Ordering from Canada, charged in CAD or USD?
Typically, businesses always charge their 'home' currency, so if the shop is in Canada, you will pay Canadian Dollars. Normally you don't have any choices either. Your credit card company will convert it to your currency, using the current international currency exchange rate (pretty good), plus a potential fee between 0 and 5% - depending on your credit card (not so good). If it is a significant amount, or you plan to do that more than once, and if you have multiple credit cards, check first to see which one has the lowest international fee; 0% is not uncommon, but neither is 3 or 4%. If it's a 10$ thingy, it's probably not worth the time; but 4% of 1000 is already 40$... As of right now, the currency exchange rate is 1.33, so you would pay ~75 USD; plus the potential fee, 0$ - 4$. Understand that this exchange rate is floating continuously; it probably won't change much, but it will change.
"No. Suppose you have 100 Canadian dollars and the exchange rate is 2 CAD = 1 USD.  You use your 100 CAD to purchase 50 USD (in your bank account that is in USD).  Some time later the Canadian dollar grows stronger, so that now 1 CAD = 1 USD.  If you now withdraw your 50 USD and get Canadian dollars, you will receive 50 CAD.  You have lost half your money. If you want to make money on currency exchange rates (which is a risky plan), you should buy the currency that is cheap (i.e., ""weak"").  If, say, oil is very cheap, you don't make money by selling oil; you buy it and sell it later when the price goes up.  Likewise, if the Canadian dollar isn't worth much and the US dollar is, you should buy Canadian dollars, not US dollars, hoping to sell them later when the exchange rate is more favorable.  See also this similar question." "The OP does not explain ""what we pay for processing the transaction (cost of debiting the customer)"".  Who exactly do you pay?  Someone else, or your own employees/contractors?  I will assume that $0.10 is paid to your own employees. Dr $10cash from money people give you Cr $10 liability to them because it is their money in your accounts. Dr $0.10 cash payment of paycheques or supplier invoices Cr $0.10 income statement Operating Eexpense  Dr 0.20 liability to depositors for fees they pay, resulting in $9.80 remaining liability for their money you still have. Cr 0.20 income statement Fee Revenues" One can pay via Indian Credit Card. The card company will convert the USD and charge you in Rupees.  And when there are enough Indian websites that do domain name registering, any specific reason you are looking at eurodns. Use prepaid cards. You only have to declare, or mention, or convert CASH. You can get as many $500 prepaid cards as you like and carry them across. US Code only mentions cash, so even if customs thought it was peculiar that you had one thousand prepaid cards in your trunk, it isn't something they look into. Prepaid cards come with small transaction fees though. And of course, you could also use a bank account in America and just withdraw from an ATM in canada.  Finally, the FBAR isn't that much of a hassle, in case you did decide to get a canadian bank account. The US Federal Gov't doesn't care about all these crafty things you might do, as long as you are using POST-TAX money. If your foreign account earns interest, then you have some pre-tax money that the US Federal Gov't will care about. Transferwise gives an excellent exchange rate and very minimal costs. They save on costs by not actually changing any money; your money goes to someone else in the US, and the Canadia dollars you want come from someone else in Canada. No money changes currency or crosses borders, there is no bank transfer fee (assuming that domestic bank transfers, inside the country, are free), and they give an excellent exchange rate (very nearly the spot rate, I find; far better than many rates I find online for sending money across the border).  I sent money from the UK to Japan with it last week, at a fixed fee of about three US dollars (I was charged in GBP, obviously). About one tenth the cost of an international bank transfer. I just double-checked; at about midday on the fifth of October 2016, they gave me a rate of 130.15 JPY per 1 GBP, and then charged me two GBP to transfer the money. The rate that day, according to xe.com, varied between 130.7 and 132 ; basically, I don't think I could have got a better deal pretty much anywhere. As I type, this very second, they offer 1.33 CAD for 1 USD , and google tells me that this very second, the exchange rate is 1.33 CAD for 1 USD - transferwise is giving the spot price. I don't think you'll get a better rate anywhere else. The missing information is at the end of the first line: the price is from NASDAQ (most specifically Nasdaq Global Select), which is a stock exchange in the USA, so the price is in US Dollars. The all time low on the Canadian dollar was 61.79 US cents on Jan 21, 2002.  Yes, it will now cost you about US$1.01 to pay back a Canadian dollar, if when you borrowed you agreed to pay in their currency. I found the answer to what you're looking for in the PayPal Help Center. Refer specifically to the question PayPal - How much do you charge to my card when confirming my debit or credit card?.  Quote: We take the extra step to confirm your card so that we can verify that the   card is valid and that you are the card owner.  To confirm your card, we’ll charge $1.95 to it. After the card is confirmed,   we’ll refund the amount to your PayPal balance.  Here are amounts for cards in other countries:   If we can’t determine or don’t support your card’s currency, we charge   $1.95 USD to the card.  (Refer directly to PayPal for potentially more up-to-date information.) "The solution I've come up with is to keep income in CAD, and Accounts Receivable in USD.  Every time I post an invoice it prompts for the exchange rate. I don't know if this is ""correct"" but it seems to be preserving all of the information about the transactions and it makes sense to me.  I'm a programmer, not an accountant though so I'd still appreciate an answer from someone more familiar with this topic." Investors who are themselves Canadian and already hold Canadian dollars (CAD) would be more likely to purchase the TSX-listed shares that are quoted in CAD, thus avoiding the currency exchange fees that would be required to buy USD-quoted shares listed on the NYSE. Assuming Shopify is only offering a single class of shares to the public in the IPO (and Shopify's form F-1 only mentions Class A subordinate voting shares as being offered) then the shares that will trade on the TSX and NYSE will be the same class, i.e. identical. Consequently, the primary difference will be the currency in which they are quoted and trade. This adds another dimension to possible arbitrage, where not only the bare price could deviate between exchanges, but also due to currency fluctuation. An additional implication for a company to maintain such a dual listing is that they'll need to adhere to the requirements of both the TSX and NYSE. While this may have a hard cost in terms of additional filing requirements etc., in theory they will benefit from the additional liquidity provided by having the multiple listings. Canadians, in particular, are more likely to invest in a Canadian company when it has a TSX listing quoted in CAD. Also, for a company listed on both the TSX and NYSE, I would expect the TSX listing would be more likely to yield inclusion in a significant market index—say, one based on market capitalization, and thus benefit the company by having its shares purchased by index ETFs and index mutual funds that track the index. I'll also remark that this dual U.S./Canadian exchange listing is not uncommon when it comes to Canadian companies that have significant business outside of Canada. Have you looked at ThinkorSwim, which is now part of TD Ameritrade? Because of their new owner, you'll certainly be accepted as a US customer and the support will likely be responsive. They are certainly pushing webinars and learning resources around the ThinkorSwim platform. At the least you can start a Live Help session and get your answers. That link will take you to the supported order types list. Another tab there will show you the currency pairs. USD is available with both CAD and JPY. Looks like the minimum balance requirement is $25k across all ThinkorSwim accounts. Barron's likes the platform and their annual review may help you find reasons to like it. Here is more specific news from a press release: OMAHA, Neb., Aug 24, 2010 (BUSINESS   WIRE) -- TD AMERITRADE Holding   Corporation (NASDAQ: AMTD) today   announced that futures and spot forex   (foreign exchange) trading   capabilities are now available via the   firm's thinkorswim from TD AMERITRADE   trading platform, joining the recently   introduced complex options   functionality. Like Ganesh, I've used XE Trade - however I still do, fairly often.  I have never had a single problem with them regardless of the method I used to move money -- Draft, Wire, ACH, bill payment through online banking, etc. The type of trade I do most often is online bill payment to ACH -- i.e. I pay through my banking site and they pay through ACH.  There's no fee and it takes 2 business days to go through.  I do mainly CAD to USD conversions and I lose about 1.25 cents on the rate -- for example, if the CAD is worth 95 cents US, converting $100 CAD would get me $92.75 USD.  The banks usually take 2.5% or so, so it's 50% savings. It was free and pretty simple to sign up, all online -- and besides the standard info all they required was for me to upload a scan of a bank statement. As for an API, I have no idea if they have one. Would I have to pay some kind of capital gains tax? And if so, when? Converting Tax paid USD into CAD is not a taxable event. A taxable even will occur if you convert back the CAD into USD. If you receive interest on the CAD then the interest is also a taxable event. Also, is there any reason this is a terrible idea? That will only be known in future. Its like predicting that in future this will turn out to be advantageous, however it may turn out the other way. You shouldn't be charged interest, unless possibly because your purchases involve a currency conversion. I've made normal purchases that happened to involve changes in currency.  The prices were quoted in US$ to me.  On the tail end, though, the currency change was treated as a cash advance, which accrues interest immediately. Should I treat this house as a second home or a rental property on my 2015 taxes? If it was not rented out or available for rent then you could treat it as your second home. But if it was available for rent (i.e.: you started advertising, you hired a property manager, or made any other step towards renting it out), but you just didn't happen to find a tenant yet - then you cannot. So it depends on the facts and circumstances. I've read that if I treat this house as a rental property, then the renovation cost is a capital expenditure that I can claim on my taxes by depreciating it over 28 years. That is correct. 27.5 years, to be exact. I've also read that if I treat this house as a personal second home, then I cannot do that because the renovation costs are considered non-deductible personal expenses. That is not correct. In fact, in both cases the treatment is the same. Renovation costs are added to your basis. In case of rental, you get to depreciate the house. Since renovations are considered part of the house, you get to depreciate them too. In case of a personal use property, you cannot depreciate. But the renovation costs still get added to the basis. These are not expenses. But does mortgage interest get deducted against my total income or only my rental income? If it is a personal use second home - you get to deduct the mortgage interest up to a limit on your Schedule A. Depending on your other deductions, you may or may not have a tax benefit. If it is a rental - the interest is deducted from the rental income only on your Schedule E. However, there's no limit (although some may be deferred if the deduction is more than the income) if you're renting at fair market value. Any guidance would be much appreciated! Here's the guidance: if it is a rental - treat it as a rental. Otherwise - don't.