Canadians use ETFs to populate not just their retirement accounts but tax-free savings accounts (TFSAs), registered education funds (RESPs), first-home savings accounts (FHSAs) and taxable accounts—wherever they might benefit from the wide diversification, liquidity and low fees that ETFs provide.
The best ETFs in Canada for 2024
In Canada, the ETF inflows in 2024 smashed the old record set in 2021 of $53 billion, with a net investment of $76 billion. With more than $500 billion in assets under management, Canadian ETFs now hold roughly one-fifth the total of mutual funds. The story is even more pronounced stateside, where ETF inflows last year surged past USD$1 trillion.
With that popularity has come a huge proliferation of new funds, especially the actively managed kind. More than half the ETFs now trading in Canada are actively managed. However investors’ preference still leans heavily towards passive funds that track a published index and typically have very low fees. They represent 69% of assets under management.
So how is the typical Canadian investor supposed to choose from among all that’s on offer? That’s where MoneySense’s Best ETFs guide comes in.
Our methodology—How we choose the Best ETFs in Canada
For 2025, we assembled a panel of 10 investment advisors, analysts, coaches and bloggers to recommend funds with a combination of appropriate market exposure, low fees, liquidity and good past performance that would sit well within any Canadian retail investor’s portfolio. Then we asked our panel to vote on a long list of nominee funds in six different asset categories:
Canadian equities
U.S. equities
International equities
Fixed income
Cash alternative
One-decision
The three ETFs (or more, in the case of a tie) with the highest number of votes in each category are listed below.
While our judges considered active, factor and sector-specific funds, the consensus tended to push our final picks toward low-cost, index funds that will appeal to most ETF investors. Lest our recommendations get too boring—and, let’s face it, smart investing usually is boring—we also offered our judges the opportunity to pick a more exotic “desert island” ETF that wouldn’t typically rise to the top of our voting process.
Of course, the ETF landscape is not immune to the volatility that’s taken hold in markets generally in 2025.
