Cloud hosting
AWS vs Azure: which keeps data in Canada?
Where each stores and processes data, and who owns each company, from the vendors' own pages. Not features or prices.
The short answer
Amazon Web Services: yes, if you choose it.
Amazon Web Services offers Canadian storage, but you have to choose it, and it may depend on your plan. Where it is processed: Where you deploy it; two Canadian regions available. It is owned by a US company, so the US CLOUD Act can require it to produce data it controls, wherever that data is stored.
Microsoft Azure: yes, if you choose it.
Microsoft Azure offers Canadian storage, but you have to choose it, and it may depend on your plan. Where it is processed: Where you deploy it; two Canadian regions available. It is owned by a US company, so the US CLOUD Act can require it to produce data it controls, wherever that data is stored.
Both are owned by US companies, so the US CLOUD Act can require either to produce data it controls, wherever that data is stored.
Side by side
| Claim | Amazon Web Services | Microsoft Azure |
|---|---|---|
| Stored in Canada? | Yes, if you choose it | Yes, if you choose it |
| Where data is stored | Canada (Central); Canada West (Calgary) | Canada Central (Toronto); Canada East (Québec City) |
| Where it is processed | Where you deploy it; two Canadian regions available | Where you deploy it; two Canadian regions available |
| Support and backups | Not stated on the pages read | Not stated on the pages read |
| Owner | Amazon Web Services, Inc. (Seattle, WA); Canadian contracting entity Amazon Web Services Canada, Inc. · Parent country: United States | Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA) · Parent country: United States |
| Servers run by | AWS-owned data centres · US company | Microsoft-owned data centres · US company |
| Customer-held keys | Not recorded | Customer-managed keys in Azure Key Vault or Managed HSM (Microsoft) |
| Certifications | CCCS Medium: 162 services in the Canadian regions (AWS, as of Sept 2025); CCCS PBHVA assessment | CCCS Medium (formerly PBMM) for Azure, Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Microsoft 365 (Microsoft) |
| Worth knowing | Most-used cloud under Canadian SaaS vendors; picking a Canadian region keeps data at rest in Canada but the parent is a US company. | Federal departments' largest cloud supplier; GC framework agreement since 2019 (Microsoft). |
| Caveats | The Canadian contracting entity is a subsidiary; the DOJ treats control over a subsidiary's data as a fact-dependent question. | — |
| Tier | Tier 4: US-owned, Canadian region | Tier 4: US-owned, Canadian region |
| Checked | 2026-10-13 | 2026-10-13 |
Sources
Amazon Web Services · checked 2026-10-13
- Where the data is stored: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/regions_az/
- Who owns it: https://aws.amazon.com/agreement/
- Supporting page: https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/cccs/
Microsoft Azure · checked 2026-10-13
- Where the data is stored: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/reliability/regions-list
- Who owns it: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/privacy/privacystatement
- Supporting page: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/compliance/regulatory/offering-cccs-medium
- Supporting page: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-ca/explore/global-infrastructure/data-residency/