Best credit card for online shopping in Canada: Amazon.ca, e-commerce, and recurring spend

Online shopping splits into three different problems, and the best card depends on which one you have the most of. There is Amazon.ca and large e-commerce, where a co-brand or flat-rate card wins. There is recurring online spend like subscriptions and pre-authorized payments, where a category bonus helps. And there is US and foreign online stores, where the foreign transaction fee quietly eats your rewards.

This guide covers the cards in our dataset that earn well online, the virtual-card and safety angle for checkout, and how foreign transaction fees change the math on US sites. Nothing here is financial advice, and card terms change. Always confirm earn rates, caps, and fees on the issuer's official page before you apply.

The dedicated Amazon.ca card

If most of your online spend goes through Amazon, the MBNA Amazon.ca Rewards Mastercard is the only Canadian card co-branded with Amazon.ca. It has no annual fee and earns:

• 2.5% at Amazon.ca and Whole Foods Market for Amazon Prime members (non-Prime members earn 1.5% at Amazon.ca)
• 2.5% on foreign currency purchases for Prime members (non-Prime members earn 1%)
• 1% on all other purchases

The headline rate is tied to a Prime membership, so the 2.5% only applies if you pay for Prime. The foreign-currency earn is also notable: for Prime members the 2.5% back helps offset the cost of buying from foreign sites, though it does not remove the underlying foreign transaction fee. Confirm the Prime requirement and current rates on the MBNA official page.

Best cards for general e-commerce

Most online shopping is not all Amazon. It is a mix of stores that do not map to one clean category, which is where a flat-rate card removes the guesswork:

• Wealthsimple Credit Card pays a flat 2% on all purchases and carries no foreign transaction fee. That combination is unusual: you get a clean 2% on any online store and no FX markup on US or foreign sites. The annual fee is charged as a monthly amount, waived with qualifying assets or a qualifying direct deposit, so check whether you meet the waiver before counting on it.
• Simplii Cash Back Visa has no annual fee and earns 4% at restaurants and bars (up to a yearly cap), 1.5% on gas, groceries, drugstores, and pre-authorized payments (up to a separate cap), and 0.5% on everything else. The 1.5% on pre-authorized payments is useful for online subscriptions billed automatically.

For mixed online carts where no category dominates, a flat 2% card is the safest high earner. Compare every option on our cash back rankings.

Best cards for recurring online spend

Subscriptions, streaming, and pre-authorized online payments are their own category, and a few cards reward them directly:

• CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite earns 2% on recurring payments (alongside 4% on gas and groceries and 2% on dining and transportation). If a meaningful share of your online spend is subscriptions billed to the card, that 2% beats the 1% base most cards pay.
• American Express Cobalt earns 3X points on eligible streaming subscriptions, plus 5X on eats and drinks. It is points rather than cash back, so the real value depends on how you redeem.

The catch with recurring spend is that Amex is not accepted everywhere online, and some merchants only take Visa or Mastercard. Check that your recurring billers accept the card before you route everything to it.

Foreign transaction fees: the hidden cost of US online stores

This is the part most people miss. When you buy from a US online store, or any site that bills in a foreign currency, most Canadian cards add a foreign transaction fee (commonly around 2.5%) on top of the network's conversion rate. You never crossed a border, but the fee applies because the transaction settled in a foreign currency.

A 2.5% foreign transaction fee can wipe out a 2% cash back rate, leaving you net negative on a US order. Two ways to avoid it:

1. Use a no-foreign-transaction-fee card for foreign online stores. The Wealthsimple Credit Card (flat 2% back, no FX fee), the Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite (no FX markup), and the Scotiabank Gold American Express (no FX markup) all remove the foreign transaction fee. The two Scotiabank cards carry annual fees, so weigh that against how much you spend abroad.
2. Be billed in the local currency. Some US sites offer to convert to CAD at checkout. That dynamic currency conversion is usually a worse rate than your network's. Decline it, pay in USD, and let a no-FX-fee card handle the conversion.

For the full breakdown, see our foreign transaction fees guide and the no foreign transaction fee rankings.

Virtual cards and online safety

Earning rewards is only half of online shopping. The other half is not getting your card number leaked. A virtual card number is a separate number linked to your real account that you can use at checkout instead of the real one. Many can be locked, deleted, or restricted to a single merchant, so if a store is breached or a free trial refuses to cancel, you remove the virtual number instead of replacing your physical card.

Availability differs by issuer, and not every card in this guide offers it, so check your card's app for virtual or single-use numbers. The broader habit matters too: use unique numbers per merchant where you can, watch your statement for unfamiliar foreign-currency charges, and treat any site that only accepts an unusual payment method with caution. Our virtual cards and online safety guide walks through how to set this up.

How to choose

• Most of your online spend is Amazon.ca and you have Prime: the no-fee MBNA Amazon.ca Rewards Mastercard at 2.5% is hard to beat for that one store.
• You want one card for all online shopping: a flat-rate card such as the Wealthsimple Credit Card (2% on everything, no FX fee) avoids category guessing and covers US sites too.
• A lot of your spend is subscriptions: a card with a recurring-payment bonus like the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite earns more on automatic billing.
• You buy from US or foreign online stores often: prioritize a no-foreign-transaction-fee card, because the FX markup usually outweighs a slightly higher earn rate.

Compare options side by side on our cash back and no foreign transaction fee rankings, and check the live welcome offers before you apply. Always confirm current earn rates, caps, fees, and any Prime or membership requirement on the official issuer page.