To help you make sense of your options, we’ve compiled the best free courses—both online and in person—that deliver practical insights without the price tag. Read through your options and explore the ones that align with where you are (or want to be!) in your personal finance journey.
What did we look for when comparing courses?
Each course listed here must:
- Be free for Canadians
- Come from a quality educator
- Provide lessons that teach something useful and relevant to Canadians
- Be accessible, whether that’s online or in person in multiple locations
Read more in the full methodology below.
Best all-around free personal finance course
McGill Personal Finance Essentials
This course covers a wide range of topics related to personal finances, specifically for Canadians—all for free. Each of the eight lessons is taught by a different professor, which isn’t typical of most free personal finance courses. There are also bonus lessons about responsible investing and cryptocurrencies, as well as online multiple-choice tests and exams.
Here’s what’s included McGill Personal Finance Essentials:
- Budgeting and Saving
- Your Money: Today and Tomorrow
- Understanding Debt and Borrowing
- The Art of Investing
- Retirement Planning
- The Realities of Real Estate
- Behavioural Finance
We recommend regularly dedicating some time to the material so you can more easily pick up where you left off. Depending on your learning style (and how motivated you are to finish the course), you might enjoy the learn-at-your-own-pace format.
This is not a continuing-ed course, but you’ll receive a McGill Personal Finance Essentials attestation of completion certificate to add to your CV.
Learn more and register: McGill Personal Finance Essentials
Best free Canadian income tax course
Government of Canada’s Learn About Your Taxes course
When it comes to learning about personal income tax, there’s no better primary source than the Government of Canada. This free course on Canada.ca is great for anyone doing their taxes for the first time, starting their first job, or wanting to better understand how income tax all works.
It’s organized as mini courses with multiple lessons. There are seven chapters, ranging from 12 to 76 minutes in length, each containing a handful of lessons. You’ll know exactly how much time you need to dedicate to each section, so you can easily break up your study time. Here’s what’s covered:
Learn more and register: Learn About Your Taxes
Income Tax Guide for Canadians
Deadlines, tax tips and more
Best free course for managing debt in Canada
The Credit Counselling Society’s The Truth About Credit
Learning about debt is the first step toward managing how much you owe. The Credit Counselling Society is a non-profit debt-counselling organization that helps Canadians create debt management plans. The society’s on-demand financial education library is always growing and currently includes over 25 lessons. Each one takes about 5 to 10 minutes to complete. Topics include:
Through the credit course, you can learn about how credit works in Canada, as well as credit scores, credit reports, and how to access your own credit report for free. There’s some myth-busting, too.
Although you won’t get a certificate of completion, you can repeat these courses and access them anytime, on any device.
Learn more and register: CSS Learning Hub
Best free personal finance course for young Canadians
Desjardins Personal Finance: I’m in Charge
Desjardins is the largest financial cooperative group in Canada, working to support its members and help clients feel financially empowered. Desjardins accredits more than 400 instructors to offer what it describes as “objective and neutral workshops.” Each course is broken into a handful of modules and users can easily switch between different modules to learn about topics that matter to them.
These are the current courses or paths:
- Money in Everyday Life
- Finances and Peace of Mind
- Making My Project a Reality
- Decipher Savings and Investment
- Introduction to Financial Life
Each lesson takes 20 minutes and you can complete them in any order. There are 15 lessons in total, so if you choose to complete every course, it will take you five hours.
This course is great for residents of Ontario and Quebec who want to learn on their own or even as a group (the site encourages groups or classes to take the course). You don’t need to be a Desjardins client to sign up.
Learn more and register: Personal Finance: I’m in Charge
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Best free economics 101 course for teenagers
The Bank of Canada Museum: You Are the Economy
The Bank of Canada Museum is based in Ottawa, in the heart of Canada’s central bank. In October 2024, it launched this free course intended for students in grades 7 to 12. The lesson plans and workshop activities were designed for educators without financial certification who work with teenagers.
Adam Young, evaluation and education specialist at the Bank of Canada Museum, says the course was created to demystify the Canadian economy and to help make the central bank’s core functions easier for the public to understand.
