Scotiabank · Visa
Business card
Best business card for spending abroad
The only Canadian business card that charges nothing on foreign currency. A flat 1.5 Scene+ points a dollar, six lounge visits a year and a $199 fee that pays for itself on about $8,000 of foreign spend.
Rates and features verified 2026-08-18Full terms and conditionsHow we research cards
What we like, and what we don’t
Worth having
- No foreign transaction fee at all, which is unique among Canadian business cards
- Flat 1.5 points a dollar on every purchase with no categories to track and no cap
- Six complimentary airport lounge visits a year through the Visa Infinite programme
- One employee card included free
- Travel medical insurance and rental car collision damage cover are included
- Scene+ points are worth exactly a cent, so there is no guessing what you have earned
Watch out for
- The $199 fee is only waived in the first year for physicians, dentists and certain professionals
- Scene+ has no transfer partners, so 1.5 points is 1.5% and never more
- Employee cards past the first cost $50 each, which adds up on a team
- Lounge visits past the sixth cost US$32
- Scotiabank requires a personal guarantee
What this card earns
- Everything else
- 1.5x
- What we value a point at
- 1¢
The earning fine print
1.5 Scene+ points a dollar on everything, with no categories and no cap. Scene+ is fixed at a cent a point with no transfer partners, so 1.5 points is 1.5% and there is no clever redemption that turns it into more. That is not the reason to hold this card. The reason is the 0% foreign transaction fee, which is worth 2.5% on every dollar of foreign currency spend and dwarfs the earn rate for any business buying from abroad.
Fees and interest rates
- Annual fee
- $199
- Employee card
- $50
- Employee cards included
- 1
- Foreign transaction fee
- None
- Purchase APR
- 19.99%
- Cash advance APR
- 22.99%
Who can get this card
- Personal guarantee required
- Yes you are personally liable for the balance
Insurance and benefits
- Travel medical
- $1,000,000 first 25 days of a trip
- Rental car damage waiver
- Included
- Airport lounge
- 6 free visits a year
What the benefits really mean
The 0% foreign transaction fee is the entire case for this card and Scotiabank states it plainly. Six lounge visits a year come through the Visa Infinite programme, after which visits are US$32 each. One employee card is included and further cards are $50 each. The first year fee waiver applies only to physicians, dentists and certain other professionals, not to businesses generally. A personal guarantee is required.
Our verdict
If your business buys anything in a foreign currency, this is the card and the arithmetic is not close. The standard 2.5% conversion charge on $50,000 of US dollar supplier payments is $1,250 a year. This card charges nothing, so the $199 fee is repaid roughly four times over before you count a single point.
If your business spends entirely in Canadian dollars, the case collapses. A flat 1.5% in a fixed value programme for $199 is worse than the free BMO CashBack Business, and Scene+ gives you no way to redeem your way out of that. The first year fee waiver is real but it is restricted to physicians, dentists and a short list of professionals, so most applicants pay from day one.
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Where this came from. scotiabank.com small business credit card pages and card agreement, checked 2026-08-18. 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.