Quote:
Originally Posted by bizaro86
It depends a bit on the amount of money we're talking about and the frequency. If you want the very cheapest method and are willing to put up with some hassle you can do the following.
1) set up a US domiciled bank account with the US subsidiary of a Canadian bank. I have mine with RBC but I know TD and BMO offer this as well. Important that this isn't just a USD account, but is actually an account with the US subsidiary bank.
2) transfer the money to your US bank account. This should be free. Lots of ways to do it. PayPal friends and family, venmo, have him write a check, email you pictures and then mobile deposit it, etc.
3) convert the money to CAD. The very cheapest way to do this will be in the financial markets. Interactive Brokers offer forex trading to retail clients, or you can use Norbert's Gambit linked above. Norberts Gambit generally gets the exact wholesale rate and costs two stock commissions. (Ie $20 or less all in)
If that doesn't seem worth it to you wise (formerly transferwise) is your best bet. It will cost 1-1.5%, so it sort of depends if 1% is $5 then I'd do it through wise. If 1% is hundreds or thousands of dollars in fees then I'd take the time to do it the more complicated/cheaper way.
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I will endorse this post.
I get this is the opposite of the direction the OP was going with but I will post what I do in case anyone sees this thread in my situation. I live in the US as an ex-pat and get paid by my Canadian company in CAD funds, so I'm doing at least one FX a month to cover USD expenses.
I opened up a Canadian domiciled USD account with my bank (RBC). I also opened up a United States domiciled USD account with that same bank (RBC). When I want to transfer from CAD to USD I will either do Norbit's gambit as discussed above (Caution - you need to understand how this can blow up on you and watch the cross-listed stock you use for the transaction ensuring it's liquid, watch the ex-dividend dates - especially for high yielding stocks, know holidays differences between US exchanges and Canadian exchanges, etc.) or book an FX trade with Knightsbridge exchange (costs between 15-75 pips, banks take between 250-300 pips).
I pay Knightsbridge CAD in the form of a bill payment from my RBC CAD account and have Knightsbridge send the USD funds to my Canadian domiciled USD account and then transfer the USD funds to my US domiciled USD bank account and then there is no fees. I made the mistake of skipping the Canadian domiciled USD account part and had Knightsbridge directly send the USD funds to my US domiciled account and it incurred a $15 wire fee (Still much cheaper than standard bank fees, but annoying).