Who can open a Wealthsimple Trade account?

In order to open an account on Wealthsimple Trade, you must: 

• Be a Canadian citizen, Canadian resident, or have a valid Canadian visa 
• Be at least 18 years old 
• Have a Social Insurance Number 
• Have a Canadian residential address 
• Be able to satisfy identity verification requirements 

When you open a non-registered account, we have to take a few extra steps to verify your identity as these accounts are not registered with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). This being the case, for anti-money laundering (AML) purposes we perform this extra step of verification to make sure we are not dealing with any unsavoury types and to protect our clients' identities.

This verification involves confirming the details you entered with a credit reporting agency. If all of your details match, then your account will open right away! However, if there are discrepancies, we first ask you to confirm those details to make sure they were entered correctly when signing up. If necessary, we then ask you to provide us with additional documentation, such as a bill or a T4 statement or Notice of Assessment. Don't worry, we will reach out if this is the case!

For more details on this identity verification process, check out this article by FINTRAC (Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada).

If you are a US citizen and are considering opening a TFSA, please note that the IRS considers TFSAs to be ‘foreign trusts’ and therefore any income earned in these accounts would be considered taxable on your US tax returns.