Reporting USD trades on your Canadian return

The CRA requires that all amounts on your tax return be reported in Canadian dollars. For US-dollar securities, each transaction — every buy, sell, and dividend — needs to be converted at the Bank of Canada daily exchange rate on the settlement date of the transaction.

Since May 2024, Canadian equities settle T+1 (one business day after the trade). US equities also settle T+1. So for a Monday trade, settlement is Tuesday, and you use Tuesday's BoC rate.

The Bank of Canada publishes daily exchange rates at bankofcanada.ca/rates/exchange/daily-exchange-rates/. The specific series is FXUSDCAD — the number of Canadian dollars per one US dollar.

For a trade that settled on March 15, 2026, you would look up the FXUSDCAD rate for March 15. If that day is a holiday, use the previous business day's rate.

Sched3 pulls this rate automatically from the BoC Valet API for every USD transaction you import.

When you buy a US stock, your adjusted cost base is recorded in Canadian dollars:

ACB (CAD) = (USD purchase price x units + USD commission) x BoC rate on settlement date

This CAD figure is what gets pooled with your other holdings of the same security and becomes the cost base you subtract from proceeds when you eventually sell.

When you sell, your proceeds of disposition are also converted to CAD at the BoC rate on the sell settlement date:

Proceeds (CAD) = (USD sale price x units - USD commission) x BoC rate on sell settlement date

Your capital gain or loss is then: Proceeds (CAD) - ACB (CAD) - outlays

Note that even if the stock price in USD didn't move, you can still have a capital gain or loss in CAD due to exchange rate movement between the buy date and sell date.

If you hold US dollars in your brokerage account (for example, after selling a US stock and before buying another), the USD itself is considered property. Converting it back to CAD at a different rate than you acquired it creates a capital gain or loss on the currency.

In practice, the CRA provides a $200 annual exemption on FX gains from personal transactions. Most investors with small USD balances won't exceed this, but active traders or those holding large USD cash positions should be aware.

When the FX gain/loss is embedded in a stock transaction (you buy and sell a US stock), it is already captured in the CAD proceeds-minus-ACB calculation — no separate reporting needed.

US-dollar dividends also need to be converted to CAD. However, your broker's T5 or T3 slip usually reports the Canadian-dollar equivalent already (they convert at their own rate, which the CRA accepts if it's a Canadian financial institution).

If you receive a foreign income slip or your broker doesn't convert, use the BoC rate on the dividend payment date.

US withholding tax (typically 15% on dividends in a non-registered or TFSA account) is also reported in CAD on your return, and claimed as a foreign tax credit on form T2209.

• Using an annual average rate — Not acceptable for capital gains on Schedule 3. Each transaction needs its own date-specific rate.
• Using the trade date instead of settlement date — The rate that matters is settlement day. One day difference can move the rate.
• Using the broker's displayed rate — Your broker's "book value in CAD" often uses their own internal rate, not the BoC rate. It's a starting point but may not match what the CRA expects.
• Forgetting the FX component of the gain — If USD strengthened between your buy and sell, part of your gain in CAD is currency appreciation, not stock appreciation. Both are taxable.
• Double-converting — If your broker slip already shows CAD amounts, converting again would be incorrect. Check the currency on your T5008.