Interac e-Transfer Limits in Canada: How Much Can You Send?

Interac e-Transfer limits in Canada usually land around $3,000 a day on a personal account, and Interac itself calls $2,000 to $3,000 per transaction typical. That’s the short answer. It’s also incomplete often enough to matter, because the number isn’t Interac’s to set: your bank picks it, three of the Big Five don’t publish it anywhere public, and the cap that actually blocks a transfer is sometimes sitting on the account receiving the money. Below is what each major Canadian institution publishes, where your own number lives, and what to do when the amount you need to move is bigger than any of it.

How much can you send by Interac e-Transfer?

On a personal account, most Canadian banks allow up to $3,000 per transfer and per day. Interac’s own guidance (opens in a new tab) is that transaction limits “are set by your financial institution and are typically $2,000 to $3,000 per transaction.” A few institutions sit higher: EQ Bank and Desjardins both allow $5,000 in 24 hours.

So there’s no single national e-Transfer limit. The network itself carries much larger amounts, which is why business accounts at many banks can send up to $25,000. What stops you is the policy your own bank applies to your own account.

Your limit is really three limits

Almost every bank stacks three caps: a per-transfer or 24-hour maximum, a 7-day maximum, and a 30-day maximum. At TD that’s $3,000, $10,000 and $20,000. Which means sending $3,000 a day for four days in a row doesn’t work, even though every single transfer is inside the daily cap. The weekly ceiling catches you on day four.

That’s the mistake people make when they try to move a large amount in slices. Check the 7-day number before you plan the schedule, not after the fourth transfer bounces.

The daily cap is a rolling 24 hours, not a midnight reset

Wealthsimple (opens in a new tab) is unusually clear about this in its help centre: “Your daily limit covers the last 24 hours, weekly covers the last 7 days, and monthly covers the last 30 days. Your available capacity restores incrementally as individual transactions age out, not all at once at a fixed time.”

Most banks work the same way and say less about it. In practice, if you send $3,000 at 8 p.m. on a Tuesday, you’re not clear again at midnight. You’re clear at 8 p.m. on the Wednesday.

Interac e-Transfer limits by bank in Canada

Seven of the ten institutions below publish a personal sending limit. RBC, BMO and Scotiabank don’t, and set the figure per customer instead. The published caps cluster tightly at $3,000 a day and $10,000 a week, with EQ Bank, Desjardins and Wealthsimple sitting above the pack.

Personal chequing accounts, checked August 2026 against each institution’s own published figures: CIBC (opens in a new tab), TD (opens in a new tab), Tangerine (opens in a new tab), Simplii Financial (opens in a new tab), EQ Bank (opens in a new tab), Desjardins (opens in a new tab) and Wealthsimple (opens in a new tab). Wealthsimple’s are defaults you can change, which the next section gets to. Limits move without notice, so treat any table as a starting point and your own app as the answer.

Where your own number lives

At the three banks that don’t publish, and honestly at all ten, the fastest route is your own account:

• RBC: Account Summary, then Daily Transaction Limits under Account Management. In the app, open the account, tap Details, then Daily Transaction Limits. Changes go through online banking or a phone call.
• Scotiabank: More, then Profile and settings, then Manage transaction limits. There’s a slider.
• BMO: online banking, under your account’s transaction limits.
• Wealthsimple: your chequing account, then Interac e-Transfer, then the gear icon, then Sending limits.

Why two sources give you a different number

Interac says the limits belong to your bank. Tangerine’s own help page says the reverse: “Interac e-Transfer limits are set by Interac, and we can’t change them.” Both statements are live on the two companies’ sites right now, which explains a good deal of the disagreement you’ll find between one bank’s answer and another’s.

The practical reading is the one that affects you. The network carries a high ceiling, your bank applies a lower one, and whether anyone can move it for you depends entirely on which bank you’re with.

What is the Interac e-Transfer receiving limit?

Receiving limits are separate from sending limits, and they run much higher. Tangerine accepts $10,000 a day incoming against the $3,000 it lets you send, rising to $70,000 a week and $300,000 a month. EQ Bank and Desjardins each accept $25,000 per transfer. Wealthsimple takes $10,000 per transaction when you’re funding an account.

Which is why an incoming payment that fails is usually the sender’s problem, not yours. Their daily cap is the binding one in almost every case. Simplii Financial says as much in its own terms: as long as the sender can successfully send it, it gets deposited. If a friend is trying to send you $8,000 from a Big Five chequing account, they’ll hit their wall long before your account reaches its own.

One quirk worth knowing if you bank in more than one place. Wealthsimple’s help centre lists a $1,500 fulfilment limit on money requests sent to RBC, so pulling funds from an RBC account into Wealthsimple moves in smaller pieces than the same amount pushed the other way.

Can you increase your Interac e-Transfer limit?

Sometimes, and it depends entirely on your bank. Scotiabank lets you move a slider in the app and will go higher over the phone or in branch. Wealthsimple lets you set your own daily limit anywhere from $1,000 up to $50,000, in $1,000 steps, with two-factor authentication on every increase. Tangerine says its limits can’t be changed.

At Wealthsimple the weekly and monthly caps scale with whatever daily figure you pick. Set the daily limit to $10,000 and the weekly becomes $20,000 and the monthly $60,000. Take it to the $50,000 maximum and they become $100,000 and $250,000.

TD and CIBC publish their caps but no process for changing them, and RBC and BMO publish neither, so at those four it’s a phone call rather than a setting. Worth making before you need it: a limit increase requested the morning a deposit is due is a slower conversation than one requested a week early.

What to do when the amount is over your limit

An e-Transfer is the wrong tool for a house deposit, and reaching for it anyway is how people end up splitting a payment across six days. The alternatives are better than most people expect:

• A linked-account transfer (EFT). If both accounts are yours, this beats an e-Transfer on size every time. EQ Bank accepts up to $100,000 per transaction from a linked external account and sends up to $30,000 per transaction back out. It takes a few business days and the deposit may be held, but at EQ Bank you start earning interest right away.
• A bank draft or certified cheque. Still the standard for a car or a real-estate deposit, and the receiving party often prefers one.
• A wire transfer. Same-day, and it costs money. Not every institution offers them: EQ Bank doesn’t.
• Direct deposit. For anything recurring, get the payer to deposit straight into the account rather than transferring after the fact.
• Splitting it, carefully. Fine for a moderate amount, as long as you’ve read the 7-day and 30-day caps and not just the daily one.

This comes up a lot when people move savings to a better rate. If you’re chasing one of the high-interest savings accounts paying well above a Big Five savings account, a linked-account transfer moves the balance in one go, while e-Transfer would take a week. Same story if you’re switching banks outright.

A weekly draw on the money that stays put

Every limit on this page exists because money is leaving an account. Lodavo doesn’t move any of yours.

It’s a free Canadian app that connects to the savings account you already use, so you can track your savings each week and earn free tickets in a weekly draw. Every $25 you save earns a ticket. Someone wins at least $100 every week, the top prize is $10,000, and past numbers are published on our winning numbers page.

And if you do win, the prize arrives by Interac e-Transfer. Receiving limits are the generous ones on this page: EQ Bank and Desjardins each accept $25,000 in a single transfer.

Ready to make saving worth looking forward to? Download Lodavo free on the Apple App Store (opens in a new tab) or Google Play Store (opens in a new tab) and start earning tickets for this week’s draw.

Terms and conditions apply. No purchase necessary (alternate method of entry available). Skill-testing question required. Open to legal residents of Canada who are the age of majority. Odds depend on the number of eligible entries received. Full rules and odds at our contest rules.