4% on the chequing account: $50,000 buys one month, not six
The ad says "for up to 6 months". The terms say one month per $50,000 tranche. Here is the official document read line by line: the scale, the withdrawal cap, what stacks, and what the month is actually worth.
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This is the sentence that matters, and it is not in the ad: "for each $50,000 tranche of qualifying funding, the client obtains the boosted rate for one month, for a maximum duration of six months". The $50,000 minimum deposit therefore opens the door to a single month. The six months in the ad take $300,000.
Net amount deposited
Months at 4%
Interest at 4%
At the standard rate
Promo gain
$50,000 to $99,999
1
$166.67
$52.08
$114.58
$100,000 to $149,999
2
$666.67
$291.67
$375.00
$150,000 to $199,999
3
$1,500.00
$656.25
$843.75
$200,000 to $249,999
4
$2,666.67
$1,166.67
$1,500.00
$250,000 to $299,999
5
$4,166.67
$1,822.92
$2,343.75
$300,000 and up
6
$6,000.00
$2,625.00
$3,375.00
Scale taken from the terms dated September 9, 2026; calculations done September 11, 2026. Interest assumes the bottom of the tranche stays in the chequing account for the whole boosted period. The standard rate is that of the tier these assets earn on their own: Core at 1.25% under $100,000, Premium at 1.75% above. The gain is the only column that measures the promotion; the rest you would have had anyway.
The proration only goes one way
The number of months is set on the net amount at the end of the 14 days. Withdrawing afterwards prorates it down; redepositing does not bring it back up. The document's own example: $300,000 deposited, six months earned, $250,000 withdrawn in the first month without redeposit, the period drops to one month.
The mechanics
How the 4% is built
The 4% is not added to your rate: it replaces it. The terms combine the chequing account's standard rate, the one for your tier, with a promotional rate sized so that the two add up to 4%. The higher your tier, the thinner the promotional share.
Tier
Standard rate
Promotional share
Total during the boost
Core (under $100,000 in assets)
1.25%
2.75%
4%
Premium ($100,000 and up)
1.75%
2.25%
4%
Generation ($500,000 and up)
2.25%
1.75%
4%
Standard rates quoted in the terms and checked September 11, 2026. The 0.5% direct-deposit boost raises the standard rate, not the total: during the boost it is absorbed into the 4%. It becomes useful again the following month.
Three details that change the arithmetic. The boosted rate applies to the chequing balance up to $300,000, including money that was there before the promotion — above that, standard rate only. Both rates are annualized, calculated daily and paid monthly. And the payout comes in two pieces: the standard interest through the usual process, the promotional interest deposited separately, as a bonus, into the primary chequing account within the first seven business days of the following month.
One more subtlety: the qualifying deposit can go into any Wealthsimple account — self-directed, managed, crypto or chequing. But the 4% only applies to the chequing account. Depositing $50,000 into a self-directed TFSA qualifies you, and the boosted rate then lands on whatever your chequing account holds, not on the TFSA.
The timeline
The 14 days, step by step
The invitation, first. It is an eligibility condition, not a formality: without the email or the in-app message, enrolment does not exist. New and existing clients are equally eligible. The ad leads to that invitation; if it does not show in your app, you are not in the batch.
Enrolment in the promotion, before the deposit. The terms say "first enrol, then initiate a deposit". A deposit made before enrolment does not count, and withdrawals made beforehand to redeposit later can be counted against you, up to disqualification.
Fourteen days for $50,000 received. The window runs from 12:01 a.m. on the day of enrolment to 11:59 p.m. Eastern fourteen days later. Several deposits add up. The money must come from a Canadian institution other than Wealthsimple: direct deposit, cash deposit, wire, electronic funds transfer. Peer-to-peer transfers, transfers between your own Wealthsimple accounts and group plans are excluded. The funds must be received within the window, not merely initiated.
A chequing account, within 30 days. The bonus is only paid into a Wealthsimple chequing account you hold as primary owner. If you do not have one when you qualify, you have thirty days after the end of the period to open it; the rate then applies from the calendar month after opening.
The 4% starts on the 1st of the following month. Qualified in September with a chequing account open, you earn the boosted rate from October 1, 2026. October's promotional interest arrives within the first seven business days of November, separately from the standard interest.
A dated example
Enrolment on Friday, September 11, 2026. The $50,000 must be received by Friday, September 25 at 11:59 p.m. ET. 4% rate from October 1 to 31. Bonus deposited by around November 10. On November 1, the account drops back to 1.25% or 1.75%.
The constraint
The 20% withdrawal cap
During the boosted period you cannot withdraw more than 20% of the net amount that qualified you, assessed each calendar month. On $50,000, that is $10,000 a month. Going over without redepositing before the next month prorates the period down, and missed promotional interest is not paid later.
What falls outside the cap is more interesting than the cap itself:
Bill payments and pre-authorized debits. Paying your rent or your hydro from the chequing account does not count.
Payments to the Wealthsimple credit card. Settling the card balance is not a withdrawal in the promotion's sense.
Transfers between your Wealthsimple accounts. Moving money from chequing to the TFSA or the brokerage account does not count either — but the 4% does not follow the money out of the chequing account.
HBP and FHSA withdrawals, LIF and RRIF withdrawals, borrowing on the portfolio line of credit, and drops due to the market.
A transfer to your bank, an outgoing Interac e-Transfer, an ATM withdrawal.
Withdrawing the profits, dividends or interest produced by the deposited amount.
On a joint account, withdrawals made by the secondary holder count too — and only the primary holder can enrol. The rule is the same as for who has to enrol when the account is joint.
Withdrawing to redeposit does not work
Wealthsimple reserves the right to count withdrawals made before the promotion, redeposited or not, and to disqualify the person, claw back the bonus or close the accounts in case of manipulation. An existing client who pulls $50,000 out to bring it back in two weeks later is exposed to exactly that.
The combinations
What stacks, what gets taxed
The terms close the door on other promo codes, then open it by name to five offers. The referral is one of them: the Wealthsimple referral promotion can be combined, so code LOIO3A pays its $25 bonus, and the $10 by Interac e-Transfer is added after the claim form — $35 total, on top of the boosted rate. The other four: the 1% match, the 0.5% direct-deposit boost, the boosted referral bonus, which also stacks, and the Monthly Millionaire contest, where $50,000 deposited is worth as many entries.
Order matters. If you are already enrolled in a non-stackable promotion and then enrol in this one, your deposits are counted here and no longer there. The other way around, the other promotion's terms decide.
On tax, the document is direct: bonuses of this nature have tax consequences in most cases, and Wealthsimple will not issue any slip for a bonus paid into a non-registered account. The promotional interest arrives separately, as a bonus, and reporting it is on you. On $114.58 the stakes are small; on $3,375 they are not, and what the CRA expects from a bonus paid without a slip is worth five minutes.
$300,000 in a chequing account, and deposit insurance
Wealthsimple is not a CDIC member. Chequing funds are held in trust at member institutions, $100,000 insured per beneficiary per institution, spread across at least ten institutions to cover up to $1,000,000. A $300,000 balance is therefore covered, provided the spread has happened — the terms state that funds are settled with the members one business day after they are credited to the account.
After
What is left when the month ends
On the 1st of the month after the boosted period, the chequing account returns to its tier rate, 1.25% or 1.75%, plus 0.5% if $2,000 of direct deposits land in it every thirty days. The $50,000 then sits in an account paying 1.75% at best, with one constraint fewer: no more withdrawal cap.
That is when the question changes. During the month, 4% beats anything that exists on a transaction account in Canada. Afterwards, a balance that size sleeping in chequing deserves a comparison with the high-interest account across the street, or a move into a self-directed TFSA, free from the chequing account since internal transfers do not count as withdrawals. If the money comes from a registered account elsewhere, the transfer fees and who reimburses them get settled before, not after.
What the promotion is worth, in the end, fits in one row of the table: $114.58 for parking $50,000 for a month. That is fine. It is not six months at 4%, and a plan built on the ad rather than on the terms is off by a factor of six.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
One. The terms grant one month of boosted rate per $50,000 tranche deposited: $50,000 gets one month, $100,000 two, and it takes $300,000 to reach the six months advertised as the maximum. On $50,000 at the 1.25% Core rate, the boosted month pays $166.67 instead of $52.08, a gain of $114.58.
No. The terms admit new or existing accounts. The real condition is the invitation: you must have received the promotion by email or by in-app message, then enrol by following the invitation's instructions before depositing. Without an invitation there is no enrolment.
Yes, explicitly. The terms name the Wealthsimple referral promotion among the offers that can be combined, along with the 1% match, the direct-deposit rate boost, the boosted referral bonus and the Monthly Millionaire contest. Code LOIO3A therefore gives the $25 bonus, plus $10 by Interac e-Transfer after the claim form, $35 total, on top of the boosted rate.
Yes, up to $300,000, including money that was already there before the promotion. The boosted rate is computed on the chequing balance, not only on the qualifying deposit. Above $300,000, only the standard rate applies. Funds deposited into another Wealthsimple account count toward qualifying but do not earn the 4% until they sit in the chequing account.
Up to 20% of the net funded amount, assessed each calendar month: $10,000 on a $50,000 deposit. Bill payments, pre-authorized debits, payments to the Wealthsimple credit card and transfers between your own Wealthsimple accounts do not count toward the cap. Beyond it, the boosted period is prorated down and does not go back up if you redeposit.
The terms set none. The promotion has been in effect since September 9, 2026, Wealthsimple reserves the right to withdraw it without notice, and the document's examples deal with qualifying by the end of September 2026. The only firm deadline is personal: fourteen days after your enrolment for the $50,000 to be received.
Wealthsimple writes that bonuses of this nature have tax consequences in most cases, and that no tax slip will be issued for a bonus paid into a non-registered account. The promotional interest arrives separately from the standard interest, as a bonus deposited into the primary chequing account. Reporting it is on you.
The terms list direct deposits, cash deposits, wire transfers and electronic funds transfers from a Canadian institution other than Wealthsimple, and point to the help page on account transfers. They exclude peer-to-peer transfers, transfers between your own Wealthsimple accounts, group plans and institutional transfers. A registered account transfer is not named in so many words: confirm with support before building your plan on it.
Sources and verification dates
Promotion terms — "Promotion de taux d'intérêt bonifié de 4 % sur les comptes chèques Wealthsimple", compliance document from Wealthsimple Technologies Inc., effective September 9, 2026 at 12:01 a.m. ET. Read in full on September 11, 2026. Everything above is drawn from it: scale, withdrawal cap, exclusions, stacking, tax.
One month per $50,000 tranche, six months at $300,000 — the "net funded amount / boosted-rate period" table in the terms.
$300,000 cap on the boosted balance — the document writes it once as "300 0000 $", a typo; the three other occurrences say $300,000.
Standard rates — Core 1.25%, Premium 1.75%, Generation 2.25%, quoted in the terms and on Wealthsimple's rates page. Tiers at $100,000 and $500,000 in assets. Checked September 11, 2026.
End date — none in the terms. The document's two examples target qualifying "by September 31, 2026", a date that does not exist; read it as the end of September. Wealthsimple can withdraw the offer without notice.
Interest calculations — amount × rate × months / 12, done September 11, 2026, on the bottom of each tranche kept in chequing for the whole period. Wealthsimple's actual daily calculation will differ by cents.
Deposit insurance — the chequing-account section of the terms: funds in trust at CDIC members, $100,000 per beneficiary per institution, ten or more institutions for $1,000,000.
$10 by Interac e-Transfer — offered by ws-referral.ca, conditional on the claim form. Independent of Wealthsimple and of this promotion.
Exclusive offer · $35 total
The referral stacks with the 4%
Code LOIO3A: $25 Wealthsimple bonus + $10 by Interac e-Transfer after the claim form = $35 total. The code goes in at account signup; enrolment in the promotion comes afterwards, from the invitation.