How to trade on Wealthsimple: buy and sell stocks in the app, step by step

How to trade on Wealthsimple comes down to six steps: open a self-directed account, fund it, search the ticker, enter shares or a dollar amount, choose the order type, and submit. The choices around those steps are what cost or save you money: which account holds the shares, which listing you pick when a company trades in both Toronto and New York, and whether a US stock quietly adds a currency conversion fee. This guide walks through every step from sign-up to your first sale, then says plainly when another brokerage would serve you better. It is general education, not financial advice.

How to trade on Wealthsimple at a glance

Trading stocks and ETFs on Wealthsimple: key facts (September 2026)

Feature	On Wealthsimple
Commission to buy or sell Canadian and US stocks and ETFs	$0 (better on this row)
US-listed stock bought from a CAD account	1.5% conversion fee on the buy and again on the sale
USD account	$10 a month for Core clients; free for Premium and Generation
Account minimum and opening fee	No minimum; $0 to open
Fractional shares	Thousands of Canadian and US stocks and ETFs, bought by dollar amount
Instant deposit limit	up to $50,000 for Core clients and up to $250,000 for Premium and Generation clients
Order types	Market, limit, stop-limit, stop-market and bracket
Trading hours	9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET; eligible US stocks and ETFs also trade from Sunday 8:00 p.m. to Friday 8:00 p.m. ET
Withdrawing to your bank	Free by standard bank transfer; 2.5% for an instant withdrawal
Accounts you can trade in	TFSA, RRSP, FHSA, RESP, LIRA, RRIF, non-registered (cash and margin), and corporate accounts
Investor protection	securities eligible for CIPF coverage up to $1M per defined account

Sources: Wealthsimple pricing page, Trade account fee schedule, fractional-shares and ETF pages, and Best Execution and Order Handling Disclosure. Checked September 23, 2026.

YieldMaple checked Wealthsimple’s Trade account fee schedule, its pricing page and its Best Execution and Order Handling Disclosure on September 23, 2026. In plain sentences: buying or selling listed Canadian and US stocks and ETFs costs $0 in commission, there is no account minimum, and opening an account costs $0. A US-listed stock bought from a Canadian-dollar account pays a 1.5% conversion fee on the buy and again on the sale; a USD account removes that fee on trades once your money is in US dollars, and costs $10 a month on the Core plan (it’s included on Premium and Generation). Fractional shares cover thousands of Canadian and US stocks and ETFs. New deposits can be invested right away, with an instant-deposit limit of up to $50,000 for Core clients and up to $250,000 for Premium and Generation clients.

Orders can be market, limit, stop-limit, stop-market or bracket orders. Regular hours are 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET, and eligible US-listed stocks and ETFs also trade in Wealthsimple’s 24-hour market, from Sunday 8:00 p.m. to Friday 8:00 p.m. ET. Withdrawing to your bank by standard transfer is free, while an instant withdrawal from an investment account costs 2.5%. You can trade in these accounts: TFSA, RRSP, FHSA, RESP, LIRA, RRIF, non-registered (cash and margin), and corporate accounts. For protection, Wealthsimple’s investment accounts hold securities eligible for CIPF coverage up to $1M per defined account; CIPF covers you if a member firm fails, not when a stock falls.

How do you set up Wealthsimple before your first trade?

Choose the account type, sign up and verify your identity, then fund the account by bank deposit or transfer; opening an account costs $0.

1. Decide which account the shares go in. This choice matters more than any order setting, because it decides how your gains are taxed. Many beginners start with a TFSA, where investment growth and withdrawals are generally tax-free. An RRSP gives you a deduction now and taxes withdrawals later, an FHSA suits first-time home buyers, and a non-registered account comes after those. The account section further down goes deeper, and Wealthsimple account types explained covers every option.

2. Sign up and verify your identity. Sign up in the Wealthsimple app or on the web, enter your personal details and complete identity verification. Registered accounts have CRA rules of their own; for a TFSA, you must be a Canadian resident, 18 or older, with a valid SIN (19 in some provinces to sign the contract). Approval and funding times vary, and the guide to how long Wealthsimple takes breaks down each stage.

3. Fund it. Link a bank account and deposit by bank transfer, which carries no Wealthsimple fee under its Trade fee schedule. You don’t have to wait for the transfer to clear before trading: Wealthsimple’s instant deposits let you invest right away, up to $50,000 for Core clients and up to $250,000 for Premium and Generation clients, with your personal limit based on your deposit history, net deposits and other factors Wealthsimple uses. Moving an existing account from another brokerage takes longer, 2–4 weeks on average, and transfer-out fees charged by your old institution are reimbursed on transfers of $25,000 or more, up to $150 per account. The Wealthsimple transfer guide covers that paperwork, and new clients can check the current Wealthsimple sign-up bonus before funding.

How do you buy a stock on Wealthsimple, step by step?

Search the ticker, tap Buy, choose the account, enter shares or dollars, pick an order type and submit; once the account is funded, placing the order takes a few minutes.

1. Search the stock or ETF. Use the search bar and type a company name or ticker. Some large Canadian companies trade on both the TSX and a US exchange: Royal Bank (RY) is also listed on the NYSE and Shopify (SHOP) on Nasdaq, per their investor-relations pages. Per Wealthsimple’s order-handling disclosure, you choose which listing to trade: the Canadian listing trades and settles in Canadian dollars, and the US listing settles in US dollars, which triggers a currency conversion if you pay from a CAD account. If you hold Canadian dollars, pick the Canadian listing.
2. Tap Buy and choose the account. The order screen shows which account the purchase goes into. Check it every time. Buying in a non-registered account when you meant your TFSA makes future gains and dividends taxable.
3. Enter shares or a dollar amount. A share count buys whole shares. A dollar amount buys a fraction of any stock or ETF that carries the fractional-shares label in the app. Wealthsimple’s pricing page gives the simplest example: a $10 order buys a tenth of a $100 share.
4. Choose the order type. A market order fills right away at the best available price; a limit order fills only at your price or better. The next section explains which to use.
5. Set how long the order stays open. A day order expires at 4:00 p.m. ET if it hasn’t filled. Good-till-cancelled orders stay open until they fill or you cancel them, and good-till-date orders last until a date you choose, up to 90 days. For eligible US stocks, you can mark the order for extended hours to trade in the 24-hour market.
6. Review and submit. Check the account, the amount, the order type and the estimated total, then submit. Leave some cash spare on market buys: Wealthsimple says you are responsible for having enough in the account to cover the full trade if the price moves suddenly.

What happens after you submit. Wealthsimple is not itself an executing broker; it routes your order to unaffiliated executing brokers that send it to the market. Orders placed during regular hours go straight out. Unless marked for extended hours, orders placed after the close, on a weekend or on a market holiday queue for the next trading session, and Canadian and US holiday calendars differ, so a US stock can be closed on a day the TSX is open. Once the order fills, the trade confirmation shows the quantity, the execution price and the commission charged. For a US listing bought with Canadian dollars, the exchange rate you actually received, fee included, appears on that confirmation.

The same steps buy an ETF. For the two most common first purchases, see the guides to buying XEQT on Wealthsimple and buying VFV on Wealthsimple.

Market, limit or stop: which Wealthsimple order type should you pick?

Use a market order for busy stocks during regular hours, a limit order for almost everything else, and stop orders only to automate an exit.

Wealthsimple’s Best Execution and Order Handling Disclosure lists five order types:

Swipe to see all columns →

Four details from that disclosure are worth knowing before your first order:

• Market orders can’t be edited. You can cancel an unfilled market order, but not change it. A limit order can be modified unless it has partly filled.
• The price on screen isn’t a promise. A market order can fill at a different price from the one shown in the app. For a heavily traded ETF the gap is usually small; for a thinly traded stock it can be much larger, and a market order in a low-liquidity stock may only partly fill, with the rest cancelled.
• Night-time market orders wait for the open. A market order placed after 4:00 p.m. ET queues for the next morning and fills at the prevailing price once trading opens. If news breaks overnight, that can be far from the last price you saw. Use a limit order instead.
• Stop orders need the right stop price. A stop-limit sell needs a stop below the current price, and a stop-limit buy needs one above it. In a fast market, a stop-market order can fill well away from your stop.

Extended-hours trading is thinner and jumpier than the regular session, so set a limit price there. The guide to Wealthsimple day trading and trading hours goes further, and options have their own rules, covered in Wealthsimple options trading.

How do you sell on Wealthsimple Trade?

Open the holding, tap Sell, enter the number of shares, pick an order type and confirm; the sale costs $0 in commission.

1. Open the position from the account’s holdings, or search for the ticker.
2. Tap Sell and enter the number of shares. Fractional positions can be sold too, since Wealthsimple’s fractional trading covers buying and selling.
3. Pick an order type. A limit order sets the lowest price you’ll accept. A stop-limit or stop-market order can sell automatically if the price falls to a level you choose.
4. Confirm. A pending order that hasn’t filled can still be cancelled.

What happens next depends on the account and the currency:

• Currency. Selling a US-listed stock held in a Canadian-dollar account converts the proceeds back to Canadian dollars with another 1.5% fee. Sold inside a USD account, the proceeds stay in US dollars.
• Settlement. Canadian and US stock trades settle one business day after the trade date (T+1), so sale proceeds become settled cash the next business day.
• Getting the cash out. A standard withdrawal to your bank has no Wealthsimple fee. An instant withdrawal from an investment account costs 2.5%, which is $25 on a $1,000 withdrawal, so it only makes sense when you can’t wait.
• Tax. Selling at a profit in a non-registered account creates a taxable capital gain. Sales inside a TFSA, RRSP or FHSA don’t.
• Leaving Wealthsimple. The Trade fee schedule lists no fee for outgoing transfers to another institution, but fractional shares can’t be transferred, so they have to be sold first.

Can Wealthsimple Trade buy US stocks?

Yes: US-listed stocks and ETFs cost $0 commission, plus a 1.5% conversion fee each way from a CAD account, or no conversion fee inside a USD account.

You have three ways to own US companies on Wealthsimple, and they cost very different amounts:

• Buy the US listing from a Canadian-dollar account. Wealthsimple converts at its own corporate exchange rate, which its fee schedule describes as a live rate that already includes a spread, then applies the 1.5% fee on each buy and each sale. The conversion happens only when the order fills; if a limit order never fills, your money stays in Canadian dollars.
• Buy from a USD account. The account costs $10 a month for Core clients; free for Premium and Generation. Converting Canadian dollars into it costs 1.5% under $10,000; 1.0% from $10,000; 0.5% from $25,000; 0% from $100,000, depending on the size of each conversion, while moving US dollars you already hold into it is free, per Wealthsimple’s pricing page. Trades of US-listed securities inside the USD account carry no conversion fee. The Wealthsimple USD account guide works out when the subscription pays for itself, and Norbert’s gambit on Wealthsimple explains a cheaper way to convert large sums.
• Buy a Canadian-listed ETF that holds US stocks. VFV tracks the S&P 500, trades in Canadian dollars on the Toronto Stock Exchange and has a 0.08% MER, so buying it needs no conversion at all. For people who want “the US market” rather than one specific company, this is usually the cheapest route.

What a US trade really costs: a worked example

Wealthsimple’s Trade fee schedule shows exactly how the fee is applied, using an illustrative corporate exchange rate of 1.30 Canadian dollars per US dollar (the live rate varies). Working through that same example:

• Buying US$100 of stock costs $131.98 in Canadian dollars, instead of $130 at the corporate rate alone.
• Selling US$100 of stock returns $128.05 in Canadian dollars.
• The round trip on a stock that ends where it started costs $3.93, or about 3% of the trade, before the spread built into the corporate rate.
• The buy side is slightly more than the headline rate. Because the buy formula divides by (1 − 0.015), the effective markup on purchases works out to about 1.52%.

Scaled up, about $15 of every $1,000 you put into US stocks from a CAD account goes to the conversion fee on the way in, and a similar share on the way out. For a buy-and-hold investor making a few purchases a year, that’s modest. For someone trading US names every week, it adds up fast. Compare the two routes with your own numbers:

US dividends and tax. The US taxes dividends paid to foreign investors at 30% by default, and the Canada–US tax treaty cuts that to 15% for Canadian residents. Retirement plans such as an RRSP are exempt from US tax, as long as the plan is operated exclusively to provide pension, retirement or employee benefits, while US dividends paid into a TFSA could be subject to foreign withholding tax, per the CRA's TFSA guide. That’s why US dividend payers often sit in an RRSP rather than a TFSA. The guide to buying US stocks in Canada covers withholding tax, the W-8BEN form and broker choice in more depth.

How do fractional shares work on Wealthsimple?

You enter a dollar amount instead of a share count, and Wealthsimple fills the fraction at $0 commission on thousands of eligible Canadian and US stocks and ETFs.

Per Wealthsimple’s fractional-shares page and its order-handling disclosure, this is how it works:

• Look for the label. Eligible stocks and ETFs carry a fractional-shares label on their page in the app. Wealthsimple can remove a security from fractional trading without notice, so check before you rely on it.
• Order by dollars. Enter the amount you want to invest. Wealthsimple rounds the order to whole shares when it sends it to the market and hands you the piece that matches your amount.
• Timing. Wealthsimple describes fractional trades as filling instantly during market hours, so place dollar-amount orders in the regular session if you want an immediate fill.
• Dividends are proportional. Half a share earns half the dividend, and dividend reinvesting works on fractions too.
• They can’t be transferred. If you ever move your account to another brokerage, fractional positions must be sold first. In a TFSA that sale is tax-free; in a non-registered account it can realize a capital gain.

Fractions are what make small, regular investing practical. Without them, a monthly contribution smaller than one share of an expensive stock would sit in cash.

How do you automate investing on Wealthsimple Trade?

Set up a recurring investment in a stock or ETF on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly schedule and turn on dividend reinvesting; both are included on every plan.

• Recurring investments buy the stock or ETF you choose on a schedule, with the same $0 commission. Pair one with regular deposits from your bank and the habit mostly runs itself.
• Dividend reinvesting uses each eligible dividend to buy more of the same stock or ETF within 24 hours of the payout, per Wealthsimple’s pricing page.
• Price alerts notify you when a stock or ETF moves by a set amount or hits a price you choose, which is a calmer alternative to watching the app.

Wealthsimple also offers Automated Investing: you pick the holdings and a target weight for each, and it buys what’s underweight when you deposit or rebalances the whole portfolio in a tap. It costs 0.25%, capped at $250 per account per year, which is $25 a year on a $10,000 portfolio. If you hold one all-in-one ETF, a free recurring investment does the same job. If you’d rather not pick investments at all, a managed portfolio costs 0.50% a year on the Core plan; the managed vs self-directed guide compares the two in dollars.

Which account should you trade in on Wealthsimple?

A TFSA, RRSP or FHSA usually comes before a non-registered account, because gains inside those accounts aren’t taxed when you sell.

• TFSA for most long-term investing. The 2026 dollar limit is $7,000, and growth and withdrawals are generally tax-free. One catch for active traders: the CRA can treat frequent, business-like trading inside a TFSA as a business and tax the profits as income. The Wealthsimple TFSA guide covers room and withdrawals.
• RRSP when your tax rate now is higher than you expect in retirement, and the natural home for US dividend payers because of the treaty exemption above. The 2026 dollar limit is $33,810; see the Wealthsimple RRSP guide.
• FHSA if you qualify as a first-time home buyer, with $8,000 of room a year up to $40,000 in total. Money needed for a down payment soon may not belong in stocks at all. See the Wealthsimple FHSA guide.
• Non-registered once registered room is used up. Dividends are taxable every year and profitable sales trigger capital gains tax.

Check your exact contribution room in CRA My Account before a large purchase; excess contributions can be taxed.

What else can you do in the Wealthsimple app?

Besides trading stocks and ETFs, the Wealthsimple app runs chequing, savings, managed portfolios, crypto and tax filing, each priced separately.

• Chequing pays 1.25% interest on the Core plan, and the separate Savings account pays 2.5% (available to every client, no tiers). The Wealthsimple savings account guide compares the two.
• Managed investing builds and rebalances a portfolio for you for 0.50% a year on the Core plan.
• Crypto covers 170+ coins; the Wealthsimple Crypto review explains its fees.
• Tax filing is priced as follows: Basic: pay what you want; Plus: $40 + tax (free for Premium); Pro: $80 + tax (free for Generation). See the Wealthsimple Tax review.
• Options and margin are also on the Trade side: equity and ETF options cost US$0 per contract, and margin is available by application; as of Sept 18, 2026 prime is 4.45% (CAD) — Core pays prime + 0.5%, Premium prime + 0%, Generation prime − 0.5%.

For how all of it fits together, see our complete Wealthsimple guide.

Before your first trade: a seven-point checklist

1. Right account. The order screen names the account. TFSA, RRSP or FHSA if that’s what you intend, not the non-registered account.
2. Right listing. For a company listed in both Toronto and New York, pick the Canadian listing if you’re paying in Canadian dollars.
3. Right currency. If the ticker is US-listed and you’re paying from a CAD account, budget the 1.5% fee both ways, or check whether an ETF that trades in Canadian dollars does the same job.
4. Right order type for the time of day. After 4:00 p.m. ET or on a weekend, a market order waits for the next open; use a limit order.
5. A cash buffer on market buys. Prices can move between tap and fill, and a queued market buy that would overdraw the account can be cancelled.
6. Room checked. Confirm registered-account room in CRA My Account before you deposit.
7. An exit you understand. Fractional shares can’t be transferred out, and an instant withdrawal costs 2.5%, so plan withdrawals ahead when you can.

Who should (and shouldn’t) trade on Wealthsimple

Trade on Wealthsimple if:

• You mostly buy stocks and ETFs that trade in Canadian dollars, including CAD-traded ETFs that hold US stocks, so the conversion fee never applies.
• You invest small or uneven amounts and want every dollar invested through fractional shares at $0 commission.
• You want recurring buys and dividend reinvesting set up once and left alone.
• You want your TFSA, RRSP, FHSA and non-registered investing in the same app as your chequing and tax filing.

Use another brokerage if:

• You convert Canadian dollars to US dollars often. Interactive Brokers charges 0.002% of the amount (US$2.00 minimum) on a manual conversion, and its automatic conversion when you buy a US stock with Canadian dollars is typically 0.03% added to the exchange rate, with no separate commission. The Wealthsimple vs Interactive Brokers comparison weighs that against its per-share commissions.
• You’re on the Core plan and want US dollars to sit inside registered accounts without a monthly USD account fee. At Questrade, you can hold USD in registered accounts, so US trades don't force a conversion, and its commission is also $0 to buy and sell Canadian and U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs. Read the Wealthsimple vs Questrade comparison, or see Questrade's current pricing .
• You need order types beyond the five listed above, or stocks on overseas exchanges. Interactive Brokers lists 100+ order types, from limit orders to algorithmic orders, plus access to 170 markets in 40 countries.

Skip picking stocks altogether if you’d rather not decide what to buy. A managed portfolio or a single all-in-one ETF removes the stock-picking step, and the review of Wealthsimple Trade sets out the platform’s strengths and limits in full.

Read next

• Wealthsimple Trade review: costs, strengths and limits
• How Canadians buy US stocks: currency, tax and brokers
• Every Wealthsimple fee in one place
• Wealthsimple USD account: costs and when it pays off
• Wealthsimple Canada: complete independent guide