The Best Broker for Beginners in Canada, Ranked for 2026
Last updated: September 11, 2026.
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The first account is not the same problem as the fifth one. There is a few hundred dollars in it, maybe a few thousand, a plan to add a bit every payday, and an order ticket nobody has used before. The best broker for beginners in Canada is the one that lets that money start working immediately, without a minimum to clear, without a fee that eats a visible slice of a small balance, and without a screen that makes the first purchase feel like a test.
That reframes what cheap means. On a $3,000 account, a $100 annual administration fee is a larger drag than a per-trade commission most beginners will only pay a dozen times a year. A $25 quarterly maintenance charge is a bigger deal than the difference between $6.95 and $9.95 a trade. The fees that punish small balances do the real damage at this stage, and they are the ones buried furthest down the pricing page.
So the ranking below weighs account minimums, the fees that bite under roughly $10,000, how simple the platform is to actually use, whether you can buy part of a share or set up an automatic monthly purchase, and whether the broker still suits you in five years when the account is larger and the questions are different. Every figure comes from each broker’s own published pricing page, captured September 11, 2026. If you are still deciding between platforms more broadly, our investing apps hub covers the wider market, and the mechanics of the trade itself are in our guide to how to buy your first stock.
Questrade® is where we hold our own research accounts: $0 commissions on Canadian and US-listed stocks and ETFs, TFSA, RRSP and FHSA accounts, and CIPF coverage as a CIRO member. Open a Questrade account.
How we ranked them
We rank the same brokers on our best broker for a TFSA ranking, and the order is deliberately different. That page weights currency conversion heavily, because a TFSA holding US dividend stocks pays an FX cost every time money crosses the border. This page weights the first-account problem instead: minimums, small-balance fees and simplicity. A beginner’s first account is usually a TFSA, so it is worth reading both, but if you are opening your first account at all, these are the criteria that decide it.
Account minimums. A minimum deposit is a hard stop. Where a broker publishes that there is none, we say so. Where the pricing page does not address it, the table says not verified rather than guessing at zero.
Fees that apply to a small balance. Annual administration fees, quarterly maintenance fees and low-activity fees are charged whether or not you trade, and they are sized in dollars rather than percentages, which is why they land hardest on the smallest accounts. We looked at the amount, the balance threshold that removes it, and how realistic that threshold is for someone starting out.
Commissions on stocks and ETFs. Twelve monthly purchases at $9.99 is roughly $120 over a year, which is real money against a four-figure account. At $0 it is nothing, forever.
Platform simplicity, weighted openly. We are treating this as a ranking criterion rather than a footnote, because the most expensive beginner mistake is not a commission. It is an account that never gets used. A first platform should make funding, buying and checking a holding obvious. We are judging the trading experience the brokers describe and price, not making claims about tutorials or courses, which we did not verify.
Partial shares and recurring buys. Two features that matter disproportionately when contributions are small. Partial shares let $100 buy a piece of an expensive stock instead of sitting in cash. Recurring buys turn investing into a standing instruction rather than a monthly decision. Only the brokers whose own pages state these features get credit for them here.
Room to grow without switching. Changing brokers later is a transfer, paperwork and a gap. A broker that also offers the products and account types you may want in five years is worth something on day one.
CIPF membership. Every broker ranked below trades through a dealer entity listed on the CIPF current member directory, checked September 11, 2026. What that coverage includes, and where its limits sit, is set out by CIPF.
The order is our editorial view rather than the output of a scoring formula. Questrade and Wealthsimple are brokers we earn a commission from. They sit where their published fees and features put them, the reasoning is shown in full, and every broker on this page, those two included, gets a written statement of what it is worse at.
The best beginner brokers at a glance
- Wealthsimple · no minimum, $0 commissions, recurring buys, simplest app here
- Questrade · $0 commissions and the most room to grow into
- RBC Direct Investing · GoSmart gives 50 free trades a year, no maintenance fee
- CIBC Investor’s Edge · $6.95 trades, 180+ free ETFs, no minimum balance
- National Bank Direct Brokerage · $0 commissions, but a $100 annual fee to clear
- TD Direct Investing · partial shares at $1.99 and select ETFs free
- Scotia iTRADE · registered accounts escape the low-activity fee
- Interactive Brokers Canada · professional pricing, professional platform
Beginner costs compared
| Broker | Account minimum | Online stock trade | ETF trades | Fee on a small balance | Partial shares or recurring buys |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wealthsimple | None at Core | $0 at every client status | $0 | None. USD account $10 CAD/mo at Core if you want one | Recurring buys |
| Questrade | Not verified | $0, Canadian and US-listed | $0 to buy and sell | None. No annual fee, no inactivity fee | Not verified |
| RBC Direct Investing | No minimum balance | $9.95, or $0 on GoSmart’s 50 trades a year | Unlimited free on select ETFs | None. No quarterly or annual maintenance fee | Not verified |
| CIBC Investor’s Edge | No minimum account balance | $6.95, or $4.95 at 150+ trades/quarter | Over 180 ETFs free, others at commission | $100/year at $10,000 or less total balance, $0 above. New clients exempt in year one | Not verified |
| National Bank Direct Brokerage | Not verified | $0, Canadian and US | $0 | $100 per account per year, waived with an exemption such as $20,000 in eligible assets at May 31 | Not verified |
| TD Direct Investing | Not verified | $9.99, or $7.00 Active Trader | Select ETFs $0 | $25/quarter under $15,000 total balance, waivable | Partial shares $1.99 |
| Scotia iTRADE | Not verified | $9.99, or $4.99 at 150+ trades/quarter | Select commission-free list | $25/quarter low activity fee, waived on registered accounts and for new clients for 6 months | Not verified |
| Interactive Brokers Canada | No account minimums | CAD $0.01/share, CAD $1.00 minimum per order, capped at 0.5% of trade value | Same per-share schedule | No platform fees | Not verified |
Data as of September 11, 2026, verified against each broker’s published pricing page the same day. Confirm current pricing with each broker before opening an account.
BMO InvestorLine is not ranked here because bmo.com could not be fetched on September 11, 2026 and we will not publish fees we have not read.
The eight brokers in detail
1. Wealthsimple
What it costs. Nothing to open and nothing to trade. There is no account minimum at Core status, and commissions on stocks and ETFs are $0 at Core, Premium and Generation alike. Options are $0 USD per contract with no minimum balance required to buy them. Currency conversion is tiered per conversion: 1.50% under $10,000, 1.00% from $10,000 to $24,999.99, 0.50% from $25,000 to $99,999.99, and 0% at $100,000 and over, charged on top of a corporate exchange rate that includes a spread. A USD account costs $10 CAD a month at Core after a 30-day free trial and is free by opt-in at Premium, which begins at $100,000, or Generation at $500,000. Terms are published in the Wealthsimple Help Centre.
Best at. Removing every obstacle between deciding to invest and owning something. No minimum means the account works with whatever you have. $0 commissions mean a $100 purchase is not immediately down by a trading fee. Recurring buys let the monthly contribution happen without you doing anything, which is the single most useful feature on this page for somebody building the habit rather than picking trades. Eligible account types run from TFSA and FHSA through RRSP, Spousal RRSP, RRIF, LIRA, LIF, RESP, non-registered and business, so the first account rarely turns out to be the wrong container, and extended-hours orders are there if you ever want them.
Worse at. Breadth and foreign currency. The trading account holds stocks, options and ETFs only, so bonds, GICs and mutual funds are not available at all. That is unlikely to matter in year one and very likely to matter eventually. Options are US securities only, described by Wealthsimple as not available for Canadian securities or indices yet. And the 1.50% conversion tier applies exactly in the balance range beginners occupy, so buying US-listed holdings early costs more here than at a broker that holds US dollars for free, unless you pay $10 a month for the USD account. Our Wealthsimple review has the full account list.
2. Questrade
What it costs. $0 a month on the Standard plan and $0 commissions on stocks and ETFs, Canadian and US-listed, buying and selling. No annual account fee and no inactivity fee, so a small account that sits quiet for a few months is not charged for it. Options are $0 on US equity options contracts and assignment fees, which Questrade describes as $0 options for most contracts rather than all of them. Beyond equities, bonds are $24.95 a trade, GICs are free and mutual funds are $9.95. The full schedule is on Questrade’s pricing page.
Best at. Being a first broker you do not outgrow. The trading cost is identical to Wealthsimple’s at zero, and what you get on top is the stuff a beginner does not need yet and may want later: bonds, GICs and mutual funds alongside stocks and ETFs, and free dual-currency, which lets US dollars sit inside a registered account so US-listed positions can be traded without a conversion each time once the USD is there. Starting here means the account that holds your first $500 can still hold a diversified six-figure portfolio without a transfer.
Worse at. Day one. The platform carries more surface area than a first-time buyer needs, and more choices on screen is a real cost when the goal is one simple purchase. Journaling, the step behind Norbert’s Gambit, is $9.95 per request unless you pay $19.99 a month for Questrade Plus, which also adds a 1% RRSP deposit match to the CRA limit, options cashback of 5 cents per US equities contract and expanded data including OPRA. No FX percentage is published, so the conversion cost cannot be read off the page, and there is no sign-up bonus or promo code on offer. Our Questrade review walks through the platform in detail.
3. RBC Direct Investing
What it costs. $9.95 per online or mobile stock or ETF trade, dropping to $6.95 at 150 or more trades a quarter. There is no quarterly or annual maintenance fee and no minimum balance: the pricing page states the account is free to hold, and its own FAQ confirms the old $25 quarterly fee no longer exists. Select ETFs trade commission-free with no cap on how often. GoSmart Accounts, which are new and available for TFSAs, FHSAs and RRSPs, cost $0 a month and include 50 commission-free stock and ETF trades a year across your GoSmart accounts. Details on the RBC Direct Investing pricing page.
Best at. Being a bank-owned broker that does not charge a beginner for being a beginner. No minimum, no maintenance fee, and GoSmart is aimed squarely at this situation: 50 free trades a year is roughly four a month, more than a monthly contributor will ever use, in the registered accounts a first-time investor actually opens. For someone who wants their investing account at the bank they already use, this is the cheapest structure here.
Worse at. What happens after the 50. Outside GoSmart the standard commission is $9.95, and the only published route down to $6.95 runs through 150 trades a quarter, which is not a beginner’s trading pattern. So the low cost depends on staying inside a specific account type and a specific trade count rather than being the default price.
4. CIBC Investor’s Edge
What it costs. $6.95 per online stock or ETF trade, or $4.95 on active pricing at 150 or more trades a quarter. More than 180 ETFs can be bought and sold commission-free, with anything outside that list charged as a normal trade. Options are $6.95 plus $1.25 per contract. There is no minimum account balance. The annual account fee is $0 when total market balance across accounts is over $10,000 and $100 when it is $10,000 or less, FHSA accounts carry no annual fee at all, and new clients are exempt from first-year fees. Published on the CIBC Investor’s Edge pricing page.
Best at. Cost per trade among the brokers that still charge one. $6.95 is the lowest commission on this page outside the $0 brokers, there is no minimum to open, and a portfolio built from that 180-plus ETF list can be bought and sold without paying commission at all.
Worse at. The fee threshold sits in precisely the wrong place. Below $10,000 in total balance the account costs $100 a year, and a first account spends its early life below that line. The first-year exemption for new clients delays the problem rather than removing it, which means the second year is the one to plan for. Commissions are also not zero: twelve purchases a year outside the free ETF list is $83.40 that the two brokers above this one do not charge.
5. National Bank Direct Brokerage
What it costs. $0 commission on all online stock and ETF transactions, Canadian and US, from the first bank-owned broker in the country to price that way. Options are $1.25 per contract with a $6.25 minimum, capped at $19.95 when the option value is under $2,000. The catch is a $100 annual administration fee per account, waived if at least one exemption is met, including holding eligible assets totalling at least $20,000 as of May 31. Other exemptions are listed on NBDB’s pricing page.
Best at. Free trading with a major bank dealer behind it, National Bank Financial Inc. If the balance clears an exemption, the combination of $0 commissions and a bank-owned platform is not available anywhere else on this list.
Worse at. The exemption is the whole problem for this audience. $20,000 in eligible assets is a threshold most first accounts will not reach for years, and until one of the exemptions is met the $100 is charged annually regardless of whether you trade. On a $5,000 account that is 2% a year going out before a single investment decision has been made, which is enough to undo the benefit of the $0 commissions several times over. The platform is also built with existing bank clients in mind rather than newcomers.
6. TD Direct Investing
What it costs. $9.99 per Canadian or US stock trade, or $7.00 on the Active Trader tier. Select ETFs are $0 online and in the app, and partial shares trade at $1.99. Options are $9.99 plus $1.25 per contract, and phone trades carry a $43 minimum commission. Account maintenance is $25 a quarter for accounts with a total balance under $15,000, waivable by routes including Household Program enrolment, with the conditions set out on TD’s direct investing pricing page.
Best at. Partial shares, which is a genuinely useful beginner feature and the reason TD is not lower. At $1.99, a $100 contribution can buy a fraction of a stock priced at several hundred dollars instead of waiting in cash until a whole share is affordable. That changes what a small, regular contribution can do, and the $0 select ETF list covers the core holding at no cost.
Worse at. Everything around that feature. $9.99 is the joint highest headline commission here, and the $25 quarterly maintenance fee applies under a $15,000 total balance, which describes almost every first account. It is waivable, but a waiver is a condition to track rather than a fee that is not there. Paying that fee for four quarters is $100 a year on top of commissions.
7. Scotia iTRADE
What it costs. $9.99 per equity trade below 150 trades a quarter, $4.99 at 150 or more, with options adding $1.25 per contract and phone trades adding $65. There is a commission-free ETF list. The Low Activity Account Admin Fee is $25 a quarter, waived for Registered Plan accounts including RRSP, RIF, LIRA, LIF, RESP and TFSA, waived for new clients in their first six months, and waived where at least one commission-generating trade occurred in the preceding three months, with further waivers on Scotia iTRADE’s pricing page.
Best at. Not charging a quiet registered account. The low-activity fee is the classic small-balance penalty, and on a registered plan it does not apply, so an iTRADE TFSA holding an ETF from the commission-free list can sit there costing nothing. New clients also get a six-month window regardless of account type.
Worse at. The commission, with no realistic way down. $9.99 per trade is the top of the range here and the only published discount requires 150 trades a quarter, a volume no first-time investor should be aiming for. Anything outside the commission-free ETF list costs $9.99 every time, which makes small, frequent purchases the most expensive habit you can have on this platform.
8. Interactive Brokers Canada
What it costs. Under Fixed pricing, Canadian stocks are CAD $0.01 per share with a CAD $1.00 minimum per order, capped at 0.5% of trade value. US stocks are USD $0.005 per share with a USD $1.00 minimum per order. Tiered pricing goes lower with volume, starting from CAD 0.008 per share. The firm states there are no added spreads, ticket charges, platform fees or account minimums. Schedule at Interactive Brokers Canada.
Best at. Price at volume and professional-grade tooling. For an experienced investor placing large or frequent orders, the per-share model with a $1.00 floor is the cheapest structure on this page, and there is no account minimum standing in the way.
Worse at. Being a first broker, plainly. A professional platform is the wrong platform to learn on: the depth that makes it valuable to a full-time trader is friction for somebody placing their first order, and that is a cost even though it never appears on a fee schedule. The pricing model points the same way. A $1.00 order minimum on a small purchase is a commission the two brokers at the top of this page do not charge at any size. It belongs on this list because it is excellent at what it does, and it is last because what it does is not this.
Also consider: Qtrade Direct Investing
Qtrade Direct Investing is a division of Aviso Financial Inc., which appears on the CIPF current member directory as at September 11, 2026. We have not ranked it because the body of its pricing page is script-rendered and the commission tiers, quarterly administration fee and waivers could not be verified on September 11, 2026. Two things we could verify: the page’s own published meta description states that you can trade stocks for $8.75, buy and sell 100 ETFs free and pay no mutual fund trading fees, and the fees page puts USD registered accounts, which include RSP, RIF and TFSA but not FHSA, at US$15 per quarter per account, with paper statements at $6 a quarter waived for Investor Plus. Since an unverified administration fee is exactly the kind of charge that matters most to a small account, check the current schedule on Qtrade’s pricing page before opening anything. We will rank it once the full schedule is verified.
The verdict, by where you are starting from
There is no single right answer here, because the first account varies more than the fifth one does.
Starting with a small amount and wanting it to be easy: Wealthsimple. No minimum, $0 commissions, recurring buys to automate the contribution, and the least to learn before the first purchase. Budget for the 1.50% conversion tier if US-listed holdings are in the plan early.
Starting small but planning to keep going for decades: Questrade. The same $0 commissions and no account fee at any balance, plus bonds, GICs, mutual funds and free US dollar holdings waiting for when the portfolio is bigger, which means no transfer later.
Wanting the account at your existing bank: RBC Direct Investing first, on GoSmart’s 50 free trades a year and no maintenance fee, then CIBC Investor’s Edge at $6.95 with 180-plus free ETFs, then National Bank Direct Brokerage if the $20,000 exemption is reachable, then TD and Scotia, where the small-balance fees are the deciding factor rather than the commission.
Making small contributions into expensive stocks: TD Direct Investing, for partial shares at $1.99, accepting the $9.99 commission and the quarterly fee under $15,000 that come with it.
Already trading actively and cross-border: Interactive Brokers Canada, which is the wrong first broker and a very good later one.
If the shortlist has come down to the two independents charging nothing to trade, our head-to-head on Questrade vs Wealthsimple works through what still separates them once commissions are off the table.
Open a Wealthsimple Account and Get $25
If you are starting from zero, Wealthsimple is the simplest place to open a first account, and opening it through our link pays you $25. Four steps:
- Click here to sign up for a Wealthsimple account
- Fund your account with at least $100 in the first 30 days
- Receive $25 cash for free
- Start investing and compounding your gains
How to open the account
The application itself is short and happens online. The two decisions worth making before you start are which account type to open, since a first account is most often a TFSA, and how the first deposit will get there. Our walkthrough on how to open a brokerage account covers the application, the identification you will be asked for and the first transfer in. One last step people skip: money arriving in the account is not invested. It sits as cash until you place an order. Read the broker’s current fee page before you apply, because the figures here were verified on September 11, 2026 and brokers do change them.
Frequently asked questions
What is the minimum amount needed to start investing in Canada? That depends on the broker rather than on any rule. Wealthsimple publishes no account minimum at Core status, CIBC Investor’s Edge states there is no minimum account balance, RBC Direct Investing states there is no minimum balance, and Interactive Brokers Canada states it has no account minimums. We did not verify a published minimum for Questrade, NBDB, TD or Scotia iTRADE, so check those directly.
Which brokers charge no commission on stocks and ETFs? Three on this page. Wealthsimple charges $0 at Core, Premium and Generation. Questrade charges $0 on Canadian and US-listed stocks and ETFs on the Standard plan, which costs $0 a month. National Bank Direct Brokerage charges $0 commission on all online stock and ETF transactions, Canadian and US.
Will a small account get charged a fee just for existing? At some brokers, yes. CIBC Investor’s Edge charges $100 a year when total market balance across accounts is $10,000 or less, with new clients exempt in their first year. NBDB charges $100 per account per year unless an exemption applies, such as $20,000 in eligible assets as of May 31. TD Direct Investing charges $25 a quarter under a $15,000 total balance, waivable. Scotia iTRADE’s $25 quarterly low-activity fee is waived on registered accounts and for new clients in their first six months. Questrade charges no annual account fee and no inactivity fee, and RBC Direct Investing charges no quarterly or annual maintenance fee.
Can I buy part of a share if I cannot afford a whole one? TD Direct Investing is the broker on this page whose pricing schedule publishes partial share trading, at $1.99 per trade. We did not verify partial share availability at the others, so treat their cells as unconfirmed rather than as a no.
Can I set up automatic monthly investing? Wealthsimple’s own documentation lists recurring buys, along with extended-hours orders. We did not verify recurring purchase functionality at the other brokers on this page.
Does it cost extra to buy US stocks as a beginner? It can. Wealthsimple charges a tiered conversion fee per conversion, starting at 1.50% under $10,000 and falling to 1.00% from $10,000, 0.50% from $25,000 and 0% at $100,000 and over, on top of a corporate exchange rate that includes a spread. A Wealthsimple USD account is $10 CAD a month at Core after a 30-day free trial. Questrade enables dual-currency for free, so US dollars can be held inside registered accounts and US stocks traded without a forced conversion once the USD is there, though Questrade publishes no FX percentage. Qtrade charges US$15 per quarter for a USD registered account. We did not verify US dollar pricing at the bank-owned brokers.
Is my money protected if the broker goes under? Every broker ranked on this page trades through a dealer entity on the CIPF current member directory, checked September 11, 2026: Wealthsimple Investments Inc., Questrade, Inc., RBC Direct Investing Inc., CIBC Investor Services Inc., National Bank Financial Inc., TD Waterhouse Canada Inc., Scotia Capital Inc. and Interactive Brokers Canada Inc. What that coverage includes, and the limits on it, are set out by CIPF itself.
Questrade® is a registered trademark and/or service mark of Questrade, Inc. Questrade, Inc. is a member of CIRO and a member of CIPF.
Disclaimer: The content on bestcanadianstocks.ca is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions. Broker pricing data as of September 11, 2026.