The federal government is proposing to raise the deposit insurance limit under the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC) to $250,000, its first increase in more than 20 years.
The measure, proposed in the 2026 budget, would “modernise the deposit insurance framework,” the government said.
The CDIC limit is the amount of a consumer’s deposits that is protected in the event of a bank failure.
Since 2005, that limit has sat at $100,000.
In 2023, the Bank and Trust Companies Association wrote to former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, urging the CDIC to double its coverage to $200,000 per depositor.
Canada has the lowest level of deposit insurance among G7 countries, a letter from the group said.
About 65 per cent of deposits at Canada’s top six banks — Royal Bank of Canada, TD Bank, Bank of Montreal, CIBC, Scotiabank and National Bank of Canada — are uninsured, according to DBRS Morningstar.
In 2025, the Department of Finance said it would conduct a review of the deposit insurance limit and that “a deterioration of the real value of available coverage due to inflation,” the limit would need to be adjusted to $150,000 to protect the “real value” of deposit protection as it was set in 2005.
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At the same time, the department said a limit set at $250,000 per deposit category “would align with that of the United States and some Canadian provinces, and may provide better protection for non-retail depositors.”
As part of Budget 2026, the federal government said it proposes to legislate a periodic review of the deposit insurance framework every 10 years to ensure the CDIC “can access data to support evidence-based policy development” as well as “updating the framework so provincial trust and loan companies seeking to become a CDIC member may only do so by continuing as a federal trust and loan company.”
According to the CDIC’s 2025 annual report, it has 85 members.
As part of the proposed amendments to the CDIC, the government also plans to provide a temporary high balance for life events like selling a home and remove the deposit insurance limit for eligible deposits in registered and tax-free accounts.
With files from Reuters.
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