№ 1
★ BEST CARDS FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS272 CANADA CARDS TRACKEDDEEP-RESEARCHED · SOURCED · NO BIAS
Best For — International students
The best credit cards for international students in Canada
For international students, the best cards are cards for students studying abroad with no local credit file — issuers that accept a passport, visa, or ITIN instead of a local SSN, no annual fee, and reporting that starts a local score. We track 272 Canada cards.
The profile
Who this guide is for
- You're studying abroad with no local credit history
- You need an issuer that accepts a passport/visa or ITIN
- You've been declined for lacking a local SSN/score
- You want to start building a local credit file now
The shortlist
Top cards for international students in Canada
Researched · pending editorial review7 researched
№ 2
Scotiabank
Scene+
Scotiabank Scene+ Visa Card for Students
- Dining card
- No Canadian credit history required
№ 3
RBC
Mastercard
RBC Cash Back Mastercard (International Student / Newcomer offer)
RBC's own newcomer materials explicitly name 'international students' as eligible with no Canadian credit history required, which is the exact acceptance signal this persona needs. Best treated as the pick for someone who's decided to bank with RBC anyway, not a standalone reason to choose RBC.
Annual fee—Fee not confirmed
Research pick
№ 4
CIBC
Visa
CIBC Aeroplan Visa Card for Students
The honest caveat. For a first-time cardholder who hasn't yet built travel-redemption fluency, cash back (Dividend) is the more reliably useful choice; this card is better suited to a student who already has a specific Aeroplan/Air Canada travel plan in mind.
- Airline card
□ 3 sources
№ 5
BMO
BMO CashBack
BMO CashBack Mastercard for Students
The evidence for no-SIN, no-credit-history acceptance is inferred by combining BMO's separate newcomer and student program pages rather than confirmed on one authoritative page, and applying as an international student appears to require an in-branch visit. Worth asking a BMO advisor directly whether the international-student pathway matches the domestic student card's easy approval bar before counting on this one.
- Cash Back card
□ 4 sources
№ 6
Home Trust
Visa
Home Trust Secured Visa
The universal backstop on this list: every card ranked above it depends on a specific bank's newcomer or student program accepting you, which in practice can mean an in-person interview, a pre-existing bank account, or a declined application redirected to a secured fallback anyway (as Scotiabank's own StartRight program explicitly allows for). Home Trust doesn't route through any of that — it's a straight deposit-secured card available to any adult Canadian resident regardless of bank relationship or program eligibility, making it the right Plan B for a student whose unsecured application elsewhere is declined, or the right Plan A for someone who wants a guaranteed outcome without the branch-visit uncertainty. The honest trade-off.
- C$0/yr annual fee
- Secured card
- Reports to both Equifax and TransUnion
- No bank-account relationship or bank-specific newcomer program required — works as a true fallback if an international student's unsecured application at CIBC/Scotiabank/RBC/BMO is declined, or as a first card before any of those relationships exist
№ 7
Neo Financial
Mastercard
Neo Secured Mastercard
- No Credit History card
- Reports monthly to both TransUnion and Equifax
Method
How we picked
These picks come from dedicated research for international students, which drew on issuers' published terms and independent sources — listed under “sources” on each pick. The order is the research's. Every fee, welcome offer and earn rate shown on a pick is the figure our catalogue holds for that card, the same one its card page shows. Nothing here is pay-to-rank. Business cards appear only on business guides, student cards only on student guides, and prepaid cards on none. A figure we do not hold is shown as “Not confirmed”, never as a zero. Each researched shortlist is marked as pending editorial review until the site's editor approves it.
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Questions
Frequently asked
What is the best credit card for international students in Canada?
The best card for international students in Canada depends on your exact spending and credit. The shortlist above holds 7 cards for this profile, each chosen because it fits international students: cards for students studying abroad with no local credit file — issuers that accept a passport, visa, or ITIN instead of a local SSN, no annual fee, and reporting that starts a local score.
How did you choose these cards for international students?
These picks come from dedicated research for international students, which drew on issuers' published terms and independent sources — listed under “sources” on each pick. The order is the research's. Every fee, welcome offer and earn rate shown on a pick is the figure our catalogue holds for that card, the same one its card page shows. Nothing here is pay-to-rank.
Why do some cards show no annual fee figure?
Because we hold no confirmed figure for it. Our fee column used to default to zero, and many cards still carry a zero that no check has confirmed — so a zero on its own cannot be told apart from a field nobody filled in, and printing “C$0” there would invent a price. A card shows a fee where a positive one is on record, or where a zero was confirmed against the issuer's terms; otherwise the slot reads “Not confirmed”, and the issuer's own page is the place to check before you apply.
How are these cards ranked?
In the research's order. The figures on each pick come from our catalogue, and each card's review page marks which of them a published document states.