Can I Keep My US Brokerage and IRA After Moving to Canada?

Q: What do I need to report to the CRA?

T1135, Foreign Income Verification Statement. If the total cost amount of your specified foreign property exceeds $100,000 CAD at any time during the year, you file T1135 with your Canadian return. US brokerage accounts and IRAs are specified foreign property. The cost amount is not the market value; it is your original cost base in Canadian dollars. If you bought $80,000 USD of stocks when the exchange rate was 1.30, your cost amount is $104,000 CAD, and T1135 applies. The T1135 guide covers the reporting mechanics and the penalty for late filing. Income reporting.

By Yarik Yarosh, CPA ·August 21, 2026 ·9 min read

Written by Yarik Yarosh, CPA (US & Canada) August 21, 2026 · FL CPA license AC61704 · CPA Ontario

Yes, you can keep them open. The IRS does not force you to close a brokerage account or IRA when you leave the country. But your broker might. Most US brokerage firms restrict accounts once you report a Canadian address: they may block new purchases, limit you to liquidation-only, or close the account entirely. The tax side is more predictable. The accounts continue to work under US rules, you report them to the CRA, and what you hold inside them determines whether the Canadian reporting is simple or punitive.

✓Key takeaway

The legal question (can you keep the accounts?) and the practical question (will your broker let you?) have different answers. US law does not prohibit a nonresident from holding a brokerage account or IRA. But most US brokerages have internal compliance policies that restrict or close accounts when the holder moves to a non-US address, because of the broker’s own regulatory obligations under FINRA and SEC rules for soliciting non-US persons. On the tax side, the accounts are reportable to the CRA on T1135 if their total cost exceeds $100,000 CAD, and what you hold inside them (US-listed ETFs vs Canadian mutual funds vs individual stocks) determines whether you face PFIC problems on the US side or foreign property reporting problems on the Canadian side.

Will my broker actually let me keep the account?

It depends on the broker. The issue is not US law prohibiting nonresident accounts. The issue is each brokerage’s own compliance policy around servicing clients who live outside the US.

When you update your address to a Canadian one (or when the broker discovers your address has changed), the firm’s compliance department reviews the account. The three common outcomes:

Full restriction. The broker freezes the account for new purchases. You can sell what you own, withdraw cash, and receive dividends, but you cannot buy new securities. This is the most common outcome at the large retail brokerages. Some will eventually close the account if it remains at a Canadian address long enough.

Limited trading. The broker allows you to continue trading in US-listed securities only, with restrictions on options, margin, and certain product types. This is less common but some firms offer it, particularly for clients with large account balances.

No change. A few brokerages do not restrict nonresident accounts at all, or have specific policies for Canadian residents because the US-Canada relationship is close enough that they have worked through the regulatory overlay. These firms exist, and finding one before you move is the right time to look, not after your account is frozen.

The restriction comes from FINRA and SEC rules governing solicitation of non-US persons, not from any rule that prohibits a non-US person from holding securities. A brokerage that allows a Canadian resident to trade is taking on compliance obligations around suitability, anti-money-laundering, and cross-border securities regulation that many firms prefer to avoid.

If your broker does restrict the account, your options are: transfer the brokerage account to a firm that accepts Canadian residents, liquidate and move the cash to a Canadian brokerage, or leave it in place as a liquidation-only account and manage it passively.

IRAs are harder to move because they cannot be transferred to a Canadian registered account (an RRSP is a different structure, and the only path from an IRA to an RRSP is a taxable distribution followed by an RRSP contribution, which is a different transaction entirely). So if your IRA broker restricts you, you either transfer the IRA to another US brokerage that accepts Canadian residents, or you leave it in place and manage around the restriction.

What do I need to report to the CRA?

T1135, Foreign Income Verification Statement. If the total cost amount of your specified foreign property exceeds $100,000 CAD at any time during the year, you file T1135 with your Canadian return. US brokerage accounts and IRAs are specified foreign property. The cost amount is not the market value; it is your original cost base in Canadian dollars. If you bought $80,000 USD of stocks when the exchange rate was 1.30, your cost amount is $104,000 CAD, and T1135 applies.

The T1135 guide covers the reporting mechanics and the penalty for late filing.

Income reporting. Dividends, interest, and capital gains in the brokerage account are reportable on your Canadian return regardless of whether you withdraw anything. Canada taxes residents on worldwide income, and a US brokerage statement is no different from a Canadian one in that respect. The dividends and interest go on your T1, and you claim a foreign tax credit for any US withholding.

IRA income. An IRA is not recognized as a tax-deferred account by the CRA unless you make the treaty election under Article XVIII(7) of the Canada-US tax treaty. Without the election, the CRA may tax the annual growth in the account. With the election, the deferral continues until you take distributions. The election is made by attaching a letter to your Canadian return. The Roth IRA guide covers the Roth side, and the IRA/401(k) treaty rate guide covers withdrawals.

What should I hold inside the account?

This is where the choice of investments matters more than the choice of account. Two rules of thumb:

Hold US-listed securities. US-listed stocks and US-domiciled ETFs (funds that trade on NYSE or NASDAQ and are organized under US law) are straightforward on both sides. The US taxes them under its normal rules, Canada picks up the income and allows FTCs for US withholding, and neither country treats them as a problematic structure.

Avoid Canadian mutual funds and Canadian-listed ETFs in the US account. If you hold a Canadian mutual fund or a Canadian-listed ETF in your US brokerage account, the fund may be a passive foreign investment company (PFIC) for US purposes. As a US citizen or someone still filing US returns, the PFIC regime applies punitive tax and interest charges unless you make a qualified electing fund (QEF) or mark-to-market election. The cleanest path is to hold only US-domiciled funds.

Going the other direction, if you open a Canadian brokerage account after moving to Canada and you are still a US person (citizen, green card holder), do not buy Canadian mutual funds there either, for the same PFIC reason. US-listed ETFs in a Canadian brokerage account are fine for US tax purposes, though the Canadian broker may restrict access to US-listed products for Canadian-resident clients (a separate regulatory issue on the Canadian side, driven by the Canadian Securities Administrators’ rules on prospectus filing).

Hypothetical example

A hypothetical with made-up numbers. An American software developer has lived in the US for 10 years. She holds a Fidelity brokerage account with $250,000 in US-listed index ETFs and a traditional IRA at Vanguard with $180,000. She accepts a job in Toronto and moves in March.

Her Fidelity account: she updates her address to Toronto. Fidelity’s compliance team reviews the account and restricts it to liquidation-only. She can sell her ETFs and withdraw the cash, but she cannot buy new shares. She has three choices: leave it in place and let the ETFs sit (dividends reinvested if that feature is still available), transfer the account to a US broker that accepts Canadian residents, or sell everything and move the cash to a Canadian brokerage.

Her Vanguard IRA: she updates her address. Vanguard restricts the IRA to liquidation-only as well. She cannot transfer the IRA to a Canadian RRSP without taking a taxable distribution first (and the 60(j) deduction that makes that work is covered in the 401(k)/Roth guide). She decides to leave the IRA at Vanguard, make the Article XVIII(7) treaty election on her Canadian return, and let it grow tax-deferred in both countries until she withdraws.

On the Canadian side, her combined cost base in the two accounts (converted to CAD at the exchange rate when she acquired each position) exceeds $100,000 CAD. She files T1135. She reports the dividends from the brokerage account on her T1 and claims an FTC for the 15% US withholding on the dividends. The IRA grows untaxed under the treaty election until she takes a distribution.

She holds only US-listed ETFs, so no PFIC problem exists. If she had held a Canadian mutual fund in the Fidelity account, that fund would be a PFIC, and she would owe Form 8621 with her US return for every year she held it.

Illustrative numbers only, not a real client and not advice for your facts.

What about the US estate tax?

If you are not a US citizen or green card holder (you gave up the green card when you moved, or you were never a US person), your US brokerage account is a US-situs asset for estate tax purposes. The estate tax exemption for nonresidents is only $60,000 (compared to $13.99 million for US persons in 2025), and the estate tax guide covers the exposure. The treaty provides relief through a pro-rata unified credit, but the reporting is owed.

If you are a US citizen, the full unified credit applies regardless of where you live, and the US brokerage account is not an additional estate tax exposure beyond what you already have.

This is a reason some people choose to liquidate the US brokerage after moving to Canada, particularly if they are not US citizens: keeping a large US-situs account creates estate tax exposure that a Canadian brokerage account holding the same US-listed ETFs would not.

Practitioner note

The broker restriction is the part that forces the decision, not the tax rules. The tax treatment of a US brokerage account held by a Canadian resident is clean if the investments are US-listed. The problem is that most major US brokerages will not let you trade once you report a Canadian address, and the alternatives (finding a broker that does, or moving to a Canadian brokerage that lets you hold US-listed ETFs) require research before the move, not after. The worst outcome is discovering the restriction after arrival, panic-selling into a down market, and triggering capital gains in both countries in the same year. If you are planning a move, call your broker’s international desk before you go. Ask specifically: “If I change my address to Canada, can I continue to trade?” Get the answer in writing.

What should I do next?

Before you move, call every US brokerage and IRA custodian and ask what happens when you update your address to Canada. If the answer is restriction or closure, research alternatives while you still have a US address. After the move, file T1135 if the cost base exceeds $100,000 CAD, make the Article XVIII(7) treaty election for your IRA, and make sure everything in the account is US-listed to avoid PFIC problems.

What happens to my 401(k) and Roth IRA when I move back to Canada?, the distribution and rollover mechanics
Does a Roth IRA stay tax-free in Canada?, the treaty election that preserves the exemption
Are Canadian mutual funds PFICs?, why what you hold inside the account matters more than the account itself
US estate tax for Canadians: the $60,000 exemption, the estate side of keeping US assets

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Cite this page

Yarik Yarosh, CPA. "Can I Keep My US Brokerage and IRA After Moving to Canada?." Blue Cloud CPA, August 21, 2026. https://bluecloudcpa.com/guides/keep-us-brokerage-ira-after-moving-to-canada

This guide is general information, not tax advice for your specific situation. Which points apply, and how, depends on your facts.