The best Canada dining cards

Featured cards

All 8 cards in this ranking, with what each one is actually best at. Tap any card to jump to its row.

1. 1 Scotiabank Gold American Express Card — Best overall for dining: 5x on dining up to C$50,000/year, C$120 a year — 5.0¢ CAD back per C$1
2. 2 National Bank World Elite Mastercard — 5x on dining up to C$2,500/month, C$150 a year — 5.0¢ CAD back per C$1
3. 3 American Express Cobalt Card — 5x on dining up to C$2,500/month, C$192 a year — 5.0¢ CAD back per C$1
4. 4 Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa Card — Best with no annual fee: 4% on dining up to C$5,000/year, no annual fee — 4.0¢ CAD back per C$1
5. 5 BMO eclipse Visa Infinite Card — 5x on dining, C$120 a year — 3.5¢ CAD back per C$1
6. 6 CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card — 2% on dining, C$120 a year — 2.0¢ CAD back per C$1
7. 7 Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite Card — 2x on dining up to C$50,000/year, C$150 a year — 2.0¢ CAD back per C$1
8. 8 The Platinum Card (American Express Canada) — 2x on dining, C$799 a year — 2.0¢ CAD back per C$1

The ranking

How we rank

One arithmetic rule, applied by code to our maintained card database. There is no editorial pick, no hand-ordering and no sponsored slot.

• Printed earn rate. The rate Canada issuers actually print in the terms — the dining line — taken from our maintained database, not from a press release.
• Conservative point value. Every rate is multiplied by our conservative value for the currency it pays, in Canadian dollars. That is what turns a raw multiplier into Canadian cents back per C$1, and it is why a big number in a weak programme does not win here. Every point value we use, published →
• Annual fee. Shown against every card and used to break ties: where two cards pay the same, the cheaper one ranks higher. We never net the fee out of the rate for you, because whether it is worth paying depends on how much you spend.
• Caps and limits. Where a bonus rate stops after a spending cap, the cap is printed. A capped rate is never treated as if it ran all year.
• Pool and cutoff. 22 open Canada cards are in our database; 8 of them print a flat dining rate and qualify. All 8 are ranked above — that is under the 15-card cutoff, so nothing was left off.
• Rotating and pick-your-own categories. Kept out of the headline ranking, because they only pay in the right quarter or with the right election. Issuer-travel-portal-only rates are excluded for the same reason: they pay only if you book through the portal.
• Commission. The ranking code has no access to which cards pay us a commission — the ordering function never reads the affiliate file. Any apply link is attached after the order is already fixed, so it cannot move a card up or down. How that works.

Full methodology, including how each point value is set: how we value points and rank cards →

The honest caveat

Ranked on the printed dining rate valued in Canadian dollars; caps, minimum spend and your own redemptions change the real answer. The best card for you depends on how much of your spending actually lands in this category. One more thing worth being explicit about: the "value" column is Canadian cents, not US cents — Canada loyalty currencies are earned and redeemed in Canadian dollars, so we never mix them into a US table. See what each Canadian points currency is worth →

Common questions

More guides

Every guide on this site is built by the same code from the same card database, so the numbers on one page mean exactly what they mean on another. Jump sideways:

All 70 best-card guides → · Best card for a specific store or bill →