How to Track Your Net Worth in CAD and USD

Short answer: pick one reporting currency, convert everything into it with a single consistent FX source, and write down which figures use today's rate versus the rate on the day. Do that, and "what am I worth?" becomes one number instead of two half-truths.

If you hold a US bank account, a USD brokerage, or both, this is the part of net worth that quietly goes wrong.

Why multi-currency net worth drifts

The classic setup is a spreadsheet with a USD column and a CAD column, and one cell holding "the exchange rate." You typed that rate in months ago. Every time you refill the sheet, you might update it — or you might not.

Three things break:

1. A stale rate. The USD balances haven't moved, but their CAD value has.
2. Mixed dates. Some rows got today's rate, some got last quarter's, and the total is a blend of neither.
3. No single number. Two subtotals that don't add into one trustworthy figure.

None of these are spreadsheet failures. They're a missing rule.

Rule 1: pick one reporting currency

Net worth is a single number, so choose the currency you think in — for most Canadians, CAD. Every asset and liability is then expressed in CAD, whatever currency it's actually held in.

The accounts themselves stay in their own currency. A USD chequing account is still a USD account; only the totals convert. That distinction matters, because it keeps you from "fixing" a USD balance into CAD and losing the original figure.

Rule 2: use one consistent rate source

Use the Bank of Canada daily exchange rate. It's free, authoritative, and published on a schedule you can rely on. Per the Bank of Canada:

• Daily average rates are published once each business day by 16:30 ET.
• Rates are expressed as 1 unit of the foreign currency converted into Canadian dollars — so 1 USD is quoted in CAD, not the other way around.
• They are indicative rates, taken from averages of aggregated price quotes from financial institutions.
• The data is available as CSV, JSON, and XML (the Valet API), so a spreadsheet or script can pull it instead of you pasting it.

The point isn't that this is the "true" rate — it's that it's one rate, applied consistently, from a source you didn't invent.

Rule 3: know which figure uses which date

Two different conversions are legitimate, and mixing them is what causes confusion:

Your net worth uses today's rate and will change as the dollar moves — that's correct, and it's information. Your spending history should not change when the dollar moves; it should keep the rate it happened at.

A monthly routine that holds up

Once a month, or whenever you want the number:

1. Update your balances from your statements (or import them).
2. Refresh the exchange rate from the Bank of Canada's daily page or API.
3. Convert each USD balance to CAD at that rate.
4. Add up assets, subtract liabilities.
5. Write down the date and the rate you used, next to the figure.

That last step is the one people skip. A net-worth number without the date and rate beside it can't be compared to last month's.

What to watch for

• Your total moves even when you did nothing. With USD assets, that's the exchange rate, not a mistake. It's the honest value of your position in CAD.
• Don't "improve" history. If you re-rate old transactions at today's rate, you lose the ability to see what actually happened. Keep transaction-date rates for history.
• More currencies are the same problem, more times. The method doesn't change — one reporting currency, one source, one date rule.

Software can do steps 2 through 4 for you. Chord holds a CAD or USD account in its own currency, keeps a Bank of Canada rate series (with a manual override when you need one), and shows one net-worth figure in your profile's currency. Spreadsheets can do it too — if you keep the rule written down.

FAQ

Should my reporting currency be CAD or USD? Usually the currency you spend and think in. You can change it later, but the totals will move with the rate.

What if the Bank of Canada didn't publish a rate today? It publishes once per business day, so weekends and holidays carry the last business day's rate. Note which date you used.

Is the Bank of Canada rate the rate I'd get at a bank? No. It's an indicative average, not a dealing rate. For net-worth tracking that's fine; for an actual conversion you'll get a bank's spread.

Does converting change my USD balance? No. The account stays in USD. Only the total you display is converted.

Sources

Accessed 2026-10-23.

• Bank of Canada — Daily exchange rates
• Bank of Canada — Background information on foreign exchange rates