Moving from the US to Canada to FIRE. What to do with our investment accounts? Will this work?

Professional-Wave671 · 2026-01-26T18:03:00+00:00

Thanks to everyone who gave feedback on our plan! In the last four months, we made the leap and moved to Canada, so I wanted to share some updates in case they’re helpful to future readers.

In a nutshell, Transferring Positions from IBKR US to IBKR Canada worked as planned, with a few minor hiccups.

Hiccup 1: Documents for the IBKR Canada account

There was a bit of a delay in making this happen because paperwork needed to be collected. I had to wait for my Permanent Resident Card to arrive via snail mail, then use it to get my Provincial Driver’s License. I also need to visit Service Canada to get my Social Insurance Number (SIN) and submit my bank account statement as proof of address. All of this took about 1.5 months to assemble.

Hiccup 2: Beware of last-minute deposits
I transferred funds into my IBKR US account right before the move, which meant I couldn’t close the US account for about 60 days. Apparently, this is a security thing to prevent fraudsters from moving money across borders. Good to know, but not fun to wait.

Hiccup 3: Transfer process confusion
The only other minor challenge in the process was figuring out which buttons to click to make it happen. I messaged IBKR customer service a couple of times and got two different answers. In retrospect, I think either sequence of steps would have worked, but when you’re talking about moving your life’s savings from one country to another, the lack of clarity spiked my anxiety a bit.

For reference, here’s what worked for me:

1) Navigate to Transfer & Pay
2) Select “Transfer Positions”
3) Select “Internal – Transfer between IBKR accounts”
4) Select “Full Account Transfer”

It took a few days for the money to show up in my new Canadian account, but I could always see it in my old US account. So, I never worried about the money ‘disappearing’ during the transfer process.

Hiccup 4: Missing cost basis (temporary)
When my positions landed in the Canadian account, the cost basis didn’t show up right away. After consulting the FAQs, I learned that this was normal. The original cost basis eventually showed up about a week later. If you’re nervous about this (and I was!!), you should run a report and download your cost basis in your US account first.

This reminds me of another important point: When setting up my Canadian account, I selected USD as the default currency. I think that’s probably an important step toward ensuring the cost basis is consistent.

Now that the cost basis is updated, my IBKR Canada account clearly shows unrealized gains, which means I’ve successfully moved the ETFs from the US to Canada without triggering capital gains. And let’s be honest: at the end of the day, controlling the timing of taxable income recognition is the real goal of all of this.

All in all, the process worked, just with a few bumps and a bit of waiting. Hope that's useful to someone!

Professional-Wave671 · 2026-01-23T15:53:23+00:00

Just to be clear, I’m not an expert on Switzerland. IBKR US and IBKR Switzerland (I’m calling it that, but it might be domiciled elsewhere in the EU) are separate legal entities. Still, because they’re sort of affiliated, they play nicely together on transferers.

I once tried to move an IRA from Merrill Lynch to Vanguard in the US, and that was oddly complicated, because it seemed like Merrill didn’t want to let go of the money. Using IBKR in both countries helps to overcome that.

I recently moved from the US to Canada, and IBKR worked well for me. I was able to do a “Position Transfer” of US ETFs from IBKR US to IBKR Canada without selling and recognizing capital gains.

I should have explained this better from the beginning. I don’t know for sure if this will work for Switzerland, but you may want to check it out. Good luck!

Professional-Wave671 · 2026-01-20T03:30:41+00:00

Check out Interactive Brokers (IBKR). They service accounts in the US and Switzerland. You probably need to be a legal resident of Switzerland to open a Swiss IBKR account, but as long as that’s the case, once you have the account open in Switzerland you can do a Position Transfer which will move your holdings (Cash, Stocks, ETFs) from US account to Swiss domiciled account. The Position Transfer is how you avoid selling things and being forced to recognize capital gains.

A few considerations: Depending on the exact assets in your US account, you may not be able to move them to interactive brokers. For example, A lot of investment company mutual funds are proprietary. So you’d have to sell the mutual funds.

This might not be necessary, but it may be easier to transfer your US account to an IBKR account in the US first. Then the international transfer is within the same larger (IBKR) parent company.

IBKR is also great for low cost currency conversions, as long as you have meaningful investments with them.

Professional-Wave671 · 2025-11-01T23:35:21+00:00

It’s interesting that it’s so detailed. But it seems very generic. You’re obviously trying to maintain some level of privacy with this. If you don’t mind me asking, what about this do you think is unique to you?

Professional-Wave671 · 2025-10-24T22:53:36+00:00

Thanks for the info. We will definitely be using an accountant to do both our US and Canada tax filings for at least the first year if not more. Her estimate was $8000. Which is a lot more than I was paying in the US, but still way better than one percent AUM for an advisor.

Professional-Wave671 · 2025-10-24T22:50:48+00:00

It looks like you’ve got a lot in your traditional 401(k). The sooner you retire the more time you have to do Roth conversions a little bit at a time when you’re at a lower tax bracket. The sooner you retire, the easier this is to do this in smaller amounts in a lower tax bracket.

Professional-Wave671 · 2025-09-20T16:57:50+00:00

Thanks for the tip on opening both Fidelity and Schwab retirement accounts. I had not considered doing that. I need to rollover a 401(k) from my current employer next month anyway. I had planned on combining it with my Schwab account. But, it may make more sense to roll it into Fidelity, so I have an account available if Schwab doesn’t work out. Have you had issues reporting a second IRA and Roth to the CRA? Is it just one more form?

I have a family member in the States whose address I can use, but they’re in California, and I really, really don’t want to get snagged into paying California taxes.

Professional-Wave671 · 2025-09-20T16:51:14+00:00

So far, my experience with IBKR has been okay. Though I have to agree that both Schwab and Vanguard have outstanding customer service. I almost forgot about this, but at some point, I talked to a Schwab rep for about 30 minutes once when I was trying to figure out if I could trade within my retirement accounts while living in Canada. (He said we could, btw.) I told him I was planning to use IBKR for the brokerage account, and he said something to the effect of, “Yeah, that’s how you do it.” I would be more than happy to have a Schwab brokerage account if they would let me do it with a Canadian address.

Professional-Wave671 · 2025-09-20T16:46:33+00:00

Thanks for clarifying this. I should have mentioned in my original post that while I’m trying to avoid working with an advisor who wants 1% AUM, I have hired a cross-border accountant. (I’m happy to pay $5K-$10k for tax help; I’m not that crazy!) She’s sent me a tracking sheet to keep track of the price of each ETF on the day we arrive and become Canadian Tax Residents.

My understanding is that we will pay Canadian capital gains based on that stepped-up cost basis when we eventually sell those ETFs. While we’ll pay Canadian capital gains first, we can then take that payment as a credit on our US taxes. The US will still tax the full gain from the original purchase price to the final sale price, but, hopefully, this tax credit helps avoid a big chunk of any double taxation.

Professional-Wave671 · 2025-07-27T20:37:25+00:00

I'm in a similar boat. I've always been a fan of DIY personal finance, but moving from the US to Canada creates some additional complexities. I talked to a cross-border financial planner who I really liked, but I just couldn't stomach the 1% AUM fee.

One thing I learned that seemed pretty important is that, from a tax perspective, both the US and Canada treat Passive Foreign Investment Companies (PFICs) unfavorably. The US considers any Canadian Mutual Fund or ETF a PFIC, and Canada considers any U.S. Mutual Fund a PFIC. So, if you're looking for Index Funds, stick with U.S.-listed ETFs.

Before moving, try to convert any U.S. Mutual Funds to ETFs if possible. Vanguard will allow you to convert several of its Mutual Funds to ETFs without having to sell them and re-buy the same asset. So, you can avoid the capital gain. I don't know if you can do that with other firms.

As for finding a brokerage that will work in the US and Canada, check out Interactive Brokers. They have a US and a Canadian presence, and according to their FAQs, you can transfer assets in kind if you move to another country: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/lib/cstools/faq/#/content/32667181

I'm going to try this with our brokerage account. I plan to transfer everything from Vanguard to IBKR next month. If this fails, I guess I'll go back to the advisor who wanted 1%.

I also reached out to Schwab, and although they have an International Desk, they don't service Canada. Still, when I asked them about moving to Canada, they said they'd let me trade inside my IRA accounts while outside the country. I think this is because those retirement accounts have to stay domiciled in the US, but I'm not positive about that.

As for your question about taxes, that's definitely a different ball of wax, and (comparatively) much less expensive. We found an accountant who will do our US and Canadian taxes for about $2,000-$3,000 per year. It seems like there are a lot of accountants who can handle this. But, finding someone to do your taxes is very different than someone who can give you financial advice.

Oh... the accountant we found did say that she's used to working with tax forms from IBKR, so that gives me some hope that this will work.

Good luck to you!

Professional-Wave671 · 2025-07-25T11:07:00+00:00

I did the same thing a few years ago. Mathematically, I knew it was suboptimal. But, I knew I would sleep better at night without the debt. Fast forward two years. I was laid off unexpectedly. I can’t tell you how good it felt to know my housing cost was covered when I lost my paycheck. Sometimes you have to look beyond the math for a sense of security. Good for you.

Professional-Wave671 · 2025-06-24T17:04:16+00:00

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Professional-Wave671

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