Uphold Review For Canadians: Does Uphold Work In Canada In 2026?

Does Uphold Work In Canada?

No. Uphold ended service for Canadian residents on June 11, 2025 and says it hopes to return. You cannot open a new Canadian account, and its Canadian FINTRAC registration expired on January 27, 2026. Uphold's own help page says only that it made the change "due to recent changes in our operating environment" and gives no further reason. If you want a platform that works today, use one from my ranking.

How Do You Withdraw From Uphold To A Canadian Bank Account?

Uphold's Canadian withdrawal process works by Interac. The September 8, 2025 deadline has passed, so any remaining crypto was converted to CAD, and accounts with a balance can withdraw CAD to a Canadian bank account up to CAD 10,000 per transaction and CAD 100,000 per day. Follow Uphold's Canadian services withdrawal help article rather than any third-party guide. Keep your transaction history for the CRA, because the conversion to CAD is itself a record you will want.

What Was Uphold?

Uphold was a Canadian-friendly exchange that also let you trade stocks and precious metals. As someone who has been trading crypto since 2016, I tested it to see whether it was a good option for Canadians. It launched in 2015 as a multi-asset platform covering crypto, US stocks and four precious metals, and its standout feature was the "anything to anything" trade: swap crypto for stocks, or metals for crypto, in one step.

The trading costs were on the higher side. I noted a 1.8% spread on crypto for users outside Europe, the US and Canada, and more for coins with low liquidity, with equities around 1%. There were no deposit fees, but Canadians had no bank deposits or withdrawals, so a credit or debit card was the only way to fund an account.

What Features Did Uphold Have?

It was similar to Wealthsimple in letting you hold crypto, stocks and metals in one place. The difference was that Uphold let you move your crypto off the platform. It offered fractional shares with no account fees or minimums, and dividends were paid.

Uphold also had a debit card that spent whatever asset you held, though it was not available to Canadians and you could only join a waitlist. One feature I liked was the ability to set up to 50 simultaneous limit orders. If you had $100 and wanted to buy either Bitcoin or Ethereum at a target price, you could set both orders and the first to hit would execute while the other failed, so you could make price bets without committing a lot of capital.

How Did Registration, Funding And Fees Work?

You entered your email and password, country of residence, citizenship and date of birth, then verified your email and phone number and added your address. Since Canadians could not link bank accounts, there was no further verification step. Uphold supported 27 fiat currencies, but funding for Canadians was card only: credit cards carried a 3.99% fee, and debit card purchases were free if your bank allowed them. Not every Canadian bank does.

Was Uphold Safe?

I considered it likely safe, though the website focused more on compliance than on technical detail. Uphold was a registered money services business in the United States and followed OFAC and Bank Secrecy Act rules. It published a transparency page on its reserves. I could not find clear information on cold storage or insurance for digital assets, and I found no option to whitelist withdrawal addresses. You could turn on two-factor authentication.

What Was The Uphold App Like?

Uphold's app held 3.5 stars on the Apple App Store and 3.2 on Google Play when I reviewed it, and many users called it clunky and sometimes buggy, with a slow verification process. Even so, I found the platform intuitive. The Anything to Anything quick trade was easy to use: enter what you hold, the amount and what you want to swap it for. Card purchases only allowed USD, EUR or GBP as the trading currency. You could also connect your wallet to Koinly for Canadian crypto tax reporting.

Support ran through an online ticket system, a FAQ and educational resources, and users generally described the team as responsive.

Where Should Former Uphold Users Go Now?

My conclusion at the time was that Wealthsimple was the better fit for most Canadians: you can connect your bank account, everything is priced in Canadian dollars, and you can even buy Canadian crypto ETFs. That advice matters more now that Uphold has gone. You lose the instant swaps between crypto and metals, but you gain a CSA-registered home for your money. Take the exchange quiz if you are unsure.