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★ BEST CARDS FOR STUDENTS272 CANADA CARDS TRACKEDDEEP-RESEARCHED · SOURCED · NO BIAS
Best For — Students & new grads
The best credit cards for students in Canada
For students, the best cards are student cards built for a first credit file — lenient approval, no annual fee, and rewards on the things students actually buy — that establish a credit history you'll benefit from for years. We track 272 Canada cards.
The profile
Who this guide is for
- You're in college/university or recently graduated
- This is your first credit card and you want to build history
- You need lenient approval and no annual fee
- You'd like rewards on dining, transit, streaming, and online spend
The shortlist
Top cards for students in Canada
Researched · pending editorial review7 researched
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CIBC
Visa
CIBC Dividend Visa Card for Students
The best all-around fit for a student specifically, not just the highest raw cash-back number. Like BMO, CIBC underwrites this product for applicants with no income and no existing credit file, so approval odds are realistically strong for a first-time cardholder. Best suited to a student who will actually use SPC+ regularly; someone who won't shop the partner network gets a card roughly on par with, or slightly behind, BMO's pure cash-back math.
- C$0/yr annual fee
- Cash Back card
№ 3
RBC
Avion Rewards
RBC ION+ Visa
Confirm current RBC student banking bundle eligibility before applying specifically for the fee waiver, and don't assume it's automatic just because you're enrolled.
- Dining card
- Petro-Canada fuel discount and standard purchase protection/extended warranty included
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Tangerine
Mastercard
Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card
Relevant for students with little or no income, though carefully — a student with no income should confirm eligibility directly with Tangerine before assuming approval.
- Earns 2% on categories of your choice
- Cash Back card
□ 1 source
№ 5
Annual fee—Fee not confirmed
Research pick
№ 6
Scotiabank
Scene+
Scotiabank Scene+ Visa Card for Students
A student who doesn't shop the specific bonus-category merchants gets meaningfully less value than one who does.
- Dining card
№ 7
PC Financial (Loblaw)
Mastercard
PC Mastercard
The accessibility floor of this entire list: PC Mastercard has no minimum income and no credit-history requirement whatsoever, making it realistically approvable for a student with zero income history — a notch more permissive than even the other 'for Students' cards, which still run standard (if lenient) underwriting. It's not officially branded for students, but is one of the most consistently recommended entry cards by Ratehub and NerdWallet specifically for this audience because of that low approval bar.
- Points card
□ 3 sources
Method
How we picked
These picks come from dedicated research for 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 students in Canada?
The best card for students in Canada depends on your exact spending and credit. The shortlist above holds 7 cards for this profile, each chosen because it fits students: student cards built for a first credit file — lenient approval, no annual fee, and rewards on the things students actually buy — that establish a credit history you'll benefit from for years.
How did you choose these cards for students?
These picks come from dedicated research for 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.