What is Total Cost Reporting?

Canada's new rules (sometimes called CRM3) that make your dealer report the ongoing costs inside your investment funds, in dollars, every year.

Indian Head Cove, Ontario
Who made the rules
The Canadian Securities Administrators and the Canadian Council of Insurance Regulators. CIRO adopted matching rules for investment dealers.
Finalized
April 20, 2023
In force
January 1, 2026, with no grandfathering
First reports
Cover the year ending December 31, 2026, so most investors receive them in early 2027
Where you'll see it
Your annual report on charges and other compensation: the yearly fee report you already get

Why it exists

Since 2016, under rules known as CRM2, your annual fee report has shown what you pay your dealer and advisor. It hasn't shown what you pay inside your investment funds: the management expense ratio (MER) and trading expense ratio (TER), taken out of a fund's returns before you see them.

Regulators said there was no requirement to report these costs after the initial sale "in a form which is specific to the individual's holdings and easily understandable." Total Cost Reporting closes that gap.

What your annual report must now include

For the investment funds you owned during the year:

  1. Total fund expenses, in dollars. Management and trading costs, including performance fees and net of any waivers or rebates, for the days you actually held each fund.
  2. Total direct fund charges, in dollars. Switch fees, redemption fees and short-term trading fees.
  3. Total fund costs: the two figures above combined.
  4. Fund costs plus dealer costs: one total that adds the dealer charges you already see under CRM2.
  5. A fund expense ratio for each fund you hold: MER plus TER, as a percentage.

The report must also tell you when figures are approximations, and flag products whose costs aren't included.

What's covered

Mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), scholarship plans and foreign funds offered to Canadians. Segregated funds sold by insurers are covered by parallel guidance from insurance regulators, adopted province by province.

Some products are deliberately left out, and some costs aren't counted as costs at all. See what Total Cost Reporting still won't show →

What it means for you

For many investors, the first report will be the first time they see their fund costs as a dollar figure, and it's often larger than expected because it sits on top of the advisory fee.

The report still won't combine everything into one all-in rate for your account.

See your all-in rate

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Check my all-in cost

Sources