket-sale price (s.6.2), plus a 0.9% top-up on any excess beyond 10% of the estimate (s.7), plus the study fee | Yes (Class B only) |
| Class C | Up to $5,000 | Study fee (the lightest path) | No |
The RACJ study fee is set at 34.75$ on the regulator's fee page (last updated 2025-12-30). Quebec fees are indexed every 1 January, so confirm the current amounts on the RACJ site before you send payment.
The 0.9% figure is the one to remember. If you have read that Quebec charges 3% on raffle duties, that is Ontario's rate. Quebec's statutory rate for a draw is 0.9% of the estimated total ticket-sale price.
For a small nonprofit: if your organisation's gross annual revenue is under $5,000, Class C is the lightest legal path and you should default to it. If you are between $5,000 and $20,000, Class A is straightforward. Class B is where things get heavier, and it is also the only class that can run a true electronic draw.
For most small nonprofits, Class C or Class A is the simpler and cheaper route. Class B is for larger organisations that specifically need an electronic draw.
The four gates for Quebec
Every province in this cluster answers the same four questions. Here they are, tightly, for Quebec.
- 1. May a registered charity or nonprofit run a raffle? Yes. The organisation must be established in Quebec and must be running the raffle for charitable or religious purposes (relief of suffering or poverty, promotion of education, culture, arts, sport, or community interest).
- 2. May tickets be sold online? Conditionally. Only a Class B licence may run a "tirage lectronique" (L-6 r.11.1 s.2.2). But there is a genuine Quebec-specific carve-out for websites that take payment without issuing the ticket, described in the next section.
- 3. May tickets be paid for by credit or debit card? Yes. Nothing in the RACJ rules prohibits card payment. The constraints are on the system, not the payment method: the electronic system used for sales must verify the buyer is in Quebec and is 18+, enable secure payment, protect personal data, and allow a ticket to be cancelled or reissued (Rgles sur les systmes de loterie, L-6 r.12.1, s.51).
- 4. May a third-party platform be the channel for the sale, and must that platform itself be licensed? Where a true electronic system is used, yes. L-6 r.11.1 s.5 requires a licence de fournisseur de systmes lectroniques for anyone supplying an electronic system to an organisation running a draw. L-6 r.12.1 s.53 requires the electronic system, including its random-number generator, to be certified against GLI-27, GLI-31, or ISO/IEC 27000-family standards, and s.50(6) requires a server located in Canada. This gate is the one that catches Quebec charities most often, because a valid organisation licence does not cover the platform.
50/50 draws (tirage moiti-moiti) in Quebec
A 50/50 draw (or tirage moiti-moiti) is a draw where the pot is split between the winning ticket holder and your cause. In Quebec, a 50/50 is treated as a draw ("tirage") under the same regulation as a raffle, so the class-A/B/C threshold and the 0.9% duty apply the same way.
The practical trap: if you want the draw to be electronic (tickets bought and issued through a system), you need Class B and the platform-side gate above. Many Quebec nonprofits run 50/50s at an event with paper tickets on Class A precisely because it is the simpler legal route, and there is nothing second-class about that choice.
Can you use Zeffy to sell raffle tickets online in Quebec?
Short answer: not as the raffle-ticket system itself.
Under L-6 r.11.1, a true "tirage lectronique" is a draw that uses an electronic system for the sale of tickets, selection of the winner, or attribution of the prize. Where an electronic system is used, the system's supplier must hold a licence de fournisseur de systmes lectroniques from the RACJ, and the system must be certified against GLI-27, GLI-31, or ISO/IEC 27000-family standards, on a server in Canada. Zeffy does not hold that supplier licence and does not carry that certification. For the ticket sale itself, you would need a supplier from the RACJ's approved list.
The Quebec-specific carve-out, and how to read it. The RACJ's own guidance on its tirage pages says that a system which lets a buyer pay for a ticket but does not itself issue the ticket or a sequential ticket number is not treated as an electronic system, and can therefore be used. In the RACJ's words on the Class A page, a transactional website that lets people pay for tickets, but does not generate the tickets or their sequential numbers, is not an electronic system.
Two important caveats on that carve-out:
- It lives in RACJ website guidance, not in the regulation itself. The regulation's own definition of "tirage lectronique" does not include the "issuance" qualifier; the RACJ narrows it administratively on its guidance pages. Treat it as the regulator's stated interpretation, not a rule in the statute.
- It is Quebec-only. Do not carry this logic into Ontario, Alberta, BC, or any other province.
If your setup relies on the carve-out (for example, taking payment through a website but printing and distributing physical numbered tickets yourselves), confirm your specific configuration with the RACJ in writing before you sell a ticket. And keep your original printing certificate for the tickets.
What Zeffy is genuinely useful for around a Quebec raffle. Zeffy, trusted by 100K+ nonprofits and responsible for $2B+ raised, is 100% free for nonprofits (no platform fee, no transaction fee, no credit card fee. Ever). Around a raffle, the honest role is the event and the donor record, not the draw itself:
- Selling event tickets for the fundraising evening where the draw happens.
- Accepting general donations from supporters who do not want to buy a raffle ticket.
- Issuing tax receipts for eligible donations. Note that a raffle ticket itself is not a receiptable donation under CRA rules.
- Keeping a clean donor record for follow-up.
For a small nonprofit: the realistic path in Quebec is often a paper-ticket Class A or Class C raffle at the event, with Zeffy handling event tickets, side donations, and receipts. That gives you a legally simple draw and a clean digital record for everything around it.
Where the money has to land: separate accounting and the 35% floor
This is the section our own users tell us they wish they had read first.
Quebec's rules require separate accounting for lottery proceeds. This is lighter than Ontario's designated trust-account requirement, but it is real: you must be able to show the RACJ where the raffle money came in, what came out to cover prizes and administration, and where the net went. A treasurer who commingles raffle receipts with the general operating account is creating a problem for the post-lottery report before the draw even happens.
There is also a 35% net-profit floor, and it does not have an Ontario analogue. Under the Quebec rules, net profit from the draw must be at least 35% of ticket-sale revenue, and administration costs must be less than the net profit. Venue and advertising costs cannot be set as a percentage of revenue or profits. This directly caps what any platform, printer, or vendor can charge against a Quebec raffle. Because Zeffy is free for nonprofits, using it for the event and donation side around the raffle does not eat into that 35% floor.
For a small nonprofit: before you sell the first ticket, open (or designate) a separate account for the raffle, write down your expected expenses, and check that your projected net still clears 35% of ticket sales. If it does not, redesign the raffle before it goes live, not after.
Current RACJ forms (the 4200 form is gone)
The lottery-systems regulation was amended on 11 April 2024 and the old single "licence de tirage" (Form RACJ-4200) no longer exists. If a guide is telling you to fill out RACJ-4200, it is out of date, and the file that used to live at that URL no longer serves.
The current forms, from the RACJ's own forms page:
- Form 4235: Demande de licence de systmes de loterie de classe A (raffle application, Class A).
- Form 4245: Demande de licence de systmes de loterie de classe B – Tirage (raffle application, Class B).
- Supporting forms: 4226, 4210, 4270 (representative resolution).
- Annual reports: 4211, 4212, 4213, 4214 (which one applies depends on your class and the type of activity).
The RACJ site and its forms are in French. If you need an English exchange, contact the RACJ directly through its bilingual homepage.
Fees, timing, and reporting
- Application fees: Class A is $16 per type of lottery system (s.6.1). Class B for a draw is 0.9% of the estimated total ticket-sale price (s.6.2), plus 0.9% on any excess beyond 10% of the estimate (s.7). A licence de fournisseur de systmes lectroniques is $250 (s.8). The RACJ study fee is 34.75$ on the current fee page. All figures are indexed every 1 January, so confirm current amounts with the RACJ before you pay.
- Lead time: 30 days minimum before your first ticket sale. No sale, distribution, or promotion is authorised before the licence's issue date printed on the licence itself.
- Duration: A Class B licence runs one year from its issue date.
- Sample ticket: submit within 30 days of licence issuance.
- Post-lottery reporting: file within 60 days of expiry or revocation, using the correct annual-report form for your class (4211, 4212, 4213, or 4214). Profits must be spent in Quebec within a year, on the charitable or religious purposes named in the application.
- Where tickets may be sold: the electronic system must verify the buyer is in Quebec. Section 51(2) implies that sales to buyers outside Quebec are not permitted, though no express prohibition sentence appears in the regulation; confirm with the RACJ before selling to non-Quebec residents.
- Municipal involvement: none found in the RACJ materials for standard charitable draws, but that is not the same as none existing. If your event is on municipal property or tied to a municipal permit, ask your municipality directly.
For a small nonprofit, the key takeaways are: apply at least six weeks early, keep raffle money in a separate account from day one, and file your post-lottery report within 60 days of the draw.
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