Canadians use ETFs to populate not simply their retirement accounts however tax-free financial savings accounts (TFSAs), registered schooling funds (RESPs), first-home financial savings accounts (FHSAs) and taxable accounts—wherever they could profit from the vast diversification, liquidity and low charges that ETFs present.
The very best ETFs in Canada for 2024
In Canada, the ETF inflows in 2024 smashed the outdated document set in 2021 of $53 billion, with a internet funding of $76 billion. With greater than $500 billion in belongings below administration, Canadian ETFs now maintain roughly one-fifth the entire of mutual funds. The story is much more pronounced stateside, the place ETF inflows final 12 months surged previous USD$1 trillion.
With that recognition has come an enormous proliferation of latest funds, particularly the actively managed variety. Greater than half the ETFs now buying and selling in Canada are actively managed. Nevertheless buyers’ choice nonetheless leans closely in direction of passive funds that monitor a printed index and sometimes have very low charges. They signify 69% of belongings below administration.
So how is the everyday Canadian investor supposed to select from amongst all that’s on supply? That’s the place MoneySense’s Greatest ETFs information is available in.
Our methodology—How we select the Greatest ETFs in Canada
For 2025, we assembled a panel of 10 funding advisors, analysts, coaches and bloggers to advocate funds with a mixture of applicable market publicity, low charges, liquidity and good previous efficiency that might sit nicely inside any Canadian retail investor’s portfolio. Then we requested our panel to vote on an extended listing of nominee funds in six completely different asset classes:
- Canadian equities
- U.S. equities
- Worldwide equities
- Fastened earnings
- Money different
- One-decision
The three ETFs (or extra, within the case of a tie) with the very best variety of votes in every class are listed beneath.
Whereas our judges thought of lively, issue and sector-specific funds, the consensus tended to push our last picks towards low-cost, index funds that can attraction to most ETF buyers. Lest our suggestions get too boring—and, let’s face it, sensible investing often is boring—we additionally supplied our judges the chance to select a extra unique “desert island” ETF that wouldn’t sometimes rise to the highest of our voting course of.
After all, the ETF panorama is just not proof against the volatility that’s taken maintain in markets typically in 2025.
