Check if grants are available to increase your home’s energy efficiency and keep track of your renovation budget.
In fact, by joining a contractor’s program, you can also save money on renovations.
And don’t forget to check out the Best Price Guarantee on Home Depot, Home Hardware, Rona and Réno Dépôt for building materials, new countertops or a complete basement renovation. There are savings of up to 10% with some businesses.
Two or three times a year, IKEA has promotions to save 15% on kitchen and/or bathroom purchases, plus get a 10% back in IKEA gift cards on IKEA kitchen installation service.
Using a credit card to purchase materials and tools is an option. The right credit card will be used to optimize your spending. This is only valid if your credit card balance is brought to zero each month. The best ones offer air, hotel, travel or cash back rewards.
In addition, they offer excellent insurance benefits, such as extended warranty and purchase protection.
This way your renovations could help finance your next vacation!
Here are our suggestions for the best credit cards for home renovation projects. First, there are a few questions to ask:
Here are the credit cards accepted at various home improvement, garden centers and hardware stores:
If you have an RBC credit card, check your RBC offers. A few times a year, there are credits offered of up to 10% on purchases at RONA. You just need to activate it, like this one:
This way you can earn account credits for purchases made at Réno-Dépôt or RONA.
All this happens automatically.
It’s the best way to avoid headaches with home improvements! And in our experience, it even works for purchases from garden centers.
Choose the “Home Improvements” category to get 2% cash back quickly and easily on all purchases at hardware and home improvement stores, such as Canadian Tire and Patrick Morin in this example:
This also applies to :
We also tried a transaction for a container rental for renovation waste, but it wasn’t classified as being in the renovation category. So we didn’t get the 2% cashback on this transaction, unfortunately. Sometimes it’s trial and error.
The Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card has no annual fee and offers cash back.
With this limited-time welcome offer, you can earn an additional 10% cash back (up to $100) when you spend up to $1,000 on everyday purchases during the first 2 months.
You can choose two to three purchase categories that interest you (groceries, gas, home furnishings, renovations, recurring bills, pharmacy, etc.) to earn 2% cash back ! And there’s no annual cash-back limit. It is one of the best credit cards for renovations.
In addition, the Tangerine Mastercard offers several insurance coverages for your purchases :
Finally, during the first 30 days you hold the card, transfer credit card balances and pay only 1.95% interest on these balances for the first 6 months.
With this welcome offer for the Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite Card, you’ll receive up to 40,000 Scene+ points in welcome bonus (a $400 value):
Then, each year, if you make at least $40,000 in purchases on the card, you’ll earn an annual bonus of at least 10,000 points, a value of $100.
With the Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite Card, you earn 3 points per dollar spent at Sobeys, IGA, Safeway, Foodland, FreshCo, Voilà by Sobeys, Voilà by IGA, Voilà by Safeway, and Chalo! FreshCo, Thrifty Foods, IGA West, Les Marchés Tradition, Rachelle Béry and Co-Op.
You’ll also earn 2 points for every dollar you spend, including on foreign purchases, in the following categories:
The Scotiabank Visa Infinite Passport is an excellent Visa credit card for this type of purchase.
These points can be used against any travel purchase at the rate of1,000 points = $10 (flights, hotels, all-inclusives and even Airbnb). You can also redeem your points for cash back at Scene+, for example, at your local grocery store checkout at the same rate of 1,000 points = $10.
The Scotiabank Visa Infinite Passport also offers :
We voted this credit card the Best No FX Fee Credit Card of 2024 and 2025.
The Marriott Bonvoy® American Express®* Card is the best credit card for free hotel nights.
With this welcome offer, you can earn up to 110,000 Marriott Bonvoy points:
Take advantage of this exceptional offer before August 18, 2025!
It’s a card we recommend you keep, because each year at renewal, you’ll get an annual one-night free certificate worth 35,000 points, plus 15 Elite nights per year, counting towards your Marriott Bonvoy status.
With this Card, you earn 5 points per dollar on all purchases at Marriott Bonvoy properties and 2 points per dollar on all other purchases.
Last but not least, this Card comes with a wide range of insurances : baggage delay, baggage loss or theft, $500,000 travel accident, flight delay, hotel/motel burglary, rental car theft and damage, Purchase Security, Purchase Protection.
Like all American Express Canada Cards, there is no minimum income requirement.
With this offer for TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card, you can earn up to 40,000 Aeroplan points† and no annual fee for the first year:
It’s the best TD credit card for occasional Air Canada travellers. With the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card, you earn 1.5 points† per dollar of eligible purchases for:
This can comes in handy when you need short-term liquidity, especially when renovations are unexpected (like a flood or major water damage, for example)!
A credit card promotional offer may allow you to borrow money through a balance transfer or cash advance for periods of 6 to 12 months, at no interest or at a low rate.
For example, see this balance transfer offer from CIBC (for the CIBC Select Visa* Card) or this other balance transfer offer from MBNA (for the MBNA True Line® Mastercard® credit card).
Then you use the money to finance your project. However, we warn you to be very careful, because you have to respect the conditions of use. If you don’t, the benefits you’re hoping for won’t be to your advantage.
For more information, please see our article on “Using Credit Card Cash Advances Wisely“.
The CIBC Select Visa* Card is one of Canada’s best balance transfer Visa credit cards.
With this exclusive digital offer for this CIBC balance transfer credit card, you get :
You’ll only have to pay a 1% fee when you transfer your balance from another card. Once this promotional period ends, the standard card interest rate of 13.99% will apply to any remaining balance. This interest rate is lower than the rates charged by many other credit cards.
For example, you could pay for major purchases on another credit card (such as renovations, furniture or appliances) and transfer your balance to the CIBC Select Visa* Card to benefit from its 0% interest rate on balance transfers for ten months.
CIBC Select Visa* Card users can also save on gas thanks to the card’s partnership with Journie Rewards, which allows them to save up to 10 cents per litre at participating service stations.
The CIBC Select Visa* Card has an annual fee of $29 (with a two-year annual fee rebate) and requires an annual family income of at least $15,000 to qualify. Despite its lack of additional benefits, the CIBC Select Visa* Card comes with up to $100,000 in Common Carrier Accident Insurance and allows users to add up to three authorized users at no additional cost.
You can earn more points or cash back by purchasing home improvement store gift cards at multiplier stores!
For example, you could use the American Express Cobalt® Card to earn 5 points per dollar when buying gift cards at the grocery store. Points accumulate much faster this way, because otherwise you’ll only earn 1 point per dollar if you buy directly from the hardware store.
The following gift cards are available in grocery stores:
However, there are no Canac, RONA, BMR, Patrick Morin or Réno-Dépôt gift cards available in grocery stores.
By buying them there at the same time as your groceries, it’s as if you were also earning 5 points per dollar for your home improvement purchases.
For example, if you buy $500 worth of Home Depot gift cards at IGA with this Cobalt Card from American Express :
This 2,500 Membership Rewards points can be :
Or, you could use your Scotiabank American Express® Card Gold to earn 6 Scene+ points per dollar when you buy Home Depot or Canadian Tire gift cards at IGA.
Then use Scene+ points to reimburse your travel expenses, go to the movies for free and pay your grocery bill.
Renovations are a major expense in the life of a household. It is also a time when these expenses happen over a few months (between 1 and 6 months generally).
You need to leverage this large expense by unlocking welcome bonuses. Especially for cards that you would not have targeted first due to the high level of spending required!
For example, if you have $5,000 to $10,000 to spend at a home improvement or hardware store, you could rack up points as fast as a pneumatic nail gun:
One example is all those business credit cards that require you to spend several thousand dollars in 3 months. Some that even individuals can apply for.
After all that effort, reward yourself with your well-earned points:
There are several ways to take advantage of this important expense! Again, we remind you to pay your credit card in full each month. Otherwise, the interest paid will wipe out any points earned.
Avoid the “While we’re at it… “to avoid extra costs!
Savings are here (if you don’t see the sign-up form, please click here):
