Wealthsimple credit card review: 2% back, no FX fee, and two tiers

Wealthsimple markets a single credit card, but it comes in two versions: the Visa Infinite + and the Visa Infinite Privilege. You do not choose between them. You apply once, and Wealthsimple assigns a tier from your income, the assets you hold there, and how much you spend.

The tier barely changes the everyday economics, because both versions earn the same flat 2% and carry the same fee. What the Privilege tier adds is a travel layer: airport lounge access and richer travel insurance. So if you will not use lounges or premium insurance, the Visa Infinite + loses you nothing that pays the bills; if you travel enough to use them, Privilege is a genuine upgrade, but only if you qualify for it.

One caveat: this review is about the 2% card. If you do not meet its bar, Wealthsimple may invite you to a separate Visa Infinite 1% card, an invite-only beta with no annual fee. It earns half the cash back, so the 2%/$240 math here does not apply to it.

Everyone starts from the same baseline: you have to be a Canadian resident, the age of majority in your province or territory, and hold an active Wealthsimple chequing account. The application runs a soft credit check first and only does a hard check if you pass and choose to continue, so simply checking whether you qualify will not ding your score.

From there, each tier asks you to meet at least one of four criteria. For the Visa Infinite + card that is a personal income of $80,000, a household income of $150,000, $25,000 in annual card spend, or $300,000 in assets held at Wealthsimple. Any one of them qualifies you, so missing the income cutoff does not rule you out if your spend or balances clear the bar. The Visa Infinite Privilege card uses the same four criteria at higher levels: a personal income of $150,000, a household income of $200,000, $50,000 in annual card spend, or $400,000 in assets. Wealthsimple can change these, so confirm the current numbers, but the structure is the same for both tiers.

The card earns an unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase, with no categories to track. That flatness is the whole pitch: there is no card-juggling, no quarterly activation, no rotating categories. For most people a no-thought 2% beats a complicated 4% they forget to optimize.

One quirk is redemption. Cash back lands in the Wealthsimple app and you move it to a cash or investing account yourself; there is no automatic statement credit and no auto-redeem. If you already bank or invest there it is barely an extra step, but if you have no Wealthsimple relationship the payout model is less natural, and it nudges you deeper into the ecosystem.

The other quirk is how you pay the bill, and it is one of the few things genuinely unusual about this card. You pay the card from your Wealthsimple account, and you currently cannot add it as a payee at another bank or pay it directly from an outside chequing account. For anyone already banking with Wealthsimple, or switching to it anyway, this is a non-issue: the payment simply comes out of the account you already use. But if you keep your main chequing account elsewhere and have no interest in moving it, you have to push money into Wealthsimple before each due date, which is a real annoyance and the kind of friction most cards do not have.

This is the part to read carefully. The card carries a $240 annual fee, billed as $20 per month for most of the country (Quebec residents are charged once a year instead). It is not a no-fee card by default.

There are two ways to waive it. The asset path: $100,000 in eligible individual net deposits or assets at Wealthsimple, which can include joint accounts. Wealthsimple has moved away from waiving the fee purely on Premium or Generation household status, so if you held an older household-based waiver, check whether it is grandfathered. The deposit path, which is the one most people use: a qualifying direct deposit of at least $4,000 every 30 days into your Wealthsimple chequing or Cash account, counting payroll plus government sources like CPP, OAS, and EI.

The math is what makes the fee matter. At a flat 2%, $240 is the rewards on $12,000 of spend, so an unwaived fee can erase the entire edge over a good free 2% card. If you cannot move your paycheque to Wealthsimple and do not clear the asset threshold, decide whether the fee is worth it before you decide on the card.

A real standout is foreign transactions: Wealthsimple charges no FX fee of its own on purchases in another currency. Most Canadian cards tack on a 2.5% surcharge, so for anyone who shops in USD or travels this is genuine money. Network or merchant conversion costs can still apply, but the usual issuer surcharge is gone.

On the travel side, both tiers include a complimentary Visa Infinite concierge and travel insurance, the core of which is emergency medical coverage for trips away from home, but the limits and extras are where they split. The Visa Infinite + tier covers up to $1 million in emergency medical (the first 14 days of a trip, for cardholders under 65) and carries no rental-car coverage and no lounge access. The Visa Infinite Privilege tier doubles the emergency medical to $2 million on the same first-14-days, under-65 terms, adds rental-car collision and loss-damage coverage of $65,000 for rentals up to 31 days, and includes 6 airport lounge passes a year through Visa Airport Companion along with VIP airport services. Those extras justify the premium fee only if you will actually use the lounges and insurance, and only if Wealthsimple places you in Privilege. The exact limits, day counts, and exclusions live in the certificate of insurance, so confirm them before you rely on the coverage.

Then there is the card itself. The top version is a real metal card in an understated matte black, noticeably heavier than plastic, with a clean, minimalist face and no clutter. It is one of the better-looking cards in the Canadian market, the kind that earns a second glance when you set it down on the table. Just be clear on who gets it: the metal finish tracks your assets, not your tier. As of mid-2026 both Visa Infinite + and Privilege cardholders can get the metal card once they individually hold $100,000 in eligible assets or net deposits at Wealthsimple. That balance has to be your own, not a household total, so reaching Premium or Generation status through a household does not by itself earn you metal. Below that, it ships in plastic on either tier. It is a perk rather than a reason to carry the card, but it is a genuinely nice one.

One regional note: Wealthsimple lists some insurance coverages as unavailable to Quebec residents, so if you are in Quebec, confirm which benefits apply before valuing the travel insurance.