You need a Canadian bank account before you can be paid, rent anything, or set up a phone. It is one of the first things you do, usually in the first fortnight, usually at whichever branch is nearest, usually without comparing anything — because there are eleven other things happening that week and this one feels like a formality.
It is not a formality. It is a recurring bill you are about to sign up for, and most newcomers pay it for years without ever being told it was optional.
The number
Canada's five big banks — RBC, TD, Scotiabank, BMO and CIBC — all charge $16.95 a month for their comparable unlimited chequing account. Not similar. The same figure at all five.
$16.95 × 12 = $203.40 a year.
All five waive it if you keep a minimum balance of $4,000 in the account.
So the offer, stated plainly, is: *pay us $203 a year, or lend us $4,000 for free, indefinitely.*
Both options are a price, and the second one is hidden
Most people who learn about the waiver treat it as the free option. It is not free; it is a different payment.
Four thousand dollars parked in a chequing account earns essentially nothing. The same $4,000 in a high-interest savings account earns whatever that account pays. The waiver costs you the difference every year you hold it:
$4,000 × (savings rate) = what the waiver costs annually.
At a 3% savings rate that is $120 a year — cheaper than the $203 in fees, but not free, and it only works if you have $4,000 you genuinely do not need. In your first year here you almost certainly do not. That money is the deposit, the flight, the credential assessment, the gap between arriving and the first pay cheque.
For most newcomers the waiver is unreachable, which means the real choice is not "fee or no fee". It is $203.40 a year, or a bank that does not charge it.
The third option
Paying a monthly fee for chequing in Canada is optional. Several institutions charge nothing, with no balance requirement, and carry the same CDIC deposit protection as the Big Five: Simplii Financial, Tangerine, and EQ Bank among them.
That is the whole point of this piece, and it holds whether or not you use any link on this page. If you keep only one thing: a monthly chequing fee is a choice, and $203 a year is what the default costs.
Simplii Financial is a referral link, and we are paid for it. Open a No Fee Chequing or High Interest Savings account through it, deposit at least $100 within six months and keep $100 in it for 30 days, and you get $50. We get $125. Those are Simplii's numbers and Simplii can change them — the terms on their page are the ones that count, not ours.
Two things you should know before clicking, because they are the things a page earning $125 has an incentive not to mention:
- Simplii is CIBC's direct banking brand. This is a Big Five bank without the branch and without the monthly fee. It is not an alternative to the Big Five; it is one of them, wearing different clothes.
- It is not the only no-fee account. Tangerine and EQ Bank charge no monthly fee either and carry the same CDIC protection. We are paid for one of the three. If another suits you better, use it — we would rather you kept the $203 a year than clicked our link.
What to actually do, in order
- Do not open the account at the nearest branch on day three. It is the single easiest $203 a year to never spend, and the decision takes fifteen minutes.
- Check whether your newcomer offer is temporary. Big Five newcomer packages often waive the fee for six or twelve months. That is a real saving and then a bill, on a date nobody reminds you of. Put the end date in your calendar the day you open it.
- If you already have a fee-charging account, you are not stuck. Switching costs an afternoon of moving direct deposits and pre-authorised payments. Do not switch until they are all moved.
- Ignore the balance waiver in year one unless $4,000 is genuinely spare. It usually is not.
Sources
Monthly fee and balance-waiver figures are for the Big Five's comparable unlimited chequing accounts as reported in September 2026 by NerdWallet Canada and multiple Canadian banking comparisons, which agree on $16.95 and a $4,000 waiver across all five. Packages vary from roughly $4 to $30 a month depending on tier; the $16.95 tier is the standard unlimited one most people are placed in.
Bank fees change and each bank's own page is the authority. The mechanism in this article — a fee, or a balance you cannot touch, or neither — outlives any particular figure. The savings rate used to size the waiver is deliberately left as a variable, because rates move faster than articles do.
Not financial advice, and this is a referral page as disclosed above. Every paid link on this site, with what we receive from each, is listed on one page.