Crypto Country GuideCrypto rules and tax, country by country

Canada: regulation

Last reviewed: October 2026

On this page
  1. Legal status and supervision
  2. Exchanges and KYC
  3. Stablecoins
    1. The Stablecoin Act
  4. Crypto ATMs
  5. Scams
  6. Self-custody
    1. If you lose access to your wallet
  7. Sources
  • Crypto is legal in Canada but not legal tender. Platforms must register with FINTRAC as money services businesses, and most also need registration with a provincial or territorial securities regulator.
  • Registered platforms may only offer stablecoins that meet the securities regulators’ conditions: backed 1:1 by Canadian or US dollars, with reserves at a qualified custodian. The issuers of USDC and QCAD have filed undertakings.
  • The Stablecoin Act became law on 26 March 2026 but is not yet in force; the government expects it to apply in 2027.
  • Crypto ATMs are legal and their operators must register with FINTRAC. The government proposed in April 2026 to ban them; no bill had been tabled by October 2026.
  • Report crypto fraud to your local police and to the national Report Cybercrime and Fraud system. We found no rule restricting self-custody wallets.

This page covers who supervises crypto in Canada, what that means when you use a platform, stablecoins, crypto ATMs, scams and your own wallet. Which platforms are registered, and their fees, are on exchanges. It is general information, not legal advice.

Owning and trading crypto is legal. It is not legal tender: under section 8 of the Currency Act only coins and bank notes are, and the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada says that “crypto assets are not legal tender in Canada”. Canada regulates crypto through three sets of rules:

  • Securities law. Securities regulation is provincial and territorial; the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) coordinate the regulators, such as the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) and Quebec’s Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF). In CSA Staff Notice 21-327 (16 January 2020), the CSA said a crypto trading platform is generally subject to securities law unless the crypto is not itself a security or derivative and the contract results in immediate delivery of the crypto to the user. It added: “There is no bright-line test.”
  • Anti-money-laundering law. Dealing in virtual currency is a money services business activity, and FINTRAC says you must register “before beginning to operate in Canada”.
  • Stablecoin law. The federal Stablecoin Act, administered by the Bank of Canada once in force (see stablecoins).

Bill C-12, which received Royal Assent on 26 March 2026, strengthened FINTRAC’s powers. For violations after that date, FINTRAC says penalties can be up to 40 times the previous limits; the Act sets a maximum per violation of CAD 4 million for a person and CAD 20 million for an entity, and it adds compliance agreements and compliance orders.

Exchanges and KYC

Platforms that serve Canadians register with the securities regulators, as a restricted dealer or as an investment dealer that is a member of the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO). Under CSA Staff Notice 21-332 (22 February 2023), platforms that operated while applying had to sign pre-registration undertakings: client crypto held with a qualified custodian and kept separate, no pledging or re-use of client assets, no margin, credit or leverage, and no stablecoins or proprietary tokens without the CSA’s consent. The CSA stopped accepting new undertakings on 6 August 2024; new platforms now apply through CIRO. How to check a platform is on exchanges.

Expect to be identified when you open an account. FINTRAC’s travel rule, in force since 1 June 2021, requires platforms to send the name, address and account or reference number of the sender and the recipient with crypto transfers, and to take reasonable measures to obtain missing information. Platforms also report virtual currency of CAD 10,000 or more received in one transaction or within 24 hours (see filing and deadlines).

Stablecoins

The CSA calls stablecoins value-referenced crypto assets (VRCAs) and says they “may constitute securities and/or derivatives”. Since 31 December 2024, registered platforms may only offer VRCAs that meet the conditions of CSA Staff Notice 21-333 (5 October 2023):

  • pegged 1:1 to a single fiat currency, which must be the Canadian dollar or the US dollar, and redeemable on demand at that rate;
  • a reserve of cash, short-term Canadian or US government debt (90 days or less) or money market funds, held with a qualified custodian, kept separate and at least equal to the coins outstanding every day;
  • public information on the reserve and governance, and an undertaking by the issuer filed with the CSA.

The CSA’s list of issuer undertakings (refreshed 24 November 2025) names Circle Internet Financial for USDC (3 December 2024) and QCAD Digital Trust for QCAD (20 November 2025). The CSA says an undertaking “does not mean the CSA approves or endorses the VRCA”. We found no official CSA statement naming Tether (USDT); it does not appear on that list.

The Stablecoin Act

The Stablecoin Act was enacted as part of Bill C-15 (the Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1), which received Royal Assent on 26 March 2026. It comes into force on a day fixed by order, and we found no such order (October 2026). The Department of Finance expects the regulations to take 12 to 18 months from early 2026, with the framework in force in 2027; draft regulations will be published in the Canada Gazette for consultation. Once in force:

  • only issuers on the Bank of Canada’s public registry may issue a stablecoin;
  • issuers may not pay interest or yield to holders, and must redeem at par;
  • reserves must be held with qualified custodians;
  • a stablecoin may not be presented as legal tender, a deposit or covered by deposit insurance.

The Act covers issuers that are not banks or other financial institutions. Trading stablecoins on platforms stays with the securities regulators. FINTRAC says stablecoin issuers will also have to register with it as money services businesses.

Crypto ATMs

Crypto ATMs are legal at the time of writing (October 2026). FINTRAC says that operators of virtual currency ATMs “are considered money services businesses”, must register with it, and that operating an unregistered money services business “is a violation and an offence”. In a 2024 advisory it lists warning signs, such as a user who is on the phone and being coached during the transaction. The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada notes that crypto ATMs have “no connection to your financial institution or the Interac network”.

The Spring Economic Update of 28 April 2026 proposes to “make it a criminal offence to operate a cryptocurrency automated teller machine”. On 6 May 2026 the Department of Finance said that, assuming only 5 to 10% of fraud is reported, Canadians lost an estimated CAD 142 million to CAD 284 million in 2024 to fraud through crypto ATMs, and that the details “will be provided in legislation expected to be tabled shortly”. We found no bill with the ban by 7 October 2026, so it is not law yet.

Scams

Investment fraud caused the largest losses reported to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) in 2025: CAD 351 million from 4,409 reports, out of more than CAD 704 million in total fraud losses. Romance (relationship) fraud and recovery scams followed. Patterns the CSA and police describe:

  • Fake platforms. You are asked to buy crypto on a real platform and then move it to an investment site that shows fake gains. Small withdrawals work at first to build trust; larger ones fail. The CSA also warns about requests to install remote-access software.
  • Pressure to pay through a crypto ATM or a QR code, often while the caller stays on the phone, as the RCMP describes.
  • Recovery scams after a loss. The CAFC says it and the police “will never ask you to transfer funds or make a payment of any kind”.

Before you invest, check the firm in the CSA’s National Registration Search (aretheyregistered.ca) and call it using the number in the register, not the one you were given. If you have been targeted:

  1. Your local police. The CAFC says: “It’s the role of your local police to investigate.”
  2. Report Cybercrime and Fraud (reportcyberandfraud.canada.ca), the national online system run by the RCMP and the CAFC, or the CAFC by phone at 1-888-495-8501. The CAFC keeps a central record to help investigations; it does not investigate cases itself.
  3. Your bank or platform, as quickly as possible, and your provincial securities regulator if it concerns an investment offer.

Self-custody

We found no Canadian rule that restricts holding crypto in your own wallet. The travel rule binds platforms, not individuals; FINTRAC’s travel rule guidance does not mention self-hosted wallets. For tax, crypto in your own wallet is treated like any other, and the CRA expects you to keep the address of each wallet and its opening and closing balance (see filing and deadlines).

Holding crypto yourself means the keys are your responsibility. If you keep larger amounts of bitcoin in your own wallet, it is worth comparing a single hardware wallet with a multisig setup; this explanation of multisig versus single-sig sets out what each protects against.

If you lose access to your wallet

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada warns: “If you lose your private key, you lose access to your wallets and your funds.” The CRA’s crypto-asset guide says nothing about lost keys, theft or whether such a loss is a disposition (October 2026), so ask a tax professional if this happens to you. The CRA does advise exporting your transaction history regularly in case you lose access to an account. What heirs need to do to reach crypto in a wallet or on a platform is covered in this guide to crypto inheritance in Canada.

Sources

This page is general information, not legal advice. Rules change, so check the official sources above before you act.