Retail REIT Stocks: The Largest Names, Ranked on Return
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Last updated: September 25, 2026. Market data as of September 18, 2026.
A retail REIT is a shopping-centre landlord you can buy in one click, and the label covers four quite different businesses, from single-tenant net-lease portfolios to enclosed malls. The largest retail REIT stocks on this continent are American, and a Canadian can buy any of them from an ordinary brokerage account, which is why the honest version of this ranking is a cross-border one. Twenty-one listed names sit below, thirteen in the United States and eight on the TSX. Every operating figure is taken from the company’s own results release, linked to the document it came from. Every return is measured the way a Canadian holder actually experienced it, in Canadian dollars.
Three things fall out of the data, and none of them is what a size ranking would lead you to expect.
First, size tells you almost nothing about what you earned. Simon Property Group is a C$109.0 billion company. Canada’s largest, Choice Properties, is C$10.7 billion, about a tenth of it. Yet the best five-year total return in the whole set belongs to Tanger, a C$6.0 billion outlet owner well down the size ranking, at +177.1% in Canadian dollars. The second-largest name here, Realty Income, returned +23.4% over the same five years, less than Plaza Retail, the smallest REIT on the list. If bigness conferred an advantage in this sector, the ranking below and the return column beside it would have something to do with one another. They barely do.
Second, the filings show a growth gap between the two countries. In the quarter ended June 30, 2026, twelve of the thirteen US names grew a per-share earnings measure by between 3.6% and 24.0%, most of them between 4% and 11%. The six Canadian names that report a comparable per-unit measure ranged from -2.9% at Crombie to +5.3% at RioCan. Those are the companies’ own reported numbers for the same quarter, not estimates and not our adjustments.
Third, for a Canadian the currency did real work. Over the five years to September 18, 2026 the Canadian dollar weakened, and that lifted every US return measured in Canadian dollars. Simon returned +104.0% in US dollars and +125.1% in Canadian dollars. Realty Income returned +11.9% in US dollars and +23.4% in Canadian dollars. Roughly half of what a Canadian earned on Realty Income over five years came from the exchange rate rather than from the property. That is a currency bet the buyer is making whether or not they meant to, and it can run the other way.
One thing this page is not: a ranking of the best Canadian REITs. That job belongs to our Canadian REIT pillar, which ranks the best REITs on the TSX across retail, residential and industrial property, and which also works through how a Canadian REIT distribution is taxed in your hands. Read that page if you are building a domestic REIT position. Read this one to see where the Canadian names sit inside the much larger North American retail landlord universe, what separates the four quite different businesses that share the retail REIT label, and what each of the twenty-one actually delivered to a Canadian holder.
How to Buy Retail REITs in Canada
There is nothing exotic here. Everything on this page is a listed security bought through an ordinary brokerage account with an ordinary order. But the two halves of the list behave differently at the moment you press buy, and that difference is worth understanding before you choose a name rather than after.
The eight Canadian names trade on the TSX in Canadian dollars. Choice Properties, RioCan, SmartCentres, First Capital, Crombie, CT REIT, Primaris and Plaza Retail settle exactly like any other Canadian stock. Your account is already in the right currency, distributions arrive in the right currency, and nothing special is required of you at any stage.
The thirteen US names trade on the NYSE or Nasdaq and settle in US dollars. A Canadian buying Simon, Realty Income, Kimco or any of the others is converting currency in order to do it, and that has two consequences rather than one. The first is a cost at the moment of purchase, when your Canadian dollars buy US dollars at whatever rate your broker applies. The second is a decision that recurs for as long as you hold the position, because every distribution the REIT pays arrives in US dollars and either stays in US dollars or gets converted back. On a five-figure position paying a yield in the 4% to 6% range, that is not a trivial piece of housekeeping.
Brokers price currency conversion differently from one another and they change it. What matters is that you look it up yourself before you buy, and that you check whether the account can hold US dollars at all, because an account that cannot forces a conversion on every single distribution. Our comparison of Questrade vs Wealthsimple goes through how two of the Canadian brokers differ on exactly this question.
Then pick the account, because on this list the account changes the outcome. The tax section further down works through the treaty text, but the short version is this. The Canada-United States tax convention exempts dividend income paid into a retirement plan from tax in the other country, and an RRSP is such a plan while a TFSA is not, so the US names on this page generally belong in an RRSP. The Canadian names raise no US withholding question at all, which makes a TFSA an unconstrained home for them and the obvious place to put a distribution you intend to keep. A non-registered account works for either, with the difference that the distribution then lands on your tax return and has to be reported, and our guide to how investment income is taxed in Canada covers what that reporting actually looks like.
Then open the account. If you have never done it, our walkthrough of how to open a brokerage account in Canada goes through the identification, the social insurance number and the suitability questions a broker asks before it will let you trade. If you are still choosing a broker rather than opening one you have already picked, our full ranking of investing apps in Canada covers the market.
Open a Questrade account to put that plan into effect. Questrade is a Canadian online broker, and it is where we point readers who want to hold both TSX-listed and US-listed securities across registered and non-registered accounts.
The Largest Retail REITs, by Market Value
Here is the full set, ranked by market value in Canadian dollars at the September 18, 2026 close. The three largest retail REITs in North America are Simon Property Group, Realty Income and Kimco Realty, and all three are American. The largest Canadian one, Choice Properties, ranks ninth.
| # | REIT | Listed | What it owns | Market value (C$B) | Yield | 5y total return, CAD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Simon Property Group (SPG) | US | Malls and premium outlets | 109.0 | 4.33% | +125.1% |
| 2 | Realty Income (O) | US | Net lease, retail and other | 75.0 | 5.75% | +23.4% |
| 3 | Kimco Realty (KIM) | US | Open-air, grocery-anchored | 21.1 | 4.97% | +43.1% |
| 4 | Regency Centers (REG) | US | Grocery-anchored shopping centres | 19.1 | 4.14% | +44.2% |
| 5 | Federal Realty (FRT) | US | Coastal open-air and mixed use | 13.6 | 4.18% | +26.5% |
| 6 | Brixmor Property Group (BRX) | US | Open-air shopping centres | 12.0 | 4.39% | +67.2% |
| 7 | Agree Realty (ADC) | US | Net lease retail | 11.9 | 4.71% | +31.2% |
| 8 | NNN REIT (NNN) | US | Net lease retail | 11.1 | 5.97% | +33.9% |
| 9 | Choice Properties (CHP.UN) | TSX | Necessity-based retail, industrial and mixed use | 10.7 | 5.27% | +29.3% |
| 10 | Macerich (MAC) | US | Regional malls | 9.3 | 3.00% | +79.0% |
| 11 | Phillips Edison (PECO) | US | Grocery-anchored neighbourhood centres | 7.4 | 3.71% | n/a |
| 12 | RioCan (REI.UN) | TSX | Necessity-based retail and mixed use | 6.0 | 5.62% | +20.6% |
| 13 | Tanger (SKT) | US | Outlet and open-air centres | 6.0 | 3.49% | +177.1% |
| 14 | SmartCentres (SRU.UN) | TSX | Walmart-anchored retail and mixed use | 5.2 | 6.99% | +22.2% |
| 15 | First Capital (FCR.UN) | TSX | Urban grocery-anchored | 4.8 | 4.05% | +58.7% |
| 16 | Curbline Properties (CURB) | US | Convenience centres | 4.6 | 2.40% | n/a |
| 17 | Crombie (CRR.UN) | TSX | Grocery-anchored | 4.1 | 5.87% | +13.9% |
| 18 | CT REIT (CRT.UN) | TSX | Net lease, single tenant | 4.0 | 5.83% | +25.1% |
| 19 | InvenTrust Properties (IVT) | US | Sun Belt grocery-anchored | 3.4 | 3.24% | n/a |
| 20 | Primaris (PMZ.UN) | TSX | Enclosed malls | 2.9 | 4.18% | n/a |
| 21 | Plaza Retail (PLZ.UN) | TSX | Strip and net lease, Atlantic and Ontario | 0.6 | 5.33% | +62.3% |
Market value is Yahoo Finance market capitalisation at the September 18, 2026 close, converted at USD/CAD 1.399. Yields are the trailing annual distribution rate over that same close. Four names carry no five-year figure, and the reasons are set out in the method section at the foot of this page.
The shape of that chart is the first useful thing on this page. Simon is not merely the biggest name in retail property, it is worth more than the second and third largest put together, and then the distribution falls off a cliff. Everything from Kimco downward sits in a band that is a small fraction of the top two. The eight Canadian names occupy positions nine through twenty-one, and the largest of them, Choice Properties, is smaller than the eighth-largest American one.
That is worth holding onto when you read anyone’s list of the biggest retail REITs, including this one. Market value is not measured identically across REITs. Some published figures include exchangeable or operating-partnership units and some count only the listed units, and that single choice can move a company several places in a ranking. It is the reason two credible lists of the largest retail REITs rarely agree with each other. We use one source for every name so that the ordering here is at least internally consistent, and we do not present it as definitive.
What “Retail REIT” Actually Covers
Four distinct businesses wear this label, and they do not behave alike. A number that flatters one of them is close to meaningless for another.
Net lease. Realty Income, Agree Realty, NNN REIT and CT REIT. One tenant per building, leases measured in decades, and the tenant pays the operating costs rather than the landlord. Occupancy sits near 99% because a single signature covers an entire property: the building is either fully leased or it is empty, with very little in between. The risk is concentration, since that one tenant is the whole cash flow of that building, and the growth comes mostly from buying more buildings rather than from raising rents quickly. What to read in a net-lease disclosure, accordingly, is the weighted average remaining lease term, the credit quality of the tenant base, and the pace and pricing of acquisitions, because those three lines are where the model actually lives.
Open-air and grocery-anchored. Kimco, Regency, Brixmor, Phillips Edison, InvenTrust, Curbline, Crombie, Choice Properties, First Capital, SmartCentres and Plaza Retail. A supermarket or a big-box store anchors the centre and a row of smaller shops surrounds it. The anchor signs a long lease at a modest rent and its job is to bring people to the parking lot; the small shops pay considerably more per square foot and depend on that traffic. Four of the eleven names in this group reported a separate small-shop or inline occupancy line in the second quarter, and three of the four presented it as a record. That line, and the rent spread when leases turn over, are where the growth in this model shows up first.
Malls and outlets. Simon, Macerich, Tanger and Primaris. Enclosed centres or outlet villages, running lower occupancy than the other categories, charging much higher rent per square foot, and carrying the most operating leverage in both directions. The economics run through tenant sales: a mall landlord can raise rent when the stores inside are selling more per square foot and struggles to when they are not, which is why Simon publishes both figures side by side. When this model works it works hard, and the five-year returns at Tanger and Macerich show what that looks like.
Mixed use. Federal Realty is the clearest case, with roughly 2,500 residential units alongside its retail, which means part of its cash flow is apartment rent rather than shop rent. SmartCentres is moving the same way, with a large development pipeline on the land around its Walmart-anchored centres.
The rent spreads the companies disclosed in the second quarter show where the pricing power sits, and the contrast between the models is stark. Kimco signed 461 leases covering 2.5 million square feet at a blended cash rent spread of +13.1%, with new leases at +40.4%. Regency signed 2.1 million square feet of comparable leases at +10.4% blended cash. Tanger reported +10.5% cash across 3.0 million square feet of comparable leases over the twelve months to June 30. InvenTrust reported +8.5% blended comparable. Realty Income, by contrast, reported a rent recapture rate of 102.7%, which is a different measure entirely and means the units it re-leased in the quarter came back at 2.7% above the old rent.
That gap is the whole story of the two dominant models on this page. Kimco and Regency re-signed comparable leases at blended cash spreads of +13.1% and +10.4%, and InvenTrust at +8.5%, blends that cover new leases and renewals together rather than renewals on their own. A net-lease REIT re-signs at roughly the old rent and grows by writing cheques instead. Neither is better than the other. One compounds from inside the portfolio it already owns and one compounds by acquiring, and they should never be measured with the same yardstick or valued on the same assumptions.
What the Second-Quarter Filings Said
The quarter ended June 30, 2026 is the most recent reported quarter for every name on this page, so the comparison below is like for like on timing even where it is not like for like on definition.
Twelve of the thirteen US names grew a per-share earnings measure by anything from 3.6% at Brixmor to 24.0% at Curbline. Macerich was the exception at +2.9% on FFO per share as adjusted. The six Canadian names that report a comparable per-unit measure spanned a much narrower and much lower band: Crombie at -2.9%, SmartCentres at 0.0%, Choice Properties at +0.8%, Primaris at +1.3%, CT REIT at +3.2% and RioCan at +5.3%. RioCan was the strongest of the Canadian group and would have ranked mid-pack among the Americans.
A word on the measure itself, because it is not earnings per share and the difference matters. Funds from operations is the property industry’s standard profit line, and it exists because accounting depreciation treats a shopping centre as an asset that wears out on a fixed schedule, which is not how a well-maintained building behaves. FFO starts from net income and adds that depreciation back. Adjusted FFO and Core FFO go further, removing items the company considers non-recurring and, depending on the company, subtracting the recurring capital spending a property needs in order to keep earning rent. The result is much closer to the cash actually available to pay a distribution than net income is, which is why every company on this page leads with some version of it.
The catch is that each company defines its own version. Simon reports Real Estate FFO. Realty Income reports AFFO. Agree, NNN and Tanger report Core FFO. Regency, Brixmor, Phillips Edison and InvenTrust all report a Nareit FFO, which follows an industry-body definition rather than a purely in-house one, and Federal Realty discloses a Nareit FFO figure alongside the Core FFO it leads with, so the same label appears at five different companies. Macerich reports FFO as adjusted. Choice Properties, SmartCentres, Crombie, CT REIT and Primaris report FFO per diluted unit, and RioCan reports Core FFO per diluted unit. These are not interchangeable quantities, and anyone who stacks them in a single column, as the chart above does, owes you that caveat. What the chart legitimately shows is the direction and the rough magnitude of what each company told its own investors it earned per share or per unit, against the same quarter a year earlier.
What the filings put beside that gap is the leasing data above. Kimco and Regency both reported double-digit blended cash rent spreads in the quarter, measured across all comparable leases rather than on renewals alone, and Kimco, Brixmor and Phillips Edison each reported a record small-shop or inline occupancy. Five of the Canadian names reported occupancy between 97.5% and 99.5%, Crombie, Choice Properties, SmartCentres, RioCan and CT REIT, which leaves less room to climb. Whether that is what lies behind the growth gap or a coincidence is not something a single quarter can settle. If the pattern holds across the next several quarters it becomes a real structural distinction worth acting on. One quarter is a data point.
The Occupancy Numbers Are Not Comparable, and Here Is Why
Every retail REIT reports an occupancy figure, and almost nobody notices that they are not all reporting the same thing. Here is what each company actually called its number in the second quarter.
| REIT | What the company calls the number | Q2 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Agree Realty | Portfolio leased | 99.8% |
| CT REIT | Committed occupancy | 99.5% |
| NNN REIT | Portfolio occupancy | 99.1% |
| Realty Income | Portfolio occupancy | 98.8% |
| RioCan | Retail committed occupancy | 98.8% |
| Regency Centers | Same property percent leased | 96.9% |
| Regency Centers | Same property percent commenced | 94.5% |
| Kimco Realty | Pro-rata leased occupancy | 96.4% |
| Federal Realty | Leased rate | 96.1% |
| Simon Property Group | Occupancy, US malls and premium outlets | 96.0% |
| Brixmor | Total leased occupancy | 94.8% |
| Federal Realty | Occupancy | 93.8% |
| Primaris | Committed occupancy | 91.1% |
The distinction that matters runs right through the middle of that table. A leased or committed rate counts signed leases. An occupancy or commenced rate counts space that is actually producing rent today. Those are different quantities, the difference is real money, and a company reporting only the first is showing you the more flattering of the two.
Regency and Federal Realty publish both sides, which is what lets you see the gap. Most of the others publish one. Regency’s same property portfolio was 96.9% leased and 94.5% commenced. The 2.4 points between those figures is space that has a signed lease on it and is not yet paying, usually because the tenant is still building out the store. Federal Realty shows the same thing on a slightly narrower spread, 96.1% leased against 93.8% occupied, a gap of 2.3 points. Neither gap is a problem. It is a pipeline, and it is contracted revenue that arrives later without any further leasing work being done. But it is also revenue that has not arrived, and if you compare one company’s leased rate to another company’s commenced rate you will reach a conclusion that the underlying properties do not support.
Realty Income’s definition adds another wrinkle worth knowing. Its 98.8% portfolio occupancy excludes properties with ancillary leases only, such as cell towers and billboards, and properties where possession is pending. That is a defensible way to count and it is disclosed, but it is a different denominator from the one another company is using.
So a table that ranks the eleven companies’ occupancy figures above against one another is really a table that ranks definitions, which is why we have not computed an average occupancy and do not declare a winner across different bases. Read each number with the words the company attached to it.
The second honest point is about the top of that list. The net-lease REITs sit at 99% and change because a single tenant signs a decade-long lease on an entire building. That is not evidence of better property management than a mall owner at 94%. It is a different business carrying a different risk, and the risk is precisely that the one tenant is the whole cash flow. Tanger’s quarter is the live illustration of what tenant failure looks like even in a multi-tenant format: occupancy was flat year over year and down from 97.0% at March 31, which the company attributed to backfilling space after a tenant bankruptcy. At the other end, Primaris at 91.1% is not failing either. Enclosed malls carry more vacancy by design and the owner retains more cash to re-tenant it, which shows up directly in a payout of 48.8% of FFO, the lowest ratio in this set.
What a Canadian Investor Actually Earned
Every return below converts each day of the series at the exchange rate that actually prevailed, so what these figures show is what a Canadian holder earned rather than what an American one did.
Over five years the spread runs from Crombie at +13.9% to Tanger at +177.1%, in Canadian dollars with distributions reinvested. A dollar put into Tanger came back as $2.77 while a dollar put into Crombie came back as $1.14, inside a single property sector over a single period, and it should be the end of any argument that a retail REIT is a retail REIT.
Part of that spread, for the US names, is currency rather than property. Here is the same five-year period measured both ways.
| REIT | 5y in its own currency | 5y in CAD | Added by the currency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tanger (SKT) | +151.2% | +177.1% | +25.9 points |
| Simon Property Group (SPG) | +104.0% | +125.1% | +21.1 points |
| Macerich (MAC) | +62.2% | +79.0% | +16.8 points |
| Brixmor Property Group (BRX) | +51.6% | +67.2% | +15.6 points |
| Regency Centers (REG) | +30.7% | +44.2% | +13.5 points |
| Kimco Realty (KIM) | +29.8% | +43.1% | +13.3 points |
| NNN REIT (NNN) | +21.4% | +33.9% | +12.5 points |
| Agree Realty (ADC) | +18.9% | +31.2% | +12.3 points |
| Federal Realty (FRT) | +14.6% | +26.5% | +11.9 points |
| Realty Income (O) | +11.9% | +23.4% | +11.5 points |
The Canadian names have no such column, because they are already denominated in Canadian dollars.
Look at Realty Income in particular. In its own currency it returned +11.9% over five years. A Canadian who bought it earned +23.4%, and roughly half of that came from the Canadian dollar weakening rather than from anything the company did with its 15,588 properties. The same mechanism is why Federal Realty’s +14.6% turned into +26.5% for a Canadian holder. This is not a free lift and it is not a durable one. If the Canadian dollar strengthens over your holding period the mechanism runs in reverse and takes points off a US result that looked perfectly fine in its home currency. Anyone buying the US half of this list is taking a currency position alongside the property position, whether they think of it that way or not, and it deserves to be a decision rather than an accident.
The currency also carries a record-keeping consequence. A US-listed holding still has to be tracked in Canadian dollars for tax purposes, so the exchange rate enters the calculation alongside the share price. Our guide to calculating adjusted cost base sets out how that conversion works, and why a spreadsheet started on the day of the first purchase is far less painful than one reconstructed years later.
One year tells a very different story from five, which is the standing argument for looking at both rather than picking whichever window flatters the case you already wanted to make.
| REIT | 1y total return, CAD |
|---|---|
| Primaris (PMZ.UN) | +43.1% |
| Macerich (MAC) | +33.8% |
| Plaza Retail (PLZ.UN) | +32.2% |
| Curbline Properties (CURB) | +30.3% |
| First Capital (FCR.UN) | +22.9% |
| Simon Property Group (SPG) | +21.2% |
| Federal Realty (FRT) | +17.3% |
| RioCan (REI.UN) | +15.2% |
| Tanger (SKT) | +11.3% |
| Phillips Edison (PECO) | +10.1% |
| Regency Centers (REG) | +9.7% |
| Crombie (CRR.UN) | +9.5% |
| CT REIT (CRT.UN) | +9.4% |
| Kimco Realty (KIM) | +8.2% |
| InvenTrust Properties (IVT) | +8.2% |
| Brixmor Property Group (BRX) | +6.8% |
| SmartCentres (SRU.UN) | +6.1% |
| NNN REIT (NNN) | +5.6% |
| Choice Properties (CHP.UN) | +5.2% |
| Realty Income (O) | +2.7% |
| Agree Realty (ADC) | +0.8% |
The ordering inverts almost completely. Primaris leads at +43.1%, then Macerich at +33.8%, Plaza Retail at +32.2%, Curbline at +30.3% and First Capital at +22.9%, so three of the top five are Canadian and two of those three are among the three smallest companies on the page, while the five-year champion, Tanger, sits mid-pack at +11.3%. Agree Realty, which grew Core FFO per share 7.5% in the quarter and raised its guidance, returned +0.8% over the year. Operating performance and shareholder return are not the same variable, and over a twelve-month window they frequently point in opposite directions, because one is a measure of the business and the other is a measure of what the market decided to pay for it.
If the yields in the ranking table are what brought you here rather than the property itself, two other pages will serve you better than this one. Our dividend income calculator will tell you what a 5.97% yield actually pays on the amount you are considering investing, which is a far more useful number to sit with than the percentage. And our Canadian dividend stocks pillar ranks income names across every sector rather than one, which matters because concentrating an income portfolio in a single asset class is a decision and should be made deliberately.
The Names, One by One
The operating figures below are each company’s own reported numbers for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, with the release linked in that company’s entry. Two names sit outside that: First Capital’s figures come from its April 16, 2026 transaction release, and Plaza Retail’s entry carries price, yield and returns only. Prices, market values, yields and returns are as of the September 18, 2026 close.
The US net-lease names
Single-tenant buildings on long leases. Occupancy is high by construction and growth comes from acquisition.
Realty Income (O), C$75.0 billion. The largest net-lease REIT in the world and the second-largest retail REIT of any kind: 15,588 properties let to 1,798 clients across 92 industries, with a weighted average remaining lease term of 8.6 years. AFFO per diluted share was $1.09 against $1.05 a year earlier, up 3.8%, and portfolio occupancy was 98.8%. Units re-leased during the quarter came back at a rent recapture rate of 102.7%, and the company raised 2026 AFFO guidance to $4.44 to $4.45. At US$56.66 it yields 5.75%, the second-highest yield in the US half of this list. Figures from Realty Income’s second-quarter results release.
That chart is Realty Income’s own five-year run of second-quarter AFFO per diluted share, printed in its own release: $0.97 in 2022, $1.00 in 2023, $1.06 in 2024, $1.05 in 2025 and $1.09 in 2026. Compounded, that is under 3% a year, and it is not a straight line, because 2025 came in below 2024. It explains the +23.4% five-year total return in Canadian dollars better than any commentary could. Of that +23.4%, 11.5 points came from the exchange rate rather than from anything the company did. Buying it and expecting compounding is buying the wrong thing for the wrong reason, which the chart makes hard to argue with.
Agree Realty (ADC), C$11.9 billion. 2,825 properties across all 50 states and about 59.6 million square feet, 99.8% leased. Core FFO per share was $1.13 against $1.05, up 7.5%, the strongest growth of the three US net-lease names. Credit quality is the pitch here: 65.8% of annualised base rent comes from investment grade retail tenants, which is a deliberate answer to the concentration risk the net-lease model carries. The company deployed $854.0 million on acquisitions in the first six months at a 7.0% weighted average capitalisation rate and raised 2026 AFFO guidance to $4.57 to $4.59. Despite all of that, the one-year total return in Canadian dollars was +0.8%, the lowest on this page, which is a clean demonstration that a good quarter and a good year are separate events. Figures from Agree Realty’s second-quarter results release.
NNN REIT (NNN), C$11.1 billion. 3,774 properties across 50 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, about 40.4 million square feet, 99.1% occupied, with a weighted average remaining lease term of 10.1 years, longer than Realty Income’s 8.6. Core FFO per diluted share was $0.89 against $0.84, up 6.0%, occupancy rose 110 basis points year over year, and 2026 Core FFO guidance was raised to $3.50 to $3.54. At US$41.55 it carries the highest yield of any US name here at 5.97%, which is the figure to put into a calculator before deciding whether the concentration risk is worth it. Figures from NNN REIT’s second-quarter results release.
The US open-air names
Grocery and big-box anchored centres, where the rent growth lives in the small shops around the anchor.
Kimco Realty (KIM), C$21.1 billion. 564 US shopping centres totalling 99.5 million square feet across 29 states, the largest open-air owner on this page by market value. FFO per diluted share was $0.46 against $0.44, up 4.5%, with same property NOI up 3.5% and pro-rata leased occupancy of 96.4%. The leasing quarter was the standout: 461 leases covering 2.5 million square feet at a blended cash rent spread of +13.1%, with new leases specifically at +40.4%. Those two numbers together say the largest uplift sat in space that had turned over rather than in leases being renewed. Small-shop occupancy set a record at 92.9% and the dividend was raised 12% year over year. Figures from Kimco’s second-quarter results release.
Regency Centers (REG), C$19.1 billion. 58.8 million square feet, consolidated plus 100% of real estate partnerships, focused on grocery-anchored centres. Nareit FFO per diluted share was $1.21 against $1.16, up 4.3%, same property NOI rose 3.8%, and the company signed 2.1 million square feet of comparable leases at a +10.4% blended cash spread, or +19.5% on a straight-lined basis. It also publishes both sides of the occupancy question, 96.9% leased against 94.5% commenced, where most of the companies here publish one. Full-year same property NOI guidance was raised to 3.7% to 4.1%. Figures from Regency’s second-quarter results release.
Federal Realty (FRT), C$13.6 billion. The mixed-use name in the group: 103 properties, roughly 3,700 tenants, 28.8 million commercial square feet and about 2,500 residential units, concentrated in dense coastal markets. Core FFO per diluted share was $1.88 against $1.76, up 6.8%. Note the discrepancy the company itself flags, because it is the kind of thing that generates a misleading headline: Nareit FFO per share fell 1.6% over the same period, on a $0.15 tax-credit item in the prior-year quarter that did not repeat. Occupancy was 93.8% against a leased rate of 96.1%, with the small-shop leased rate at 93.9%, and 2026 Core FFO guidance is $7.48 to $7.56. Figures from Federal Realty’s second-quarter results release.
Brixmor Property Group (BRX), C$12.0 billion. 346 retail centres and roughly 63 million square feet, 94.8% leased on a total portfolio basis. Nareit FFO per diluted share was $0.58 against $0.56, up 3.6%, the slowest growth of the US open-air group, and yet same property NOI grew 5.8%, the fastest same property figure among the open-air names here. The company attributed 440 basis points of that 5.8% to base rent rather than to recoveries or one-off items. Small-shop leased occupancy set a record at 92.6% and full-year same property NOI guidance was raised to 5.00% to 5.75%. Figures from Brixmor’s second-quarter results release.
Phillips Edison (PECO), C$7.4 billion. 302 wholly-owned properties covering about 33.9 million square feet across 31 states, in grocery-anchored neighbourhood centres. Nareit FFO per diluted share was $0.67 against $0.62, up 8.1%, with same-centre NOI up 3.8% and the portfolio 97.3% leased. Leased inline occupancy reached a record 95.5%, while leased anchor occupancy slipped to 98.4% from 98.9%. It listed in 2021, so there is no five-year record to show against it. Figures from Phillips Edison’s second-quarter results release.
Curbline Properties (CURB), C$4.6 billion. 220 convenience centres totalling only 5.7 million square feet. FFO per diluted share was $0.31 against $0.25, up 24.0%, the fastest growth in the whole set. It bought 30 convenience centres during the quarter for $374.1 million. Same-property NOI for the six months to June 30 was up a much more modest 2.1%, and that pair of numbers is the honest way to read a fast-growing acquirer. The leased rate was 96.5%. It listed only in October 2024, so it has no multi-year record, and at 2.40% it carries the lowest yield here. Figures from Curbline’s second-quarter financial supplement.
InvenTrust Properties (IVT), C$3.4 billion. The smallest US name on this page: 63 properties and 10.2 million square feet, concentrated in Sun Belt grocery-anchored centres. Nareit FFO per diluted share was $0.50 against $0.45, up 11.1%, among the strongest in the open-air group, with same property NOI up 4.1% and leased occupancy of 96.2%, split between 98.1% at the anchors and 93.2% in the small shops. It signed 76 leases covering about 464,000 square feet at a +8.5% blended comparable spread. Figures from InvenTrust’s second-quarter results release.
The mall and outlet names
Lower occupancy, higher rent per square foot, more operating leverage in both directions. The three best five-year returns on this page are here.
Simon Property Group (SPG), C$109.0 billion. 254 properties and 206 million square feet across North America, Asia and Europe, which makes it larger than every other name on this list by a wide margin. Real Estate FFO per diluted share was $3.29 against $3.05, up 7.9%, with domestic property NOI up 8.5% and occupancy of 96.0% in its US malls and premium outlets. The two numbers that reveal the operating leverage are further down the release: base minimum rent reached $62.42 per square foot against $58.70 a year earlier, while reported retailer sales were $838 per square foot on a trailing twelve month basis against $736. Tenants selling more per foot is what allows a mall owner to raise rent, and both lines moved together in the same quarter. The five-year total return in Canadian dollars is +125.1%, which sits second in this set behind Tanger. Figures from Simon’s second-quarter results release.
Macerich (MAC), C$9.3 billion. About 40 million square feet, consisting mainly of interests in 37 regional retail centres and one community centre. FFO per share as adjusted was $0.35 against $0.34, up 2.9%, the slowest growth of any US name here, so the story is not in the earnings line. It is in occupancy: the leased portfolio reached 94.0%, up a full 2.0 points from 92.0% a year earlier, which in a mall portfolio is a substantial move. The company also acquired Annapolis Mall in April for $260 million plus a further $12 million for the adjacent Sears parcel. At 3.00% it carries the second-lowest yield in the set, and it returned +79.0% over five years and +33.8% over one. Figures from Macerich’s second-quarter results release.
Tanger (SKT), C$6.0 billion. 38 outlet centres and four open-air lifestyle centres totalling nearly 17 million square feet across 22 US states and Canada. Core FFO per diluted share was $0.64 against $0.58, up 10.3%, with same centre NOI on a cash basis up 3.5% and occupancy of 96.6%. Blended average rental rate spreads were +10.5% on a cash basis across 3.0 million square feet of comparable leases over the twelve months to June 30. Occupancy was flat year over year but down from 97.0% at March 31, which the company attributed to backfilling space after a tenant bankruptcy, and that is a useful reminder that a strong leasing market does not remove single-tenant failure risk from a multi-tenant format. This is the best five-year total return on the page at +177.1% in Canadian dollars, from a company ranked thirteenth by size. Figures from Tanger’s second-quarter results release.
The Canadian names
Eight TSX-listed retail REITs, all of which a Canadian can hold in a TFSA without any withholding question arising at all. We rank these against their domestic peers across every property type on our best Canadian REIT stocks page, which is the page to read if you are building a Canadian REIT position rather than a cross-border one. Here they are as members of the wider North American set.
Choice Properties (CHP.UN), C$10.7 billion. Canada’s largest REIT by market value of any property type, anchored by Loblaw, which is both its principal tenant and its controlling unitholder. That relationship is the whole character of the business: it concentrates the outcome in a single counterparty. FFO per diluted unit was $0.267 against $0.265, up 0.8%, with overall occupancy of 97.7%. It is in the middle of acquiring roughly $5.0 billion of necessity-based neighbourhood shopping centres from First Capital, which will make an already large Canadian landlord meaningfully larger. At C$14.79 it yields 5.27%. Figures from Choice Properties’ second-quarter results release.
RioCan (REI.UN), C$6.0 billion. Canada’s largest pure-play retail REIT by market value. Core FFO per diluted unit was $0.40 against $0.38, up 5.3%, the strongest per-unit growth of any Canadian name in this set, and retail committed occupancy reached 98.8%, a record for the company. The distribution took 67.7% of FFO on a trailing twelve month basis, which leaves real room between the payout and the cash generating it. At C$20.62 it yields 5.62% and it returned +15.2% over one year. Figures from RioCan’s second-quarter results release.
SmartCentres (SRU.UN), C$5.2 billion. Walmart-anchored centres with a large mixed-use development pipeline on the surrounding land. FFO per diluted unit was $0.58, unchanged from $0.58 a year earlier, with in-place and committed occupancy of 98.1%. It carries the highest distribution yield of any large retail REIT in this set at 6.99%, and flat FFO per unit is the fact that has to sit beside that yield rather than behind it. A high yield is a price on a cash flow, and when the cash flow per unit is not moving the yield is doing all of the work. Figures from SmartCentres’ second-quarter results release.
First Capital (FCR.UN), C$4.8 billion. Urban grocery-anchored centres, and a special situation rather than an ordinary holding. It is being acquired by KingSett Capital and Choice Properties in a transaction valued at roughly $9.4 billion including assumed debt. Unitholders receive $19.24 in cash plus 0.3186 Choice units per unit, worth $24.40 in total based on the Choice closing price on April 15, 2026, an 8% premium to the stated net asset value of $22.57 per unit. It trades near the deal price, which makes it an arbitrage position whose return depends on the transaction closing rather than on what the properties earn. Anyone buying it for the retail exposure is buying the wrong instrument for that purpose. Figures from the First Capital REIT press release of April 16, 2026.
Crombie (CRR.UN), C$4.1 billion. Grocery-anchored real estate built on its relationship with Empire and the Sobeys banners, which gives it the same predictable-rent-and-concentrated-counterparty profile as Choice. FFO per diluted unit was $0.33 against $0.34, down 2.9%, the only per-unit earnings decline anywhere in this set, with committed occupancy of 97.5% and a payout of 68.2% of FFO. Its five-year total return of +13.9% is the lowest on the page. At C$15.51 it yields 5.87%. Figures from Crombie’s second-quarter results release.
CT REIT (CRT.UN), C$4.0 billion. About 380 properties and 32 million square feet anchored by Canadian Tire, which makes it structurally the Canadian equivalent of the US net-lease names rather than a shopping-centre owner in the ordinary sense. FFO per diluted unit was $0.353 against $0.342, up 3.2%, and committed occupancy was 99.5%, the highest committed occupancy among the Canadian names here, which is exactly what the single-tenant model produces and exactly why it should not be read as a mark of superior management. The distribution took 72.7% of AFFO, which is not comparable with the FFO payout ratios the other Canadian names here report. At C$16.83 it yields 5.83%. Figures from CT REIT’s second-quarter results release.
Primaris (PMZ.UN), C$2.9 billion. The listed enclosed-mall owner in Canada, spun out of H&R REIT in January 2022, which is why there is no five-year figure beside it. FFO per diluted unit was $0.451 against $0.445, up 1.3%, with committed occupancy of 91.1%. That is the lowest occupancy figure on this page and it comes with the lowest payout, 48.8% of FFO. Those two numbers belong together and explain each other: an enclosed mall carries more vacancy by design, and the owner retains more cash precisely so it can re-tenant and reposition space. Over one year it returned +43.1%, the best on the page. Figures from Primaris’ second-quarter results release.
Plaza Retail (PLZ.UN), C$0.6 billion. The smallest listed retail REIT in Canada by market value, owning strip and net-lease properties concentrated in Atlantic Canada and Ontario. At C$5.25 it yields 5.33%. It sits last on this page because the ranking is by market value, and its record is what stands out: +62.3% over five years and +32.2% over one, in Canadian dollars, both at the high end of the Canadian group and both well ahead of names many times larger, which is the clearest single illustration of this page’s first finding.
What a Canadian Pays in Tax on a US Retail REIT Distribution
This is where the cross-border half of the list gets genuinely different for a Canadian holder, because the treaty treats a REIT distribution as its own case.
There is a REIT-specific clause in the tax treaty. The Canada-United States tax convention does not handle a REIT distribution the way it handles an ordinary corporate dividend. It carves REITs out and attaches a condition. Article X paragraph 7, as replaced by Article 5 of the 1995 Protocol, reads:
“Paragraph 2(a) shall not apply to dividends paid by a resident of the United States that is a Real Estate Investment Trust, and paragraph 2(b) shall apply only where such dividends are beneficially owned by an individual holding an interest of less than 10 per cent in the trust; otherwise the rate of tax applicable under the domestic law of the United States shall apply.”
In plain words: the reduced treaty rate on a US REIT distribution is available to an individual who holds less than 10% of the REIT. Note what the condition attaches to. It is the size of your interest in the trust, not the size of your distribution or the size of your account, and any ordinary investor clears that bar without ever thinking about it. You would need an extraordinary position in a company of the size ranked above to fail it. But the condition is real, it is written into the treaty rather than into anyone’s interpretation of it, and where it is not met the US domestic rate applies instead of the treaty rate. The text above is quoted from the Internal Revenue Service published text of the Canada-United States tax convention and its protocols. The reduced rate itself, and the W-8BEN form you file with your broker in order to claim it, are worked through in our piece on US dividend withholding and the W-8BEN for Canadians.
The account you hold it in changes the answer. Article XXI paragraph 2 of the same convention exempts dividend income derived by a plan “operated exclusively to administer or provide pension, retirement or employee benefits” from tax in the other country. An RRSP is such a plan. A TFSA is not. That one distinction is the reason the US names on this page generally belong in an RRSP and the Canadian names have no such constraint, and it is a larger consideration than most people give it when a position is held for decades and the distribution is a meaningful share of the total return. Our TFSA guide covers what a TFSA does and does not shelter, which is worth reading before you put a US-listed holding in one by default.
The Canadian names are a different matter entirely. A Canadian REIT distribution is usually a mix of return of capital, other income and capital gains rather than an eligible dividend, so it does not get the dividend tax credit that a Canadian bank share does, and the composition changes the arithmetic in a non-registered account considerably. The Canadian REIT pillar linked earlier on this page works through that composition in detail. Nothing on this page is tax advice, and a cross-border holding is one of the situations where a professional opinion on your own facts is genuinely worth paying for.
How We Ranked These
The ranking is by market value, and the method matters enough to state in full rather than in a footnote.
Market value is Yahoo Finance market capitalisation at the close of Friday, September 18, 2026, converted to Canadian dollars at USD/CAD 1.399. We use one source for all twenty-one names, which makes the ranking internally consistent. It does not make it definitive, and we want to be direct about why. Some published market-value figures for REITs include exchangeable or operating-partnership units and some count only the listed units, and that single methodological choice can move a company several places. It is the reason two credible lists of the largest retail REITs will disagree with each other.
Yields are the trailing annual distribution rate over the September 18, 2026 close. A trailing yield describes what has already been paid, not what will be paid.
Total returns are computed by us from Yahoo Finance adjusted closes with distributions reinvested, converted daily at the prevailing USD/CAD rate for the US names, so that every return figure on this page is what a Canadian holder would actually have experienced rather than what an American one did.
Operating figures are each company’s own, taken from its own results release. For nineteen of the twenty-one names that release covers the quarter ended June 30, 2026, the most recent reported quarter. First Capital’s figures come from its April 16, 2026 transaction release instead, and Plaza Retail’s entry carries price, yield and returns only. Where we carry a company’s results, its release is linked once in that company’s own section, so you can check those figures against the source. We take nothing about a company’s results from an aggregator.
Four names carry no five-year figure, and we would rather explain the gap than fill it with something misleading. Primaris was spun out of H&R REIT in January 2022. Curbline Properties listed in October 2024. Phillips Edison listed in 2021. InvenTrust’s pre-listing history is not usable, because its adjusted price series runs through a reverse split and a 2021 listing and produces a number that would be nonsense if printed, so we exclude it rather than print it. All four have one-year returns, which are in the table above.
We did not compute an average occupancy and we do not declare a winner across different bases, for the reasons set out in the occupancy section. The table there is ordered by each company’s reported figure, but averaging numbers that measure different things produces a figure that measures nothing.
The Bottom Line
The label “retail REIT” spans a mall empire worth C$109.0 billion and an Atlantic strip-centre owner worth C$0.6 billion, a net-lease portfolio at 99.8% leased and an enclosed-mall portfolio at 91.1% committed, a five-year return of +177.1% and one of +13.9%. Treating all of that as a single asset class is a mistake, and it is the one this page is built to avoid.
If there is one practical conclusion in the numbers above, it is that the decision worth spending your time on is not which retail REIT is largest. It is which of the four business models you want to own, and in which currency. The US names delivered higher per-share growth this quarter and, over five years, a currency tailwind that is not repeatable on demand and could reverse. The Canadian names delivered lower growth, higher yields in several cases, no currency exposure, and simpler treatment in a TFSA. Both are defensible positions and the filings support an argument either way. Neither is free of risk, and nothing on this page promises any particular outcome from here.
Open a Questrade account when you have decided which side of that line you want to be on. Both the TSX-listed and the US-listed names on this page are bought the same way, through a brokerage account in your own name, and the account type you choose determines how much of the distribution you keep.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the largest retail REIT? Simon Property Group, at a market value of C$109.0 billion as of the September 18, 2026 close. It owns 254 properties and 206 million square feet of malls and premium outlets across North America, Asia and Europe. The next two are Realty Income at C$75.0 billion and Kimco Realty at C$21.1 billion, so the three largest retail REITs in North America are all American. The caveat in our method section applies: market value is not measured identically across REITs, because some published figures include exchangeable or operating-partnership units and some do not, so this ordering is internally consistent rather than definitive.
How many retail REITs can a Canadian buy? This page covers the twenty-one largest listed in North America: thirteen in the United States, trading on the NYSE or Nasdaq in US dollars, and eight on the TSX in Canadian dollars. A Canadian with an ordinary brokerage account can buy all twenty-one. The US ones require a currency conversion, which is a cost at purchase and a recurring decision on every distribution afterwards, and they raise a withholding question that the Canadian ones do not.
Are retail REITs a good investment? The data on this page argues that the question is too broad to have an answer. Over the five years to September 18, 2026, total returns in Canadian dollars within this one property sector ran from +13.9% at Crombie to +177.1% at Tanger. In the second quarter of 2026 per-share earnings growth across the group ran from -2.9% to +24.0%. Some of these companies are single-tenant net-lease portfolios and some are enclosed malls, and they behave nothing alike. What the sector does offer is distribution yields that ranged from 2.40% to 6.99% across these names, backed by contracted rent. What it carries is tenant risk, which is concrete rather than theoretical: Tanger’s occupancy fell from its March level because it was backfilling space after a tenant bankruptcy, and in the net-lease model a single tenant is the entire cash flow of a building. For the US names there is currency risk on top of that.
Which retail REIT has the highest yield? SmartCentres, at 6.99% on its September 18, 2026 close of C$26.46, the highest distribution yield of any large retail REIT in this set. NNN REIT is highest among the US names at 5.97%, and Crombie at 5.87%, CT REIT at 5.83%, Realty Income at 5.75% and RioCan at 5.62% follow. A high yield is not a free lunch: SmartCentres reported FFO per diluted unit of $0.58 in the second quarter, unchanged from a year earlier, and a distribution is only as sound as the cash flow behind it.
What is the difference between a net-lease and an open-air retail REIT? A net-lease REIT owns single-tenant buildings on long leases where the tenant pays the operating costs, so occupancy sits near 99%, the risk is concentrated in that one tenant, and growth comes mainly from buying more properties. An open-air REIT owns a centre anchored by a grocer or big-box store with smaller shops around it, runs lower occupancy, and grows rent from inside the portfolio it already owns. The second quarter of 2026 showed the difference plainly: Kimco re-signed leases at a +13.1% blended cash spread and Regency at +10.4%, while Realty Income reported a rent recapture rate of 102.7%, meaning its re-leased units came back roughly where they had been.
Is a retail REIT better in a TFSA or an RRSP? It depends on which side of the border it is listed. Article XXI paragraph 2 of the Canada-United States tax convention exempts dividend income derived by a plan operated exclusively to provide pension or retirement benefits from tax in the other country, and an RRSP qualifies while a TFSA does not. That points the US names on this page toward an RRSP. The Canadian names raise no US withholding question at all, so a TFSA is an unconstrained home for them, and a non-registered account works too, with the difference that the distribution has to be reported on your return. This is general information and not tax advice.
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.