The Best Broker for a TFSA in Canada, Ranked for 2026
Last updated: September 11, 2026.
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A TFSA is not a trading account. The money goes in on a schedule, gets put to work in a handful of holdings, and then sits. That changes what cheap means. The best broker for a TFSA in Canada is not the one with the lowest commission for somebody placing 600 trades a quarter. It is the one that takes the least out of the account over a decade of small, regular buys.
Three costs do most of the damage. Per-trade commissions, because a contributor who buys once a month places twelve trades a year forever, and at $9.99 that is about $120 a year charged to a sheltered account. Annual and quarterly account fees, which several brokers still apply to smaller balances and which do not care whether you traded at all. And currency conversion, which only matters if US-listed holdings go in the TFSA, and which stays invisible until you go looking for it.
Every figure below comes from each broker’s own published pricing page, captured September 11, 2026. Nine brokers were checked and eight are ranked on verified numbers. Where we could not confirm a figure, the cell stays empty rather than guessed. For the wider market beyond this one account type, see our investing apps hub, and for the contribution rules themselves, our TFSA guide.
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
Six criteria, weighted for how a TFSA actually gets used rather than for how a day trader would use one.
Commissions on stocks and ETFs. The recurring cost of contributing, and the single biggest separator on this list.
What it costs to buy an ETF. Most TFSAs hold at least one broad ETF. Some brokers charge nothing on every ETF, others only on a named list, and that decides whether your chosen fund is free.
Account fees and minimums. Annual administration fees, quarterly maintenance fees and low-activity fees hit the accounts least able to absorb them. We looked at the fee, the threshold that removes it, and how hard that threshold is to reach.
Currency conversion for US holdings. Questrade enables dual-currency for free, so US dollars sit inside the registered account and US stocks trade without a forced conversion each time. Wealthsimple charges a tiered fee per conversion, or $10 CAD a month at Core for a USD account. Qtrade charges US$15 per quarter for a USD registered account. Of the brokers whose USD costs we could verify, Questrade is the only one with no separate charge for holding US dollars in a registered account. We did not verify USD pricing for the bank-owned brokers, so we do not claim anything about them.
Platform fit. A TFSA investor needs a clean contribution flow, a reliable order ticket and a holdings screen. Depth built for an options trader is not a benefit here.
CIPF membership. Every broker ranked below trades through a dealer entity on the CIPF current member directory, checked September 11, 2026. What that coverage includes, and its limits, are set out by CIPF.
The ranking is our editorial view rather than a scoring formula. Questrade and Wealthsimple are brokers we earn a commission from. They sit where their published fees put them, the reasoning is shown, and every broker here gets a written statement of what it is worse at.
The best TFSA brokers at a glance
- Questrade · $0 commissions, no account fees, free USD inside the TFSA
- Wealthsimple · $0 commissions, no minimum, the simplest app here
- National Bank Direct Brokerage · $0 commissions from a bank-owned broker
- CIBC Investor’s Edge · $6.95 trades, 180+ free ETFs, no minimum balance
- Scotia iTRADE · the low-activity fee is waived on TFSAs
- RBC Direct Investing · no maintenance fee, plus GoSmart for new investors
- TD Direct Investing · select ETFs free and $1.99 partial shares
- Interactive Brokers Canada · pennies per share, professional platform
TFSA broker costs compared
| Broker | Online stock trade | ETF trades | Account or admin fee | Options |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Questrade | $0, Canadian and US-listed | $0 to buy and sell | None. No annual fee, no inactivity fee | $0 on US equity options contracts and assignment fees |
| Wealthsimple | $0 at every client status | $0 | No account minimum. USD account $10 CAD/mo at Core | $0 USD per contract, US securities only |
| National Bank Direct Brokerage | $0, Canadian and US | $0 | $100 per account per year, waived with an exemption such as $20,000 in eligible assets at May 31 | $1.25/contract, $6.25 minimum |
| CIBC Investor’s Edge | $6.95, or $4.95 at 150+ trades/quarter | Over 180 ETFs free, others at commission | $0 above $10,000 total market balance, $100 at $10,000 or less | $6.95 + $1.25/contract |
| Scotia iTRADE | $9.99, or $4.99 at 150+ trades/quarter | Select commission-free list | $25/quarter low activity fee, waived on registered accounts including TFSAs | Commission + $1.25/contract |
| RBC Direct Investing | $9.95, or $6.95 at 150+ trades/quarter | Unlimited free on select ETFs | None. No maintenance fee, no minimum balance | Not verified |
| TD Direct Investing | $9.99, or $7.00 Active Trader | Select ETFs $0. Partial shares $1.99 | $25/quarter under $15,000 total balance, waivable | $9.99 + $1.25/contract |
| Interactive Brokers Canada | CAD $0.01/share, CAD $1.00 minimum per order, capped at 0.5% of trade value | Same per-share schedule | No account minimums, 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. Questrade
What it costs. $0 a month on the Standard plan, $0 commissions on stocks and ETFs, Canadian and US-listed, on both sides of the trade. No annual account fee, no inactivity fee. Options are $0 on US equity options contracts and assignment fees, which Questrade frames as $0 options for most contracts rather than all of them. Bonds are $24.95, GICs cost nothing, mutual funds $9.95. Schedule on Questrade’s pricing page.
Best at. Cost, with nothing attached to it: no commission and no account fee at any balance. The separator from the other $0 brokers is free dual-currency. US dollars can sit inside the TFSA itself, so US-listed holdings are bought and sold without a conversion each time once the USD is there. If US dividend payers are part of the plan, that is the structural difference on this list.
Worse at. Simplicity. The platform carries more surface area than a first-time investor needs. 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. Our Questrade review goes through the platform in detail.
2. Wealthsimple
What it costs. $0 commissions buying and selling stocks and ETFs at Core, Premium and Generation alike, with no account minimum and no minimum balance to buy options. Options are $0 USD per contract. 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, on top of a corporate exchange rate that includes a spread. A USD account is $10 CAD a month at Core after a 30-day free trial, free by opt-in at Premium ($100,000) or Generation ($500,000), and TFSAs are eligible. Terms in the Wealthsimple Help Centre.
Best at. Starting the habit and keeping it. The simplest app here, a TFSA among a long list of eligible account types, recurring buys that automate the monthly contribution a TFSA runs on, and extended-hours orders if you want them. For an investor buying one or two ETFs on payday, very little gets in the way.
Worse at. US dollars and product range. At 1.50% under $10,000, conversion is the largest recurring cost on this page for anyone holding US-listed positions, and the way around it is $120 a year for the USD account. The trading account holds stocks, options and ETFs only, so no bonds, GICs or mutual funds. Options are US securities only, described by Wealthsimple as not available for Canadian securities or indices yet. Our Wealthsimple review covers the account types in full.
3. 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 do it. Options are $1.25 per contract with a $6.25 minimum, capped at $19.95 when the option value is under $2,000. Against that sits a $100 annual administration fee per account, waived if at least one exemption is met, including eligible assets totalling at least $20,000 as of May 31. Other exemptions are listed on NBDB’s pricing page.
Best at. Zero commissions with a bank dealer behind them, National Bank Financial Inc. None of the other bank-owned brokers here offer that combination.
Worse at. The $100. Until an exemption is met it is a standing annual charge, and on a $10,000 TFSA that is a full percentage point a year before anything is invested. The platform is built for existing bank clients rather than for newcomers.
4. CIBC Investor’s Edge
What it costs. $6.95 per online stock or ETF trade, $4.95 on active pricing at 150 or more trades a quarter. Over 180 ETFs can be bought and sold commission-free, with the rest charged as ordinary trades. 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, and new clients are exempt from first-year fees. Details on the CIBC Investor’s Edge pricing page.
Best at. Being the cheapest of the commission-charging brokers while still offering a substantial free ETF list. A TFSA holding one of those 180-plus ETFs and nothing else never meets the $6.95.
Worse at. The fee threshold sits in the wrong place for a new TFSA: at $10,000 or less in total balance it is $100 a year, and a TFSA built from scratch spends its early life under that line, though the first-year exemption softens it. Commissions are not zero either. Buying outside the free list monthly costs $83.40 a year that the three brokers above do not charge.
5. 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 and is waived for Registered Plan accounts including TFSAs, for new clients in their first six months, and where at least one commission-generating trade occurred in the preceding three months, with further waivers on Scotia iTRADE’s pricing page.
Best at. Leaving a registered account alone without being charged for it. The low-activity fee is the one that usually punishes buy-and-hold investors, and on a TFSA it does not apply at all. Paired with the free ETF list, a dormant iTRADE TFSA holding a listed ETF can cost nothing to hold.
Worse at. The headline commission. $9.99 is the joint highest here alongside TD, and the route down to $4.99 requires 150 trades a quarter, which is not something a TFSA investor should be doing. In practice $9.99 is the price for anything off the free ETF list.
6. RBC Direct Investing
What it costs. $9.95 per online or mobile stock or ETF trade, $6.95 at 150 or more trades a quarter. No quarterly or annual maintenance fee and no minimum balance: the 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. GoSmart Accounts, 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. Terms on the RBC Direct Investing pricing page.
Best at. Costing nothing to sit still, which removes the fee that usually penalises small accounts. GoSmart is the more interesting piece for a TFSA: 50 free trades a year is more than a monthly contributor will use, at $0 a month, in exactly the account types a TFSA investor holds.
Worse at. The standard commission. Outside GoSmart’s 50 trades it is $9.95, and the path down to $6.95 runs through 150 trades a quarter.
7. TD Direct Investing
What it costs. $9.99 per Canadian or US stock trade, $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 through routes including Household Program enrolment, with conditions on TD’s direct investing pricing page.
Best at. Partial shares. At $1.99, buying a fraction of a high-priced stock lets a small monthly contribution get fully invested instead of sitting as cash until a whole share is affordable. The select ETF list at $0 covers the core holding case.
Worse at. Cost on both axes. $9.99 is the joint highest headline commission here, and the $25 quarterly maintenance fee applies exactly where a new TFSA lives, under $15,000 in total balance. It is waivable, but that is a condition to manage rather than the absence of a fee.
8. Interactive Brokers Canada
What it costs. Fixed pricing on Canadian stocks is CAD $0.01 per share, minimum CAD $1.00 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, from CAD 0.008 per share. The firm states there are no added spreads, ticket charges, platform fees or account minimums, and TFSAs appear on its pricing page header alongside individual, joint, RRSP, RRIF and FHSA accounts. Schedule at Interactive Brokers Canada.
Best at. Raw pricing at scale and professional-grade tooling. Once order sizes get large, the per-share model with a $1.00 floor is the cheapest structure on this page.
Worse at. Being a TFSA. Per-share pricing rewards volume and sophistication, and a set-and-forget registered account offers neither, so the $1.00 order minimum is simply a commission the $0 brokers above do not charge. A professional platform is a cost in itself for someone buying one ETF a month.
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 could not rank it: 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. What we could verify is that the page’s own published meta description says you can trade stocks for $8.75, buy and sell 100 ETFs free and pay no mutual fund trading fees, and that its fees page puts USD registered accounts, which include the TFSA but not the FHSA, at US$15 per quarter per account, with paper statements at $6 a quarter waived for Investor Plus. Check the current schedule on Qtrade’s pricing page. We will rank it once the full schedule is verified.
The verdict, by the kind of TFSA you are running
There is no single answer, because the three costs that matter apply differently depending on what goes in the account.
Holding US-listed stocks or ETFs: Questrade, on the verified figures. Free dual-currency keeps US dollars inside the registered account, and no account fee waits at any balance.
Wanting the account to be as simple as possible: Wealthsimple. $0 commissions, no minimum, recurring buys, minutes to open. Budget for conversion at 1.50% under $10,000, or $10 a month for the USD account, if US holdings are in the plan.
Wanting $0 commissions from a bank-owned dealer: National Bank Direct Brokerage, provided you clear one of the administration fee exemptions. Below that line the $100 a year is the most expensive thing about an otherwise free account.
Staying with your existing bank: CIBC Investor’s Edge, then Scotia iTRADE, then RBC Direct Investing, then TD Direct Investing, and the fee usually decides it rather than the commission. RBC charges no maintenance fee at all, Scotia waives its low-activity fee on TFSAs outright, CIBC’s $100 disappears above $10,000 in total balance, and TD’s $25 a quarter applies under $15,000 unless waived.
Running the TFSA as one leg of an active, cross-border portfolio: Interactive Brokers Canada, at the cost of a platform built for professionals.
If the choice has narrowed to the two $0 independents, our head-to-head on Questrade vs Wealthsimple works through what still separates them once neither charges to trade.
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- Start investing and compounding your gains
How to open the account once you have chosen
Opening it is the short part: apply online, choose TFSA as the account type, fund it. What happens immediately afterwards matters more, because an unfunded or uninvested TFSA is the most common version of this going wrong. Our walkthrough on how to open a brokerage account covers the application, the identification you will be asked for and the first transfer. Before you apply, read the current fee schedule on the broker’s own pricing page. These figures were verified on September 11, 2026, and brokers change them.
Frequently asked questions
Which brokers charge nothing to trade inside a TFSA? Three on this list: Questrade, Wealthsimple and National Bank Direct Brokerage all charge $0 commission on stocks and ETFs. Questrade and NBDB cover Canadian and US-listed securities, and Wealthsimple’s $0 applies at Core, Premium and Generation alike.
Will I pay an annual fee on a TFSA? It depends on the broker. Questrade charges no annual account fee and no inactivity fee. RBC Direct Investing charges no quarterly or annual maintenance fee and has no minimum balance. Scotia iTRADE’s $25 quarterly low-activity fee is waived on registered accounts including TFSAs. CIBC Investor’s Edge charges $100 a year when total market balance across accounts is $10,000 or less and $0 above it, with new clients exempt in their first year. TD charges $25 a quarter under a $15,000 total balance, waivable. NBDB charges $100 a year per account unless an exemption applies, such as $20,000 in eligible assets as of May 31.
Can I hold US dollars inside a TFSA? At some brokers. Questrade enables dual-currency for free, so US dollars sit directly inside registered accounts including a TFSA and US stocks trade without a forced conversion once the USD is there. Wealthsimple offers USD accounts, TFSA included, at $10 CAD a month at Core after a 30-day free trial, or free by opting in at Premium or Generation. Qtrade charges US$15 per quarter for a USD registered account, TFSA included but not FHSA. We did not verify USD pricing for the other brokers here.
Are ETFs free to buy in a TFSA? That varies more than commissions do. Questrade, Wealthsimple and NBDB charge $0 on ETF trades generally. CIBC Investor’s Edge lets you buy and sell over 180 ETFs commission-free, RBC Direct Investing offers unlimited commission-free trading on select ETFs, TD offers select ETFs at $0, and Scotia iTRADE runs a commission-free ETF list. With the list-based brokers, confirm your specific ETF is on the list before assuming it trades free.
Is my TFSA protected if the broker fails? Every broker ranked here trades through a dealer entity listed on the CIPF current member directory, checked September 11, 2026: Questrade, Inc., Wealthsimple Investments Inc., National Bank Financial Inc., CIBC Investor Services Inc., Scotia Capital Inc., RBC Direct Investing Inc., TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. and Interactive Brokers Canada Inc. What the 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.