Where Canadian business banking quietly gets expensive
The sticker price on a business chequing account is rarely the real cost. At the Big Six, fee waivers are tied to minimum daily balances that typically run from about $15,000 to $80,000. That money has to sit there all month, earning nothing. Priced honestly, parking $65,000 to dodge roughly $1,500 in annual fees carries an opportunity cost near $1,800, which is more than the fee it removes. You end up paying for the privilege of not paying.
Then come the per-item charges. Interac e-Transfers run about $1.50 each once the monthly allowance is exhausted. Cash deposits are billed per $1,000. International wires land somewhere between $30 and $80 depending on the bank and whether you send online or in a branch. For anyone with cross-border revenue, the biggest line on the statement is the exchange rate itself: a 2.5% to 3% markup on $500,000 of foreign receipts works out to $15,000 a year, which dwarfs every other fee combined.
Geography adds another wrinkle. Two of the strongest low-cost digital options for business, EQ Bank and Venn, do not serve Quebec businesses. Quebec corporations end up comparing National Bank's business package against RBC and BMO instead. National Bank charges $100 a month, drops to $80 with a Platinum Business Mastercard, and reaches zero at an $80,000 daily balance. That is a real constraint, not a marketing detail.
A fourth gap is physical cash. No digital-first platform in Canada replicates branch cash and cheque handling. A café on Commercial Drive or a contractor who still gets paid by paper cheque in rural Alberta needs a plan for deposits, and often that means keeping a traditional account alongside a digital one.
What the options actually look like
| Provider | Monthly fee | Best suited to | Strength | Watch for |
|---|
| RBC Digital Choice | $6 | Online-only operations | Cheapest Big Six entry tier | No balance waiver; branch and paper items billed at $1.25 to $2.50 |
| CIBC Basic Business Operating | $6 | Very low volume | Simple entry pricing | Zero included transactions; you pay per item from day one |
| Scotiabank Right Size | $6 | Seasonal and irregular volume | Per-transaction rate falls from $1.25 to $1.00 | No balance waiver, so heavy months add up |
| TD Basic Business Plan | $5 | Occasional use | Low base fee | Capped at five transactions; mid tiers run $19 to $72 |
| EQ Bank Business Account | $0 | Sole proprietors and small corporations | 2.25% interest on CAD, 50 e-Transfers included monthly, CDIC coverage direct | Not available to Quebec businesses |
| Venn Essentials | $0 | Businesses holding CAD and USD | Interest on both currencies, low conversion markup on the entry plan | Quebec exclusion; paid tiers at $40 and $100 |
| Float Essentials | $0 | Importers and online sellers | Interest on operating cash, separate CAD and USD cards | Conversion pricing varies by currency pair |
| Airwallex Business Account | $0 on the entry plan | Exporters, agencies, e-commerce | Local account details in 20+ currencies, interbank pricing with a small markup | Fintech, not a bank; funds held in segregated trust accounts |
| National Bank Business Package | $100, or $80 with a qualifying card | Quebec-incorporated companies | Full bilingual service | Highest base fee among the options compared here |
The trust account detail matters more than most comparison articles admit. Deposits at a chartered bank fall under CDIC protection up to $100,000 per entity. Fintech balances sit in segregated trust accounts under the Retail Payment Activities Act, which is a different structure. Neither is automatically better. They protect you in different ways, and you should know which one you are relying on.
Matching the account to how your business moves money
Start with three months of statements. Count electronic debits, credits, e-Transfers, and cheque deposits. Under 30 transactions a month rarely justifies anything above an entry tier. A few hundred transactions means per-item pricing is the wrong model entirely, and an unlimited plan or a digital platform with included volume becomes the cheaper route.
Take the case of a Toronto copywriter billing US clients roughly $60,000 a year. On a Big Six account with a 2.5% conversion markup, that is about $1,500 gone before any monthly fee. Moving those receipts into a multi-currency account at interbank pricing plus a 0.5% markup cuts it to roughly $300. The savings are larger than the annual fee of any account on the table above.
Regional patterns show up too. In Ontario and BC, sole proprietors running e-commerce stores tend to pair a digital operating account with a separate card product for ad spend, because the card's foreign transaction fee hits every Meta and Google charge. Prairie agricultural operations often keep a credit union account for cash and cheque handling and layer a digital account on top for online supplier payments. In Quebec, the practical comparison is National Bank against RBC and BMO, since the low-cost digital options are simply off the table.
One more point that surprises people: a sole proprietor is not legally required to hold a separate business account in Canada. Practically, almost everyone should. Mixing revenue and personal spending makes bookkeeping messy and makes it harder to demonstrate clean records if the Canada Revenue Agency asks questions.
Setting one up without the back-and-forth
Gather your paperwork before you start an application. Sole proprietors need a Master Business Licence or registered business name certificate. Partnerships need the partnership agreement. Corporations need Articles of Incorporation plus a corporate profile listing all directors. Every signing officer needs government-issued photo ID.
Then match the account to your structure. Straightforward sole proprietorships and simple corporations can usually open online in about 15 minutes, with approval inside two business days at institutions like RBC. Layered ownership, multiple beneficial owners, or holding companies generally require a phone call or a branch visit, so budget extra time.
Check two local resources before you commit. The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada's Account Comparison Tool lets you line up fee structures side by side, and it is maintained rather than crowd-sourced. If you are incorporating anyway, the Ownr arrangement with RBC returns $100 for sole proprietors and $300 for corporations when you open an account within 60 days, provided you keep it open for a year.
Finally, set a calendar reminder for twelve months out. Average idle cash across a full year, not its peak, and see whether that balance is doing useful work. A business holding $100,000 in a non-interest account is forgoing about $2,750 a year at current digital rates, which exceeds the fee on nearly every plan in this comparison.
Run those three months of transaction counts first. The account that fits usually becomes obvious within an afternoon, and the fee you avoid tends to be the one you never noticed you were paying.
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