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Canada · CA · Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO), plus provincial commissions

Investing from Canada

Canada's coverage is structured differently from the US in a way that matters: limits apply per account category rather than per customer, so a client holding a general account, an RRSP and an RESP is covered three times over. Crypto assets are explicitly outside it. We have not yet researched which brokers accept Canadian residents, so there is no ranking on this page.

Written by
Juan Manuel Gonzalez
Published
Data verified

Investor protection — CIPF

CAD 1,000,000 per account category — general accounts, registered retirement accounts, and RESPs are each covered separately

Because the three categories carry separate limits, one client can be covered for up to CAD 3,000,000 in total — a structure with no US equivalent, where SIPC's $500,000 applies per customer per capacity. CIPF coverage is custodial only, and it explicitly excludes crypto assets.

CIPF — About CIPF coverage

What we verified

Read August 30, 2026
Regulator
CIRO supervises investment dealers and mutual fund dealers; securities law itself is provincial.
Tax wrappers with no US analogue
The RRSP, TFSA and RESP are the wrappers Canadian readers choose between. The RESP in particular carries its own CIPF limit.
Crypto
CIPF states that client property eligible for protection includes securities and cash but excludes crypto assets. CIPF

Why there is no ranking on this page

Ranking brokers for Canada means knowing which legal entity would hold a resident’s account — and for most global brands that is not the US broker-dealer whose name is on the app. It is a different company, under Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO), plus provincial commissions rather than the SEC, with different protection behind it. Publishing our US ranking here and changing the country name would be the single most misleading thing this site could do.

What is on this page instead is the part we could verify from primary sources: who regulates brokers here, and what happens to your assets if one fails. That is the question most comparison content skips, and it is the one that does not change with a fee schedule.

What has to be verified before we rank anything here

  1. 01Which legal entity of each broker would hold a resident's account, and its licence number with the local regulator
  2. 02Whether that entity publicly accepts residents of this country, and what identity documentation it requires
  3. 03Accepted deposit and withdrawal methods, and any local payment rails
  4. 04Available base currencies and the published currency conversion cost
  5. 05Which products are restricted or unavailable to residents
  6. 06General tax treatment of brokerage accounts held by residents, framed as background rather than advice

Scheduled for phase 2 of our market roadmap. In the meantime, our guide to investor protection covers what these schemes do and do not do, and why the entity matters more than the brand.

Affiliate disclosure

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Risk warning

Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Nothing on this site is personalized investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell any security, or a solicitation. Figures are read from public sources on the dates shown and can change without notice — verify anything you intend to act on with the provider directly. Read the full risk disclosure.