CIBC · Visa
Free, with 2% on groceries and 1% on gas, transit, dining and bills. Two caps run in parallel and CIBC's product page says there is no limit.
Rates and features verified 2026-08-18Full terms and conditionsHow we research cards
What we like, and what we don’t
Worth having
- No annual fee and no fee for additional cards
- 2% on groceries, which is the highest free grocery rate from a big bank here
- 1% on gas, EV charging, transport, dining and recurring payments
- Cash back does not expire while the account is in good standing
- A low $15,000 household income requirement
Watch out for
- The accelerated rates stop at $30,000 of total spending or $20,000 of bonus category spending, whichever comes first
- CIBC's product page says there is no limit on the cash back you can earn, which contradicts its own benefit guide
- The base rate is 0.5%
- The counters reset after the December statement, not on your anniversary, which is easy to misjudge
- No travel insurance
What this card earns
- Groceries
- 2%
- Gas
- 1%
- Dining and restaurants
- 1%
- Travel
- 1%
- Recurring bills and subscriptions
- 1%
- Transit
- 1%
- Everything else
- 0.5%
- Bonus rates apply up to
- $20,000 of annual spending after that, the base rate
- Bonus categories at once
- 2 you choose which
The earning fine print
2% on eligible groceries; 1% on eligible gas, EV charging, transportation, dining, recurring payments, and travel booked through CIBC by Expedia; 0.5% on everything else. Two caps run in PARALLEL, per benefit guide: the 2% and 1% accelerated rates (excluding the CIBC by Expedia 1%) apply only on the first $30,000 in net annual card purchases at ALL merchants, OR the first $20,000 in net annual card purchases within the accelerated categories themselves (groceries/supermarkets, gas/service stations, commuter transportation, eating and drinking places, recurring payments). Whichever counter fills first ends the accelerated earn. After that, all purchases earn the base 0.5%. Both the $30,000 and $20,000 counters reset to zero after your December Statement Date, so the cycle is statement-driven, not strict calendar year. Caps are account-wide (all cardholders on the account combined). $20,000 recorded as the conservative earn_cap_annual. Base 0.5% is uncapped. Minimum $10 to redeem cash back; cash back does not expire.
What the offer actually requires
No cash welcome bonus published for this card as of 18 Aug 2026. Non-cash perks advertised in the 'offer' slot: up to 10 cents/litre off via Journie Rewards, free Skip+ membership, 50% off Disney+ for 6 months.
Fees and interest rates
- Annual fee
- None
- Additional card
- Free
- Foreign transaction fee
- 2.5%
- Purchase APR
- 21.99%
- Cash advance APR
- 22.99%
- Balance transfer APR
- 22.99%
Who can get this card
- Minimum personal income
- Not published by the issuer
- Minimum household income
- $15,000
Insurance and benefits
- Purchase protection
- Included
- Extended warranty
- Included
What the benefits really mean
Only insurance is Purchase Security (90 days from purchase) and Extended Protection (doubles manufacturer warranty up to one additional year), sharing a $60,000 lifetime maximum per cardholder across ALL CIBC cards held. No travel medical, no rental car CDW, no mobile device coverage. Travel medical is sold separately as optional CIBC coverage. Optional CIBC Payment Protector available. HEADLINE VS SUBSTANCE: product page states 'No limit on the total cash back you can earn'. Literally true only because the 0.5% base rate is uncapped. The 2% and 1% accelerated rates ARE capped. The page does not surface the caps at all; they live only in the benefit guide. Two parallel caps ($30,000 total spend and $20,000 category spend), not one. Whichever is hit first kills the bonus rate. Caps reset after the DECEMBER STATEMENT DATE, not on 1 January and not on the account anniversary. A cardholder approved in November effectively gets a stub year. Caps are shared across all cardholders on the account, so supplementary card spend consumes the primary's cap. The 1% on CIBC by Expedia travel is carved OUT of the cap language and behaves differently from the other 1% categories. Interest rates render as placeholder tokens (RDS%rate[2].VSDIV.Published) on the live product page; rates taken from PDF 11995-en instead.
Our verdict
As a free card this is solid. 2% on groceries and 1% across fuel, transit, dining and bills covers most of a household budget, and CIBC asks for only $15,000 of household income, which is among the most accessible in this comparison.
The caps are the part CIBC handles badly. The product page states there is no limit on the cash back you can earn. The benefit guide sets two counters running in parallel, $30,000 of total purchases or $20,000 of bonus category purchases, and the accelerated rates end when either one fills. Both reset after the December statement. Where an issuer contradicts itself we record what the contract says, which is why our numbers are lower than CIBC's page implies.
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Where this came from. CIBC product page; CIBC Dividend Visa benefit guide (dividend-bengd-en.pdf); CIBC Dividend Visa certificate of insurance (dividend-ins-en.pdf); CIBC Credit Card Summary of Annual Interest Rates and Fees 11995-en, effective 1 Aug 2026. We take every figure from the issuer’s own pages, never from another comparison site, and we leave a field blank rather than guess at it.