Best prepaid cards in Canada (2026): 5 compared on fees and interest

There’s no single best prepaid card in Canada in 2026. The EQ Bank Card is the best all-rounder, the PC Money Account is worth more if your groceries come from Loblaws or Shoppers, and Wealthsimple is the one to travel with. KOHO has the most features, and it and Neo are the two here that can charge you a monthly fee.

All five are free to get, and none of them runs a credit check. The table above lines up what each one costs, what the balance earns and who actually holds your money. Below is how each card works and who it suits.

What counts as a prepaid card in Canada now

A prepaid card is one you load before you spend. Nothing is borrowed, so no credit check applies and there’s no interest to pay. In 2026 that describes five products worth considering, and not one of them is a standalone card. Each is a spending account from a Canadian bank or fintech with a Visa or Mastercard attached, which is why we also compare the accounts themselves.

That’s a change from a few years ago. Mogo closed its card program in June 2023 and STACK, by then owned by Credit Sesame, shut down that September. Roundups that still rank STACK against KOHO are ranking a card that stopped working three years ago. Since what’s left are accounts, the things that separate them are account questions: what the balance earns, what a foreign purchase costs, and where the money legally sits.

Lodavo publishes this site. We don’t issue a card, so Lodavo isn’t one of the options here and isn’t ranked among them. Each card is ranked on the fees and rates its own company publishes, and every provider’s page is linked so you can check the numbers.

Best all-round: the EQ Bank Card

The EQ Bank Card is the one to take if you only want one. It’s a reloadable prepaid Mastercard that pays 0.5% cash back on everything you buy (opens in a new tab), and the balance loaded on it keeps earning the rate from your EQ Bank Personal Account: 1.00% on its own, or 2.75% with recurring direct deposits of at least $2,000 a month.

EQ also reimburses Canadian ATM fees, up to $5 a withdrawal and five times a month, and adds no markup of its own on foreign purchases.

The condition is that direct deposit. Without $2,000 a month arriving, the balance earns 1.00%, which Wealthsimple Savings beats at 2.5% with no conditions at all. You also need an EQ Bank account to get the card, and some EQ products aren’t offered in Quebec.

Best if you shop at Loblaws or Shoppers: the PC Money Account

The PC Money Account comes with a prepaid Mastercard and pays in PC Optimum points rather than cash, and the rate depends on where you are: 5 points per dollar wherever the card works, and 10 at Loblaw banner stores, Shoppers Drug Mart, Joe Fresh and Esso. Points redeem at 10,000 for $10, so that is 0.5% on ordinary spending and 1% at those stores, which matches EQ’s cash back rather than beating it.

You will see 25 points a dollar advertised at Shoppers. Only 10 of that is the card. The other 15 is what any PC Optimum member earns there by scanning the app, however they pay, so it is not a reason to pick this card over another one.

The savings side of the account pays 2.2%, or 2.9% with a recurring direct deposit, while the spending balance pays nothing, so move money across rather than parking it on the card. PC dropped its foreign currency markup on February 6, 2025 (opens in a new tab).

Points are worth something only where they are accepted. If your groceries don’t come from a Loblaws store, take a cash-back card instead, or run a separate cashback app on top of one.

Best for budgeting tools: KOHO

KOHO is the most built-out app on this list and the most expensive way to hold one of these cards. Plans run from $0 to $22 a month and what you get scales with what you pay: 1% to 2% cash back on groceries, transport and restaurants, and 2% to 3.5% interest on the balance.

The free Essential plan stays free with a direct deposit or $1,000 deposited a month. It also charges 1.5% on foreign purchases (opens in a new tab), which the Extra and Everything plans waive.

KOHO suits someone who wants round-ups, savings goals and spending categories in the same app as the card. If you only want a card, you’re paying for software you won’t open.

Best for travelling: the Wealthsimple card

Wealthsimple issues a Visa Platinum Prepaid card (opens in a new tab) with no foreign exchange fee of its own and reimbursement of ATM fees anywhere in the world, with no cap. That’s the most generous arrangement here.

It pays no cash back. Wealthsimple ended its 1% on October 1, 2025 and removed the old $5 ceiling on ATM reimbursements a couple of weeks later. Plenty of roundups still promise that 1%, so check the date on anything that does.

The balance earns through the account behind the card, at 2.5% in Wealthsimple Savings, or 1.25% to 2.25% in Chequing depending on how much you hold with them.

Best alongside a Neo account: the Neo Money card

The Neo Money card is the weakest of the five on its own and reasonable as part of the wider account. Neo’s own page advertises 1% cashback on gas and groceries (opens in a new tab), and the savings account behind the card pays 2.00% to 2.75%, set by your balance until October 1 and by your membership from then on.

Those memberships got more expensive this year. Build rose from $7.99 to $9.99 a month and Grow from $12.99 to $14.99, for new customers on September 1, 2026 and for existing members on October 1. Until that date, a savings balance of $5,000 still covers a paid tier at no charge.

Neo charges 2.5% on foreign currency with the Money card, and rebates it only for Grow members at $14.99 a month, capped at the first $10,000 of foreign spending each month. It works if you want savings, a card and credit building from one company, and on any cheaper tier it is the one to leave at home when you fly.

Where your money actually sits

Prepaid is not a description of where your money sits. A prepaid balance isn’t automatically a deposit, and whether it reaches deposit insurance depends on who is holding it.

EQ Bank and PC Financial are both banks, so CDIC covers those balances directly, up to $100,000 per category. The member behind EQ Bank is Equitable Bank, and behind PC Financial it is President’s Choice Bank. EQB bought President’s Choice Bank on July 1, 2026, which changes nothing about coverage today and is worth knowing if you hold money at both.

KOHO, Neo and Wealthsimple aren’t banks. They place your balance in trust at member institutions, which does reach CDIC coverage, with conditions attached. KOHO’s balance becomes eligible once you turn on Earn Interest. Wealthsimple’s Chequing account is covered, while its Savings account is a non-registered investment account and sits under CIPF instead. Our directory of Canadian institutions lists who holds what.

The five accounts here don’t charge any of the fees that gave prepaid cards their reputation. That reputation came from the cards sold off a rack, and the FCAC’s page on prepaid cards (opens in a new tab) lists what those can bill you for, including activation, inactivity and checking your own balance.

A weekly draw on the balance you leave alone

Every card on this page is built for spending. The accounts behind them pay a rate on what’s left, and that’s as far as any of them goes.

Lodavo is a free Canadian app that turns the savings you already hold into tickets in a weekly cash draw. You connect a chequing or savings account at almost any bank or credit union, read-only, and what you’ve put aside earns tickets each Sunday. KOHO, Neo and the PC Money Account can’t be connected yet. The top prize is $10,000, and at least $100 goes to a user every week. Lodavo holds no money and pays no interest, so whichever card and rate you picked above keeps working exactly as it did. Prize-linked savings has run in the US and UK for years and is newer in Canada.

Which one should you pick?

Take the EQ Bank Card if you want one card and no thinking: 0.5% on everything, a real rate on the balance, and no fee anywhere. Take the PC Money Account instead if you buy groceries at a Loblaws store, where 10 points a dollar is worth 1% and the points buy groceries you were going to buy anyway. Take Wealthsimple if you travel or withdraw cash abroad. Take KOHO if you’ll use the budgeting tools, and pay for a plan if you do, because the free one charges you 1.5% at the till overseas.

None of these is a credit product, so none of them will build a credit file. If that’s what you came for, the apps that do it are a different list.

Terms and conditions apply. No purchase necessary (alternate method of entry available). Skill-testing question required. Open to legal residents of Canada who are the age of majority. Odds depend on the number of eligible entries received. Full rules and odds at our contest rules.