I am trying to keep my retirement investments as simple as possible, really I am. And this week, I finally reduced the number of providers I use from three to two. Most of my retirement investments (RRIFs, TFSAs, non-registered) are now held with Questrade, excepting one RRIF account I hold with Wealthsimple.

I had intended to be down to two providers back in March 2025, but then I uncovered a wrinkle in how providers deal with RRIFs and I ended up keeping 4 RRIF accounts over at QTrade during 2025. These 4 accounts funded my RRIF minimum payments in 2025.

One RRIF was moved to Wealthsimple in early November 2025 and this was an altogether painless experience, and I’ve been enjoying free money every month from Wealthsimple for my troubles. A good deal.

I waited until late November 2025 (November 26th, to be exact) before starting the transfer exercise from QTrade to Questrade for the remaining three RRIFs. And it took until this week (February 6th, 2026) before the assets finally showed up. That’s 72 days, a little over 10 weeks. Here’s a timeline:

• November 26th: Submitted paperwork electronically to Questrade
• On December 2nd, QTrade charged me the $150 transfer out fee on each account (plus tax).
• On December 8th, I got the following message from Questrade: “Please be advised that RRIF/LIF account transfers are subject to the industry-wide cut-off date, November 28, 2025. f you would like to proceed with your transfer request, we require a document showing that the RRIF/LIF minimum payment was made for the year 2025.”
• I submitted this proof (which, as I mentioned previously, was more than a little annoying) but nothing happened. After many calls to both Questrade and QTrade, I gathered that transfers at this point in the year were impossible. Of course, QTrade had already charged me the $150 plus tax transfer out fee.
• In the new year, I resumed hassling Questrade and QTrade support for updates. This was made more complicated by a free money promotion offered by Questrade, which meant their support desk, shaky at the best of times, became completely overwhelmed. I saw a series of cryptic messages in my transfer update that indicated somebody wasn’t responding to a followup. These cryptic messages disappeared from my status update last week, which I either took to mean progress or an attempt to cover up inept practices, I haven’t decided which yet.
• Anyway, without much fanfare, the assets appeared in my RRIF accounts on Friday, February 6th. My transfer status still shows “in progress”, for what it’s worth.

Anyway, I’m happy this latest transfer is done, but there’s still some tidying up I have to do:

• I have to make sure I know what Questrade will use for RRIF minimum for the newly moved accounts. That’s another call to support, regrettably. And since I missed a month of payments, I have to figure out how to catch up.
• I have to make sure Questrade refunds me the transfer out fees. I uploaded the documentation (which, I note, Wealthsimple does not require) to “prove” I was charged $150¹.
• I will check (again) to ensure all these RRIF accounts have a properly documented successor. That’s really important.

This last go-round was especially unsatisfactory since I got no free money out of it, which is really quite galling given how much is being thrown around these days².

Anyway, it’s nice to have a simpler view of my portfolio; Passiv gives me a unified view across Wealthsimple and Questrade, but since the relationship between Questrade and Passiv has come to an end, I’m not sure what that will entail once my free “elite” subscription ends in March.

1. Since every broker does this, this is 100% an exercise to prevent refunds to the unwary. . ↩︎
2. Just search this site for “free money” if you don’t believe me. ↩︎