Canadian-only crypto card with bitcoin cashback and a 3% foreign-exchange bill

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

If you have been searching for a card that turns crypto into everyday spending, the Shakepay card is probably on a short list — and if you are Canadian, it may be the most concrete thing in that list, because it is a real physical Visa card you can hold. That is also its whole boundary. The card is offered to Shakepay customers in all 13 provinces and territories of Canada, and nowhere else. Everything below is written for you as someone deciding whether this is your problem, not theirs: where you live, whether you can open a Shakepay account, what the card charges, what it pays back, and what has gone wrong for other people.

The conditions described here are current as of October 28, 2026.

My score for the card is 4.3 out of 10. That is not a rounding of something better. The card does a small number of things well and declines to do several others, and for a lot of readers the things it declines are exactly the reason they were shopping.

Who It Is For — and Who It Is Not

The card suits a specific person: a Canadian resident who already uses Shakepay as a crypto exchange, holds bitcoin, wants a small amount of bitcoin back on everyday purchases, and does not mind banking around a single country. If that is you, the card is unremarkable in a good way. It is a Visa prepaid card spending a Canadian-dollar balance, with Apple Pay and Google Pay support and ATM withdrawals.

It does not suit the reader this page is written for — anyone, anywhere, who has trouble getting an ordinary bank card. And it does not suit a Canadian who wants to spend abroad cheaply, wants a metal card, wants a virtual card, wants to load the card directly with crypto, or wants a card that pays substantially more than one or one and a half percent back.

Let me show you where the number comes from, criterion by criterion, because a single score tells you less than the parts do.

The everyday-use mark is the highest and it is deserved. The who-can-get-it mark is the lowest and it is not really a flaw — it is a fact about geography that decides the question for anyone outside Canada before anything else is read.

One more thing about eligibility. The cardholder agreement does not explicitly require Canadian residency, though some countries and merchants are restricted; the card’s own pages direct people with questions to [email protected]. That is worth noticing for a particular reason. “Not explicitly required” is not the same as “open to anyone who wants it”. The card is a Canadian product running on Canadian infrastructure, and reading the absence of a clause as permission is the kind of reasoning that ends with a declined payment abroad.

Who Will They Give You the Card

Access is the first gate and it is a hard one. The card is available to all Shakepay customers in all 13 Canadian provinces and territories — Canada only. So the real question is not “will they issue me a card” but “can I become a Shakepay customer”, and that in turn depends on your own identity, your address, your documents and the province you live in.

Beyond residency, the cardholder agreement does not explicitly require Canadian residency, and some countries and merchants are restricted. If you are reading this from outside Canada and wondering whether an exception exists, the honest answer from the pages is that none is described; email [email protected] if you want it confirmed in writing rather than inferred.

A related point about screening, because it catches people out. Nationality is recorded and screened separately from residence, since sanctions screening and issuer risk policy are applied to citizenship and country of birth as well as to country of address. In the United States the customer identification programme requires name, date of birth, address and an identification number, and electronic systems also validate proof-of-address documents against records. That is category background rather than this card’s own rule, but it explains why a card that says “Canada only” can still be refused to someone living in Canada: the address and the passport are two different checks.

How to Get It

Setup takes minutes and there is no credit check — which matters if a credit file is the reason you are reading about crypto cards in the first place. The physical card is ordered inside the app, and you set your PIN during the ordering, not afterwards.

You need a fully verified account. That means reaching the age of majority in your province or territory, passing an eligibility questionnaire inside the app, and holding one card per person. Documents, proof of address, age requirements, the verification tiers themselves, processing times and rejection reasons: not stated on the public pages I read. I would rather tell you that plainly than invent a checklist. What I can say is that the phrase “fully verified account” is doing real work in the cost section below, because the card is described as free for fully verified accounts.

On delivery and replacement:

• The card arrives within 21 days, by Canada Post regular mail, with no tracking. The card’s own words: delivered “regardless of where you live in Canada”. Other countries are not listed.
• Ordering moved to a general order flow in the app. Unofficial reporting from CryptoCardHub (11 August 2026) says the physical-card rollout opened gradually by waitlist rank after being announced in May 2026, opening on 21 May 2026 — the official help article I read does not mention a waitlist, so treat that version as a third-party account rather than a rule.
• A damaged card keeps its number, expiry and CVV. A lost or stolen card gets new details. The replacement fee is not stated, and reissue happens within 30 days of reporting the loss.
• If you lose your PIN, there is no reset. It cannot be changed once set; you replace the card to get a new one.

There is no virtual card disclosed and no metal card. If you were hoping to start with a virtual card before committing to plastic, that option does not appear in what the card publishes.

Fees and What a Payment Really Costs

Here is the honest cost picture, and the headline is that the card’s cost is not in a monthly fee — it is in the foreign-exchange charge.

The card spends a Canadian-dollar balance. Non-Canadian transactions are converted at the Visa rate, and on top of that a 3% Foreign Exchange Charge applies under the cardholder agreement — which the help centre then softens by tier: 3% at Base, 1.5% at Bright, 0% at Blue. Both statements are on the card’s pages and they do not quite agree; the help centre figure is the more favourable one, and the agreement is the contract. Foreign refunds come back at the rate you paid to Visa minus the charge, so usually less than what you originally spent.

Now, three ordinary payments, with the fees that apply to each.

A coffee in Toronto. No conversion, no foreign-exchange charge, no annual fee. If your reward status is Base you get 1% cashback in bitcoin on eligible purchases at eligible merchants; Bright also pays 1%; Blue pays 1.5%. This is the case the card is built for, and it works.

A €40 dinner in Berlin. The amount is converted at the Visa rate, and then the Foreign Exchange Charge lands on top — 3% if you are on Base, which is the default status you start on. So a Base cardholder pays 3% to spend abroad and a Blue cardholder pays 0%, and the difference between them is a tier you reach by exchange volume or direct deposits, not by choosing a different card.

$200 out of a PLUS ATM. $500 per transaction and $1,000 per day are the card’s ceilings; operator fees may apply on top, no bitcoin rewards are earned on ATM transactions, and there is no cash or cheque deposit capability.

One discrepancy worth flagging, because limits are the sort of thing you hit at a till. The help article, updated 21 April 2026, states CAD $5,000 per transaction, per day, and $50,000 per month with a $250 tap limit for Apple and Google Pay, and says limits cannot be increased. Another help article and the cardholder agreement were reported as differing — one said $3,000 per transaction and per day in a more recent article. That is unverified, and the card’s own pages are not consistent about it, so I would check the figure in your app before you rely on it.

How to Top It Up

Topping up is not the interesting part of this card, and understanding why tells you what kind of product it is. The card spends the Shakepay account’s Canadian-dollar balance. It is not a card you load with bitcoin directly, and coins and networks for card funding are not stated. Crypto deposit fees for the card specifically: not stated.

The funding routes the card’s pages do describe:

There are no activation fees and no minimum balance. That $10,000 wire minimum is the detail that catches people: the rail that seems most flexible is the one with a five-figure floor, and the rail you can actually use for a $40 top-up is the one capped at $10,000.

On getting your money out, and this matters more than it sounds: closing the card leaves the Shakepay Wallet balance accessible, and funds do not expire with the card. Withdrawal fees from the wallet are not stated on the company’s pages — so before you move money out, check the fee schedule in the app rather than assuming it is free.

One background point that bears on any card you might be comparing this with, including your own setup. Blockchain transfers are irreversible, so a deposit sent on a network the card provider does not support, or to an address belonging to a different network, can be lost or need manual support recovery with no guarantee. That is why “which coin, which network” is the first question to ask of any card that claims crypto funding — and why a card that will not name either is hard to evaluate.

Paying With It Every Day

This is where the card earns its best mark. There is a physical Visa prepaid card, Apple Pay and Google Pay supported “where available”, and ATM access. Blocked merchant categories are not stated, which cuts both ways: no gambling block is promised to you, and none is ruled out.

Rewards work like this: up to 1.5% cashback in bitcoin on eligible purchases at eligible merchants worldwide, credited automatically to your bitcoin balance and withdrawable to a wallet of your own. The reward is in bitcoin, not in dollars, so its value moves with the market — a 1.5% back is not 1.5% in cash if bitcoin falls.

The reward statuses reset by calendar month, and this is the part people misread:

Base and Bright pay the same cashback, so Bright’s value is entirely the reduced foreign-exchange charge. Blue is the only status that improves both. A Business status is automatic, and no metal card is stated anywhere in the tier list.

The app is where the practical work happens: disputes, card controls and a support chat all live in it (Settings > Help > Support Chat). App Store and Google Play ratings, and the number of ratings, I did not obtain.

If a payment goes wrong, the dispute path is specific and time-bound. Notify Shakepay in writing within 60 days of the transaction using the dispute section of the app. The agreement also says a dispute must be received within 90 days or the transaction is deemed accepted. Visa Zero Liability claims about unauthorised use can take up to 120 days after paperwork and may require a police investigation. Transactions before you reported a loss may be treated as yours. If a complaint is unresolved, the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments is 1-888-451-4519 and FCAC is 1-866-3222 — the card lists FCAC as 1-866-461-3222.

One category fact that explains more declined payments than anything card-specific: declines and holds are normal in this space. A declined authorisation may leave a hold on funds that can remain for several days, typically up to seven.

What Can Go Wrong

The card’s own security tools are ordinary and adequate. You can lock or freeze the card instantly in the app, there is two-factor authentication, and the PIN may be disabled after three wrong entries. Lost or stolen, the 24/7 line is 1-855-574-2539.

The structural risks are the ones to sit with.

The money sits with a custodian, not with you. Shakepay holds the balance, and funds are not CDIC-insured. Control of crypto belongs to whoever holds the private key; with a custodial wallet the provider holds the credentials, so you must trust the provider completely. And the history is not reassuring as a category: Mt. Gox reported about US$350 million stolen between 2011 and 2014, Coincheck about US$400 million in 2018, Ronin Network US$625 million in 2022. A custodial balance carries counterparty and hack risk by construction.

Shakepay is not a bank. Shakepay is FINTRAC-registered (#M17065696), a CIRO member and an Investment Dealer registered with the AMF and provincial regulators. The card itself is issued by Peoples Trust Company under licence from Visa International — meaning Shakepay runs the front end and the crypto, while a licensed institution holds the card programme. Funds are not CDIC-insured, and an electronic-money style provider generally must safeguard customer funds by segregating them or insuring them, which is not the same as a bank deposit guarantee.

The complaints are about accounts, not payments. Trustpilot reads 2.3 out of 5 from 22 reviews, one of them from the last 12 months, as of my reading on 20 October 2026. Only one review mentions the card at all — December 2021, positive. The rest is about the platform: accounts frozen or closed without reasons given (2021 through February 2022, and July 2025); support unresponsive for days (2021, December 2023, July 2025); delayed or blocked withdrawals and wires (2022 through 2023); funds not returned, including a $250 bill payment (September 2026); questions about source of funds (November 2022). Official incidents are not stated and I found no user report about the card itself.

Take that pattern seriously for your situation. If you are reading this because a normal card is hard for you to get, a card whose main documented failure mode is an account frozen “without reasons” is a specific risk, not a general one. CryptoCardHub (11 August 2026) cites Trustpilot at about 1.5 out of 5 — which disagrees with the score I read. Either way it is low, and the direction of the criticism is the same.

Two more things worth knowing. Card programmes do close: Visa terminated its global agreements with FTX on 13 November 2022 and the FTX US debit card was wound down by its issuer; WaveCrest, a Visa issuer that supplied crypto card brands, was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018, closing all its programmes. Closures typically mean a notice period, then spending and loading stop, then you are asked to withdraw. And a card issued in one country can look foreign to a shop in another, because a merchant can look up the issuer identification number at the start of the card number and apply extra scrutiny when it differs from your billing address. That is a background fact about how payment networks work, but it is the mechanism behind a lot of “it just wouldn’t go through abroad.”

And on tax, since it will come up: I am not giving tax advice, and you should not treat anything here as such. The general position is that digital assets are treated as property, so exchanging them for goods, services or dollars generally produces a taxable gain or loss, measured in local fiat currency at fair market value on the transaction date. That means each card payment funded from crypto may be a separate disposal. Talk to an accountant about your own position.

What to Take Instead

I want to be careful here: I have not tested these cards, and the comparison below rests on what each provider publishes about itself. For every one of them, an important piece of what you would want to know is simply not stated — which is itself part of the comparison.

Read across the rows and the contrast with Shakepay is sharp. Gemini is a credit card, not a prepaid one — you pay it off in fiat — and it pays in crypto rather than converting crypto, with no foreign transaction fees at all. That is a different product, and if your problem is that you cannot get credit, it may not help. Lava carries the best score of the three at 7.1 and the most generous headline, up to 5% back in bitcoin with no FX fees and no FX spread, but the conditions on that 5% are not stated, which is where the interest usually lies. Trastra is the geographic opposite of Shakepay: available in 31 listed countries including Germany, France and the UK, with the page saying it will be available for all residents of the EEA and, for non-European residents, “Not at the moment” — a residence-based rule. Its costs and rewards are simply not stated.

Shakepay’s actual advantage is narrow and real: it is a physical Visa prepaid card with bitcoin cashback, in Canada, at no annual fee, with ATM access. If that is the requirement, it is one of the few cards that meets it.

Who I Would Recommend It To

I would recommend this card to a Canadian resident who already holds bitcoin at Shakepay, spends most of their money inside Canada, keeps a small balance in Canadian dollars rather than converting per purchase, and is content with 1% to 1.5% back. For that person it is a pleasant second card: freeze it in the app when it is not in use, put it in Apple Pay, and let the cashback accumulate.

I would not recommend it to anyone reading this because a bank card was refused. The honest answer there is that a card whose issuer is a licensed trust company and whose brand runs on custodial balances carries exactly the kind of freeze-and-closure risk that the reviews describe, and the CDIC insurance that a bank deposit would have is absent.

And I would not recommend it as a travel card. The 3% foreign-exchange charge at the default Base status is the number that decides it. If you spend abroad, you are paying for the privilege of holding a Canadian-dollar balance in Canada.

Two questions to ask yourself before anything else. Where do you actually spend money — mostly in Canada, or mostly elsewhere? And how do you currently move money into the country? Because if the answer to the second one is “I already bank here”, the FX charge is the only thing standing between you and a usable card, and the Blue tier removes it.

One last thing I would check myself. The card’s own pages disagree about your daily limit — $5,000 in one place, $3,000 per transaction and per day in a more recent article. The figure that matters is the one in your app on the day you need it.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Shakepay card?

The Shakepay card is a physical Visa prepaid card that spends a Canadian-dollar balance held in your Shakepay account. It comes in one form — no virtual or metal card is disclosed — and pays up to 1.5% cashback in bitcoin on eligible purchases at eligible merchants worldwide. It is offered to Shakepay customers across Canada’s 13 provinces and territories, and it is a prepaid product rather than a debit or credit card.

How does the Shakepay card work?

You top up the Canadian-dollar balance in your Shakepay account, and the card spends that balance, which means it cannot overdraw. Purchases at eligible merchants earn bitcoin cashback credited automatically to your bitcoin balance and withdrawable to your own wallet. Non-Canadian purchases are converted at the Visa rate, then a foreign-exchange charge of 3%, 1.5% or 0% applies depending on your reward status.

Is Shakepay a bank?

No. Shakepay is a cryptocurrency exchange registered with FINTRAC (#M17065696), a CIRO member and an Investment Dealer registered with the AMF and provincial regulators. The card is issued by Peoples Trust Company under licence from Visa International. Funds held are not CDIC-insured, so they do not carry the deposit protection a Canadian bank deposit would.

Who can get the Shakepay card?

The card is available to all Shakepay customers in all 13 Canadian provinces and territories — Canada only. You need a fully verified account, to be of voting age in your province or territory, to pass an eligibility questionnaire in the app, and to hold one card per person. There is no credit check. The cardholder agreement does not explicitly require Canadian residency, but some countries and merchants are restricted.

How much does the Shakepay card cost?

There is no annual fee, and the issuance fee is not stated — the card is free for fully verified accounts. The real cost is abroad: a 3% foreign-exchange charge at the default Base reward status, falling to 1.5% at Bright and 0% at Blue. ATM withdrawals at PLUS-logo ATMs are capped at $500 per transaction and $1,000 per day, and operator fees may apply. Spending limits are CAD $5,000 per transaction, per day and $50,000 per month, with a $250 tap limit on Apple and Google Pay.

How do I top up the Shakepay card?

You top up the underlying account, not the card. Interac e-Transfer is free, arrives within minutes, and runs from a $5 minimum to a $10,000 maximum. A wire transfer is free but takes one to two working days and has a $10,000 minimum. There are no activation fees and no minimum balance. Coins and networks for funding the card directly with crypto are not stated.

Is the Shakepay card safe?

The usual safeguards are present: instant app freeze, two-factor authentication, a 24/7 lost and stolen line, and mobile wallet tokenisation. What the card does not offer is deposit insurance — funds are not CDIC-insured — and the balance is custodial, held by Shakepay. Trustpilot shows 2.3 out of 5 from 22 reviews, with recurring complaints about account freezes, closures and delayed withdrawals.

Can I use the Shakepay card in another country?

You can, at a cost. Non-Canadian transactions convert at the Visa rate, and the foreign-exchange charge applies on top — 3% on Base, 1.5% on Bright, 0% on Blue. Foreign refunds come back at the rate paid to Visa minus the charge, so usually less than you paid. A foreign-issued card number can also attract extra scrutiny at some merchants, and address verification is mainly offered in the US, Canada and the UK.

How do I add the Shakepay card to Apple Wallet?

Apple Pay is supported “where available”, alongside Google Pay. You add the card in your app and confirm through your device; Apple Pay replaces the card number with a device-specific number stored in the Secure Element, and each payment uses a one-time security code. Note that tap payments with Apple Pay and Google Pay are capped at $250, which is lower than the general card limits.

What happens if I dispute a payment?

Notify Shakepay in writing within 60 days of the transaction using the dispute section of the app. The cardholder agreement also says a dispute must be received within 90 days or the transaction is deemed accepted. Visa Zero Liability claims for unauthorised use can take up to 120 days after paperwork is submitted and may require a police investigation, and transactions before you reported a loss may be treated as yours.

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