You Can Buy Your US Dollars at Tangerine

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In 2012, the simplest way for me to buy US dollars at a reasonable rate was from Tangerine. Tangerine is owned by the Bank of Nova Scotia / ScotiaBank so it may not be the cheapest place to buy your US dollars,though.

Written: 2012
Reviewed: 2023
Revised: 2023

How to Check the Cost to Buy US Dollars Easily Online

Tangerine posts their buy and sell rates online. No need to phone anyone to see what it costs. You can even check at 3 a.m. if you’re up and online.

In January 2023, to find the rates, go to the www.tangerine.ca home page. Scroll down to the very bottom of the page, looking for a list of links. Click on the Rates link. Scroll down looking for the Exchange Rates section. Then click on the link Current Rates.

The site will tell you that buying $1 US dollar will cost you, for example, !.354 Canadian. (on January 29 2023) It also states today that selling $1 US dollar will give you 1.309 Canadian dollars.

But How Do I Get the US Dollars Out of Tangerine?

Ok, there’s always a drawback. We get our US dollars out of Tangerine by transferring them to our CIBC US Dollar account. Then we withdraw them at CIBC. In 2021, it costs us $0.75 US to make a withdrawal from our CIBC US Dollar account. The transfer out from Tangerine costs nothing.

Why Have a CIBC US Dollar Account?

We chose a CIBC US Dollar account because there were no fees for the account and no minimum balance. There was no fee to make a deposit to the CIBC account. So keeping the account active (requiring one transaction every 6 months) was as easy as depositing a US dollar every 5 months or so.

If you are considering opening a USD account at any bank, please check first what fees will apply. The rules change frequently!

The Canadian Dollar is Up, When Will the Tangerine US Dollar Price Go Down?

They change the rates in what seems to be almost a random pattern, so it isn’t easy to predict when they will respond to the daily fluctuations in the value of the dollar.

The good thing is there is no additional fee to make the purchase. The only fee is the one included in the posted exchange rate. So you can always purchase a bit at a time.

What’s the Best Way to Exchange CAD to USD for Investors?

If you are buying US dollars for investing purposes you will probably be exchanging a lot of dollars. In that case, you should consider performing the exchange by using Norbert’s Gambit in a brokerage account. There are also large Forex conversion companies that will likely offer a better rate than any bank.

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Do you try to save money on buying your US dollars before a trip or US purchase? How do you try to get the best exchange rate? Please share your experiences with a comment.

5 thoughts on “You Can Buy Your US Dollars at Tangerine”

  1. I have an acct with Vancity credit union, both CAD and USD, but their exchange rates are ghastly. If I open a USD acct with Tangerine (I have a CAD acct with them), all I have to do is e-transfers between banks so I can withdraw from a Vancity branch? Do banks (Vancity) charge for e-transfers between banks? I’ve never needed 2 banks before, just ain’t that rich. ;)

    TYIA. Great website, lots of good info!

    • Hi,
      As you know ING Direct was bought out by ScotiaBank and is now Tangerine. I’m not entirely sure whether they are still offering a good exchange rate although I’ll try to do an updated comparison.

      You can link your Tangerine accounts to up to 3 external/other banks. It sounds like you aren’t using many banks so that should be ok. If you put the info into Tangerine to link to your USD account at Vancity, then you will be able to “push” a deposit from your Tangerine USD account to your Vancity USD account. Most banks do not charge a fee for a deposit (although many do for a withdrawal) so you probably would not have to pay a fee to move the money into Vancity. You’d have to check with them to be absolutely sure though, as I don’t bank with Vancity and can’t test it.

      Linking the accounts is fairly easy now. https://financialcrooks.com/how-link-connect-tangerine-account-to-different-bank/ Basically Tangerine will test the link by depositing a few cents twice into the Vancity USD account. You then report the amounts you received (free money!) and that confirms the link is working. According to the VanCity FAQ at http://mycusthelp.ca/VANCITYNCC/_cs/AnswerDetail.aspx?sSessionID=702990213KJKYZCXQQOOLAWLNEKXZEFKSBKZOLAE&inc=9694&caller=~%2fFindAnswers.aspx%3fsSessionid%3d702990213KJKYZCXQQOOLAWLNEKXZEFKSBKZOLAE it looks like VanCity’s institution number is 809 and the transit number is 16 followed by three more numbers. You can also find the link to their FAQs at https://www.vancity.com/ContactUs/ and then look for the question about “What is Vancity’s institution number?”

      We find it easy and free to push USD from Tangerine out to CIBC. But it does cost us a withdrawal fee if we move USD from CIBC to Tangerine because they charge a withdrawal fee each time money leaves that CIBC account whether in cash or by transfer.

      • A quick check shows that Tangerine still is offering one of the best rates for buying and selling USD. I’ll try to post a comparison later this week.

  2. TYVM for your reply. As it turns out, Vancity’s exchange rate is very competetive (buying USD as of 12/24/2014: Tangerine 1.185, Vancity 1.1852, RBC 1.189, TD 1.192, though TD offers a preferred rate if you have either a Select Savings Plan or $3K in your USD acct.). Vancity doesn’t have their own exchange desk, and when I was with them and TD years ago, TD’s preferred rate was much better. IDK if things have changed in the past few years, or if TD’s preferred rate is that much better (I can’t find a posted rate online), but at the moment Vancity is surprisingly better than the Big Banks at USD exchange.

    TYVM, and have a nice holiday!

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