Best Business Bank Accounts in Canada (2026)

Most Canadian owners pick their business bank by walking into the branch they have used since university. The teller opens whatever account is on the brochure, and six months later they are paying $80 a month in fees with no idea why.

Picking a business bank account is a real CFO decision. It affects your cost of doing business, your bookkeeping speed, your access to credit, and how fast you can move money on a Friday afternoon when payroll is due.

This guide compares the accounts by name, with fees taken from each bank's own published pricing, then gives you the decision framework and the three-account setup I use with CFO clients. Fees below were checked in July 2026. Banks change pricing, so confirm on the linked page before you open anything.

The quick answer

• Digital-only business, no cash: EQ Bank Business Account. No monthly fee, no minimum balance, free Interac e-Transfers, and it pays interest on your balance.
• Digital volume but you want a Big 5 relationship: RBC Digital Choice at $6 per month with unlimited electronic transactions.
• Brand new, fewer than 10 transactions a month: TD Basic Business Plan at $5 per month, or BMO's entry plan at $5.
• High volume with real cash reserves: CIBC Unlimited Business Operating. The monthly fee is waived entirely if you keep a $65,000 minimum daily balance, and it includes unlimited transactions plus a cash deposit allowance.

Business bank accounts compared (2026)

Account	Monthly fee	What is included	Best for
EQ Bank Business Account	$0	Free e-Transfers, no minimum balance, interest paid on deposits	Digital-first businesses with no cash handling
TD Basic Business Plan	$5	Small monthly transaction allowance, pay per item after	Very low volume, just getting started
BMO Essential (eBusiness) Plan	$5 for accounts opened since March 9, 2026	Unlimited electronic transactions	Digital volume at a Big 5 price
RBC Digital Choice	$6	Unlimited electronic debits and credits, 10 e-Transfers a month	Digital volume plus an RBC lending relationship
TD Every Day Business Plan A	$19, rebated with a $20,000 balance	20 transactions and 50 deposits a month	Moderate mixed volume
CIBC Unlimited Business Operating	Waived with a $65,000 minimum daily balance	Unlimited transactions including e-Transfers, monthly cash deposit allowance	High volume with cash reserves

Scotiabank and the credit unions (Coast Capital, Meridian, and the provincial credit unions) run comparable tiers: a small starter plan, a mid-tier plan with a balance waiver, and an unlimited premium plan. Their exact numbers move often enough that you should pull them from the bank's page the week you decide.

One number worth pausing on: BMO moved its entry business plan from $0 to $5 per month for accounts opened on or after March 9, 2026, according to BMO's published pricing notice. The era of the free Big 5 business account is closing. The free options that remain are the online-only banks.

What a business account actually costs

The monthly fee is the number on the brochure. It is rarely the number on your statement. Four line items decide what you actually pay.

1. Per-transaction fees

Starter plans include a handful of transactions, then charge per item. Run the math on your real volume: 40 transactions a month at roughly $1.25 each is $50 in overage on a $5 plan. A $25 unlimited plan would save you about $360 a year at that volume. Most owners never do this arithmetic.

2. Interac e-Transfer fees

If you pay contractors by e-Transfer, count them. RBC's Digital Choice includes 10 a month and then charges $1.50 each, per RBC's published pricing. EQ Bank includes them free without a cap. Twenty contractor payments a month is a $360-a-year difference on that one line.

3. Cash and paper

Digital plans punish paper. On RBC's Digital Choice, a paper debit or credit runs $2.50 per item and cash deposited at a branch costs $5.00 per $1,000. If cash or cheques are a real part of your revenue, a "cheap" digital plan is the expensive option, and a branch plan with a deposit allowance is the cheap one.

4. Foreign exchange

If you invoice in USD, the spread on conversion will quietly outcost every monthly fee on this page. Ask the bank for its posted FX spread in writing, and compare against a multi-currency fintech account before you route USD revenue through a CAD chequing account.

Big 5 or online-only: the one question that decides it

Strip the marketing and Canadian business banking is two categories. The question that sorts you is simple: does physical money touch your business?

Choose a Big 5 bank if

• Cash or cheques are more than about 5 percent of your deposits. You need the branch and the deposit allowance.
• You want business credit soon. Term loans, lines of credit, and commercial mortgages are still easier inside an existing Big 5 relationship.
• You run payroll, collect merchant payments, and want it all under one roof with one support line.

Choose an online-only bank if

• Your revenue arrives by card processor, wire, or e-Transfer and your expenses leave the same way.
• You would rather pay $0 than pay for a branch network you never walk into.
• You want cleaner software and bank feeds that your bookkeeper does not fight with.

"Fees are the slowest leak in a small business. They never trigger an alert and they never go away on their own." Peter Xia, CPA

Pick the bank for the business you have, not the business you wish you had. If 100 percent of your revenue is Stripe and Interac, paying for branch infrastructure is charity to the bank. If you take cash, the branch is not optional.

What you need to open a business bank account in Canada

Have this ready before you book the appointment. Every bank publishes its own exact list, but the core is the same everywhere.

• Sole proprietor: government photo ID, your CRA business number if you have one, and your trade name registration if you operate under anything other than your legal name.
• Corporation: articles of incorporation, the corporation's CRA business number, and ID for every director and significant shareholder the bank asks about.
• Partnership: the partnership agreement or registration, plus ID for the partners.

Not incorporated yet and not sure you should be? Run the numbers in my free incorporation calculator before you decide. The account you open follows the structure you pick, not the other way around.

Is your money protected? CDIC in plain English

CDIC insures eligible deposits up to $100,000 per insured category at each member institution, per CDIC. Two details matter for business owners.

First, a corporation is its own depositor. Its deposits are insured separately from your personal accounts at the same bank. A sole proprietorship is not a separate legal entity, so those business deposits are combined with your personal deposits under the same $100,000 ceiling.

Second, online banks you have never walked into can still be CDIC members. EQ Bank deposits, for example, are eligible through Equitable Bank's membership. Check the CDIC member list, not the brand's marketing page, before you park six figures anywhere.

The CFO setup: three accounts, not one

The account you choose matters less than the structure you run. Every CFO client of mine ends up with the same skeleton.

1. Operating chequing. Every dollar in and out of the business runs through here. One account, one clean bank feed, one happy bookkeeper.
2. Tax savings. Move a fixed percentage of every customer deposit here the day it lands. If you are GST/HST registered, this is where that money waits so filing day is a transfer, not a crisis. Not registered yet? Here is exactly when the $30,000 rule forces you to register.
3. General savings. Anything above one month of operating costs moves here, ideally somewhere that pays interest on the balance.

Add a fourth account for payroll if you have employees. Payroll money is not your money, and separating it removes the single most stressful cash question a growing business faces.

How to choose this week

1. Pull your last 90 days of statements. Count three things: debit transactions, e-Transfers, and total cash or cheque deposits. That profile is your shopping list.
2. If cash and cheques exceed 5 percent of deposits, shortlist Big 5 plans with a deposit allowance. If everything is digital, shortlist two online-only options and one Big 5 digital plan.
3. Compare the all-in monthly cost at your actual volume, not the headline fee. Include e-Transfer overages and FX if they apply.
4. Ask each shortlisted bank for three numbers in writing: monthly fee, per-transaction fee, and e-Transfer cost. Verbal quotes from a branch rep do not count.
5. Open the three-account structure on day one: operating, tax, savings.
6. Connect your accounting software before the first transaction. The cleaner the bank feed, the less your bookkeeper bills you.
7. Reassess every 12 months. Most owners outgrow their plan within two years and never adjust.

The bottom line

The right business bank account is not the most famous one. It is the one whose fee structure matches how money actually moves through your business. Sort yourself by the cash question, verify the fees on the bank's own page, run the three-account structure, and review it once a year.

Want to know if banking fees are even your biggest leak? Grade your finances in 2 minutes with the free Financial Health Scorecard, or browse the rest of the free CFO tools. And if you want a CFO to read your numbers with you, book a free call.