Partnership Agreement
The terms between people carrying on business together.
A contract between two or more people or businesses operating together as partners, covering profit and loss sharing, decision-making authority, and what happens if a partner exits. Without one, provincial partnership legislation supplies default rules that rarely match what the partners actually intended.
- Business days
- 1–5Business days
- Lawyer reviewed
- 100%Lawyer reviewed
- Surprise bills
- $0Surprise bills
What a Partnership Agreement should include
Contributions — what each partner puts in — capital, property, work — and what it entitles them to.
Profit and loss sharing — the split, and how it is calculated and distributed.
Management — who decides what, and which decisions need everyone.
Admission and departure — how a partner joins or leaves, and what happens to their interest.
Liability between partners — how the partners allocate responsibility among themselves.
Dissolution — how the partnership ends and how assets are divided.
When you need one
Before the business starts, if you are carrying it on with someone and not through a corporation. Partnership legislation is provincial, and where the partners have not agreed terms the statute supplies defaults that may not be what either of you would have chosen.
How Ruby drafts it
Tell us what you need
Describe the agreement, your business context, and how fast you need it. A few smart questions, not a legal questionnaire. Your price and turnaround are confirmed before anything starts.
Ruby drafts it
Once pricing is confirmed a qualified Ruby lawyer is assigned to your file, and the first draft is built from your answers and real Canadian statute.
A licensed lawyer reviews every line
A lawyer licensed in Canada reviews and finalizes the document before it reaches you, and writes the plain-language summary that comes with it.
Signed, stored, and yours to revisit
You get the final agreement and its summary, stored so you can come back to it rather than hunting through email for the current version.
The fee is set before any of that starts. Hourly billing moves as scope does; a flat fee is one number, confirmed in writing, that doesn’t change after the work is done. See how Ruby prices agreements.
Or did you mean one of these?
These get confused with a Partnership Agreement often enough to be worth ruling out before you buy the wrong document.
Questions people ask
A partnership can arise from how people actually conduct business together, not only from registering one. If that describes your arrangement, the terms are being supplied by statute and by implication rather than by you.
The exposure. Depending on the form of partnership, partners can be personally liable for the partnership's obligations, where a corporation is a separate legal person. That difference is usually the main reason to choose one over the other.
It governs the relationship between the partners. It does not by itself change what a third party can claim against a partner, which is a function of the form of partnership and the applicable provincial legislation.
Looking for the plain definition rather than the document? See Partnership Agreement in the Ruby legal glossary.
This page is general information about Canadian business law and is not legal advice. Laws differ by province and change over time, and how they apply depends on your circumstances. For advice on your situation, speak with a lawyer licensed in your province.
Need a Partnership Agreement?
Ruby drafts it for a flat $799 CAD, confirmed before any work begins, with a licensed Canadian lawyer on every document.