Learn how to spend money on CDRs in Canada

Fortuitously, investing in overseas equities has by no means been simpler for Canadians. Buying and selling charges proceed to edge downward for shares listed on U.S. and worldwide inventory exchanges, and there are a whole lot of low-fee exchange-traded funds (ETFs) invested in overseas shares to select from proper right here in Canada.

Plus, if you happen to’re concerned about particular international shares—say, Nvidia or SAP—increasingly more equities can be found in Canada within the type of Canadian depository receipts (CDRs). Within the first quarter of 2025, Canada’s two CDR issuers, CIBC and BMO, expanded their roster of CDRs past U.S.-listed shares to incorporate shares listed solely in European and Japanese markets. About 100 main international corporations at the moment are accessible in CDR kind. You may get publicity to world-beating shares, in different phrases, with out leaving the consolation of Canadian markets.

What’s a depository receipt?

A depository receipt is a safety, issued by a financial institution, that trades on a inventory change, very like shares and ETFs. A CDR is invested solely in a single underlying inventory and so serves as a proxy for proudly owning that inventory. Certainly, the depository receipt can pay the identical dividend yield because the inventory and even grant the holder a say in company governance (with some limitations—see beneath). Why trouble with this difficult construction? For sure buyers, proudly owning depository receipts as an alternative of the inventory itself gives benefits.

CDRs, first launched by CIBC in 2021, had been predated by American depositary receipts (ADRs). These U.S.-listed proxies for overseas shares gave American buyers entry to worldwide equities with out the customarily increased buying and selling prices, overseas change charges and forex danger concerned with holding these shares immediately. CDRs are designed to present Canadian buyers the identical comfort and value advantages, just for shares traded exterior Canada, together with U.S. shares. CDRs commerce on the Cboe Canada change.

What are the potential advantages of CDRs?

Investing in CDRs has three key benefits, in contrast with shopping for overseas shares immediately:

1. Relying on the charges your brokerage costs, CDRs could include decrease buying and selling prices than the underlying shares, as a result of CDRs are traded on home somewhat than overseas markets and keep away from brokers’ overseas change charges.
2. CDRs are usually priced at lower than $50, making them simpler to buy than the complete overseas shares, which may value a whole lot and even hundreds of {dollars}. For instance, if you happen to balk at paying USD$950 for a single Netflix share, you will get basically the identical publicity by shopping for CIBC’s Netflix CDR (NFLX) on the Cboe change for underneath CAD$40. On this respect, CDRs are just like fractional shares supplied by some brokerages.
3. CDRs are notionally hedged into Canadian {dollars}. That’s, you purchase it for a worth that displays your fairness holding on the change charge that day (just like a CAD-hedged ETF). However worth actions thereafter are hedged to trace the ups and downs within the inventory’s worth in its house forex. This implies there isn’t a forex danger, and you’ll take pleasure in comparable capital beneficial properties (and losses) as if you happen to had been investing in U.S. {dollars}, euros or yen.

What are the drawbacks of CDRs?

Canadian buyers ought to concentrate on these particulars earlier than buying CDRs:

• All these benefits come for a charge, albeit a small one. CIBC and BMO don’t cost direct administration charges on their CDRs, however they do earn a reduce of the forex hedging that goes into them. BMO says its annual hedging charge is “usually underneath 0.5% per 12 months.” In accordance with CIBC, the overseas change unfold—the distinction between Canadian-dollar purchase and promote costs—quantities to a most of 0.8% per 12 months on its international CDRs.
• Within the 4 years that CDRs have been accessible in Canada, their efficiency has not precisely tracked the shares they mimic, largely as a result of value and imprecise nature of the hedging course of. The CDRs of a number of notable shares have lagged the beneficial properties of their fashions by just a few proportion factors per 12 months.
• Though they’re listed in Canada, CDRs are handled like overseas shares for tax functions. In taxable accounts, dividends from CDRs don’t profit from the dividend tax credit score like Canadian shares do. CDR dividends are additionally topic to withholding taxes within the nations the place the underlying shares commerce. For instance, 15% if the underlying shares are American. That is no completely different than if you happen to owned overseas shares immediately, although.
• CDR holders don’t robotically obtain voting supplies and the opposite paperwork that shareholders do. In the event that they wish to take part in company governance, they have to make their voting intentions identified, usually earlier than the voting deadline, to the CDR issuer. In addition they can’t tender their securities on to an acquirer within the case of a takeover bid however should as an alternative promote on the present market worth earlier than the deal’s shut.

The place can I purchase CDRs in Canada?

You possibly can usually purchase CDRs utilizing the identical brokerage account or funding advisor you employ to purchase shares and ETFs. Since just about all CDRs symbolize sought-after multinational shares, liquidity shouldn’t be a difficulty.

Take care, although, to make sure your orders are correctly labelled—the ticker symbols utilized by CDRs usually resemble these of the underlying shares listed overseas. For instance, CIBC’s Lululemon Athletica CDR goes by LULU on the Cboe change, precisely the identical as LULU inventory buying and selling on the Nasdaq. The primary will set you again 15 bucks Canadian, the second over USD$300.