Licensed Insolvency Trustee (LIT)
Syndic autorisé en insolvabilité (SAI) in French
Quick definition
A Licensed Insolvency Trustee (LIT) is the only professional in Canada federally licensed to file consumer proposals and bankruptcies. Licensed and supervised by the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, an LIT is both your advisor and an officer of the court.
The only door into formal debt relief
If you want to file a consumer proposal or a bankruptcy in Canada, there is exactly one professional who can do it: a Licensed Insolvency Trustee. LITs are licensed by the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy (OSB), the federal regulator that oversees the whole insolvency system, and no lawyer, accountant, credit counsellor or debt consultant can file either process on your behalf.
Advisor and referee at once
An honest framing: an LIT is not purely "your" professional the way a lawyer is. As an officer of the court, the trustee owes duties to both you and your creditors, administering the process fairly for everyone in it. In practice that dual role works in your favour more than against you: it is exactly why creditors accept the numbers an LIT puts forward, and why the process carries legal force.
It also does not make the advice stingy. The first consultation is free, and the LIT is required to walk through all of your options, including the non-insolvency ones: a budget rework, negotiating directly with creditors, or a consolidation loan. Insolvency filings are the last items on the menu, not the first.
What an LIT costs
LIT fees are set by a government tariff and come out of the payments you already make into the proposal or bankruptcy, not on top of them. In a consumer proposal, the amount you agreed to pay is the amount you pay, period; the trustee's compensation is carved out of it. There is no upfront retainer and no separate bill.
The warning: unlicensed "debt consultants"
A whole industry of debt-settlement and debt-consulting companies advertises aggressively to Canadians in financial trouble, often promising to erase debt or repair your credit score for a fee. Here is the thing to understand: they cannot file anything. Only an LIT can file the proposal or bankruptcy that actually delivers legal protection, so these firms frequently charge hundreds or thousands of dollars up front and then simply refer you to a trustee, who would have seen you for free.
If your situation points toward a proposal or bankruptcy, go directly to an LIT. Anything a paid middleman offers, the trustee already provides, without the extra fee and with a regulator behind it.
How to find one
The OSB maintains a public online registry of every active LIT in Canada, searchable by name and location, so you can verify a licence in seconds before any meeting. Most trustees offer consultations by phone or video, and meeting two or three before choosing is perfectly normal.
In Canada
The LIT is a distinctly Canadian institution: one federally licensed professional who advises you, files the process and administers it, all under a single national regulator. In the United States there is no equivalent; a personal bankruptcy is filed through the courts, usually with a paid attorney on one side and a court-appointed trustee on the other. In Québec the professional is called a « syndic autorisé en insolvabilité » (SAI), which is the same federal licence under its French name.
Worked example
Dana owes $38,000 and answers an ad promising to "cut your debt by 70% without bankruptcy." The company quotes a $1,800 upfront fee for a debt-relief program, then, weeks later, refers her to a trustee to file a consumer proposal anyway. Her sister, in a similar spot, books directly with an LIT she found on the OSB registry: the consultation is free, the options review covers consolidation and a proposal, and when she files, the trustee's fee comes out of her proposal payments. Same destination; Dana paid $1,800 for the detour.
Related terms
Reviewed by Alexandre Bernier, CFP®, CIM®, PFP®·Updated July 2026