Wealthsimple Credit Card Review (2026): What Changed on April 28 and Which Tier You Have

If you were approved for a Wealthsimple Visa Infinite before 28 April 2026, you have a different card from the one Wealthsimple sells today — same plastic, different rules. Wealthsimple says so itself: its help centre runs a separate benefits article headed "for cardholders before April 28, 2026". The new lineup is two cards, Visa Infinite + and Visa Infinite Privilege, both paying 2% on everything with no foreign exchange fee added by Wealthsimple, and both carrying a $20 monthly fee unless you hold $100,000 in individual assets or route $4,000 a month of direct deposit through a Wealthsimple chequing account.

That last sentence is the part nobody writes down plainly. The card is advertised with "no annual fees". There is no annual fee. There is a monthly one, and the way out of it is either a six-figure balance or your paycheque.

Which version do you have?

Two readers arrive at this page. Approved before 28 April 2026, you are a legacy cardholder and the question is what you lost. Applying now, the question is what the card costs you in practice. The rest of this piece answers both, in that order.

What changed on 28 April 2026

The household fee waiver stopped being automatic, and the product split into tiers. Before that date, being part of a Premium or Generation household waived the credit card's monthly fee. After it, the waiver is earned individually.

If you held a household-based waiver before 28 April, Wealthsimple's wording is "we're honouring your fee waiver until further notice". That is a grandfather clause with no end date attached, which is not the same as a promise. Worth a calendar reminder.

The other change is quieter and older. Since 3 November 2025, cash back no longer lands by itself — you redeem it manually into another Wealthsimple account. Money you earned and never claimed is sitting in the app.

Wealthsimple has four cards. Which one is yours?

The credit card is one of four Wealthsimple cards, and the other three are not credit cards at all. Readers conflate them constantly, and the terms are not interchangeable.

One detail that settles the confusion faster than any feature list: the prepaid cardholder agreement states the card is "issued, owned by and will remain the property of KOHO Financial Inc.", with Wealthsimple as distributor. The credit cards are issued under licence by Wealthsimple Payments Inc. Different products, different issuers, different agreements.

The tiers, and what each one asks of you

Both current tiers pay the same 2%. The gates are income and assets, not the rewards.

Everyone applying needs an active Wealthsimple chequing account, Canadian residency and the age of majority in their province. A full credit check follows the application. Wealthsimple says the card is available in limited quantities. Quebec residents join a waitlist, and are billed annually rather than monthly.

The real price is a chequing account and a balance

This card is not bought with an annual fee. It is bought by moving your banking, your investments, or both.

Run the arithmetic on the fee alone. $20 a month is $240 a year. At 2% cash back, you need $12,000 of annual spending just to cover it — before the card has earned you anything. A flat 2% no-fee card beats it on every dollar until you clear that line.

So the card only makes sense if the fee is waived, and both routes to a waiver are substantial:

• $100,000 in individual assets with Wealthsimple. Not household — individual, for anyone who did not already hold a household waiver before 28 April 2026.
• $4,000 a month in direct deposit to a Wealthsimple chequing account. That is a $48,000 salary routed away from wherever it goes now.

Both are real decisions with real friction. Moving a portfolio can mean transfer fees from the losing institution, time out of the market while the transfer settles, and more of your money concentrated with one firm. Switching a paycheque means re-pointing payroll and whatever pre-authorised debits follow it. None of that is an argument against doing it — plenty of people already hold assets there, and for them the card is free and genuinely good. It is an argument for seeing the trade clearly before you make it for a credit card.

How the cash back works

2% on net qualifying purchases, uncapped, no categories, plus 5% for the first five weeks.

"Net" and "qualifying" do the work in that sentence. Wealthsimple excludes cash-like transactions, refunds and fees from the earn. Refunds reduce the base, which is standard, and cash-like transactions are the usual trap — money orders, wire transfers and similar items are not purchases on most Canadian cards, and they do not earn here.

Since 3 November 2025, you redeem manually into another Wealthsimple account. Boosted partner offers exist but only apply when you shop through the app.

One figure we will not state as fact: the rate on the legacy card. Wealthsimple's pre-April article lists 2%, while a separate help article describes a Visa Infinite 1% credit card in beta. Those two pages disagree, so check the rate in-app rather than trusting any review, including this one. Our own product record for this card still shows the older 1% structure with a note about Premium and Generation clients, and is being corrected.

Is 2% with no FX fee still competitive?

The 2% is ordinary. The no-FX treatment is not. Those are two different features and they are worth separating, because most readers only benefit from one of them.

Flat 2% cash back is a crowded field in Canada, and several cards do it without asking you to move a portfolio. If you never spend in another currency, the Wealthsimple card's advantage over a plain 2% no-fee card is zero, and its fee risk is not.

Foreign exchange is where it separates. Most Canadian cards add roughly 2.5% on top of the network's conversion rate. Wealthsimple charges 0%. Note the limit of that claim, which Wealthsimple states itself: the payment network still converts the currency at its own rate. "No FX fee" means no markup from the issuer, not a wholesale rate.

The no-FX field in Canada is small. On our own data, the cards charging no foreign transaction fee are the Home Trust Preferred Visa at no annual fee, and three Scotiabank cards — Passport Visa Infinite + at $150, Gold American Express at $120, and Passport Visa Infinite Privilege at $599. Against that field the Wealthsimple card is competitive on paper and awkward in practice, because its price is not a number you can compare.

Run your own spending through the rewards calculator before deciding. If foreign spending is a few hundred dollars a year, the FX advantage is worth a few dollars, and the fee risk is $240.

What is not published

We could not find a purchase APR, a cash advance rate or a grace period for this credit card in Wealthsimple's own published material. The cardholder agreement at wealthsimple.com covers the prepaid card, not the credit card, and states no interest rate because a prepaid card has none.

For a card aimed at people who pay in full, that gap matters less than it would elsewhere. It still matters. If you ever carry a balance, get the rate in writing from Wealthsimple before you apply, and do not accept a figure from a review site — including the figure another review might print with confidence.

Who should take it, and who should not

Take it if you already hold $100,000 with Wealthsimple or already bank there. Skip it if the fee waiver would require moving money you would not otherwise move.

• Existing Wealthsimple clients above the asset threshold. The fee is waived, the 2% is uncapped and the FX treatment is among the best in the country. There is no catch for this group and no reason to hedge about it.
• People who already route their pay through Wealthsimple chequing. Same answer, different route to the same waiver.
• Frequent foreign spenders who would have to move a portfolio. Compare against the no-fee Home Trust card first. It asks nothing of you.
• Anyone who spends under $12,000 a year and would pay the fee. The maths does not work. A flat 2% no-fee card is strictly better.
• Legacy cardholders with a household waiver. Nothing to do today. Set a reminder, because "until further notice" is not a term with an end date.

Every figure above comes from Wealthsimple's own product pages, help centre and cardholder agreement, read on 8 October 2026. Where its pages disagree with each other — the legacy card's rate — we have said so rather than picking one. Wealthsimple changed this card in April 2026 and again, quietly, in November 2025; check the current terms in-app before you apply. See also our no foreign transaction fee and cash back comparisons, and the Wealthsimple product list.

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