Investing for Physicians in Canada: A Practical Beginner’s Guide
Investing for physicians in Canada need not be complex to be effective. Most doctors don't fail because of bad investments — they fail because they delay, overthink, or overcomplicate.
Investing for Physicians in Canada: A Practical Beginner's Guide
Stop scrolling. This one's actually worth your time..
If you're a physician in Canada, you've likely spent years optimising your career — but very little time learning how to invest. That's not a criticism. It's a structural problem. Medical training doesn't teach personal finance, and by the time you're earning a real income, you're already behind on time, carrying debt, and trying to "catch up" quickly.
That combination leads many doctors into overcomplicated strategies, high-fee advisors, or decision paralysis. This guide makes the case for doing the opposite — and the data backs it up.
Why the "set it and forget it" approach wins
This might be the most counterintuitive idea in personal finance for high-achieving professionals: the less you tinker with your portfolio, the better it tends to perform.
The evidence for this is robust and Canadian-specific. The S&P Dow Jones SPIVA Canada Scorecard — the most rigorous ongoing analysis of active versus passive fund performance — tracks this consistently. Over the 1-, 3-, 5- and 10-year periods ending mid-2025, 87.5%, 95.9%, 96.0%, and 98.3% of Canadian equity funds underperformed their benchmark, respectively.
Read that again: after ten years, nearly 98% of professionally managed active funds failed to beat a simple index.
Over the 15-year period ending December 2024, there were no categories in which a majority of active managers outperformed their benchmarks.
.....Shocking, right?
And it's not just about picking bad funds. Among top-quartile funds as of December 2020, not a single fund remained in the top quartile over the next four years, below what you'd expect from random chance.
In other words, even when an active manager wins, it doesn't persist.
For physicians — who are already time-poor, analytically inclined, and prone to seeking "optimal" solutions — this data matters. The instinct to research, refine, and adjust your portfolio is understandable. It's also likely costing you money.
⏱ Time in the market, not timing the market.
Every month spent researching the "perfect" entry point is a month your money isn't compounding. The evidence consistently shows that consistent, automated investing outperforms active decision-making — even by professionals.
Why investing feels harder for physicians
On paper, physicians should be excellent investors. High income, stable careers, and strong discipline are all advantages. But in practice, a few unique challenges get in the way.
The delayed start is real — many physicians don't begin serious investing until their early or mid-30s, which creates a sense of urgency that leads to riskier decisions. Income ramps quickly but not always predictably in early attending years. Time is extremely limited. And when you earn a high income, mistakes feel expensive — which leads to overthinking or chasing "optimal" strategies instead of sticking to simple ones that work. Some get stuck in a 0.5-4% bank-led HISA vs the 10-12% annualised returns many ETFs could offer over a 5yr period.
The solution isn't a more sophisticated strategy. It's a simpler, more automated one.
A simple portfolio that works: Index funds
| ETF | Issuer | Allocation | MER | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| XEQT | iShares/BlackRock | 100% equity | ~0.20% | Mgmt fee 0.17% |
| VEQT | Vanguard | 100% equity | ~0.20% | Mgmt fee 0.17% |
| ZEQT | BMO | 100% equity | 0.20% | |
| XGRO | iShares/BlackRock | 80% equity / 20% bonds | 0.20% | Mgmt fee now 0.17% |
| VGRO | Vanguard | 80% equity / 20% bonds | 0.24%* | Mgmt fee now 0.17%; MER update pending |
Published MER reflects pre-November 2025 fee structure. Management fee has since been reduced to 0.17% — MER will update at next fiscal year end.
Many physicians spend weeks trying to design the "ideal" portfolio. You don't need to. All-in-one ETFs dominate conversations among Canadian DIY investors for good reason:
I personally use VEQT and XEQT via Wealthsimple* — both are globally diversified. These are 100% equity funds that hold thousands of stocks across Canada, the US, international developed markets, and emerging markets — in a single ticker. Both have management expense ratios well under 0.25%. I am younger and am preferring to use 100% equity. The choice of bonds/equity is yours based on risk and approach to volatility.
For reference: Over the past 5 years, XEQT returned 12.86%/year versus 13.22%/year for VEQT. With a correlation of 0.98, they move nearly in lockstep.
XEQT's average annual return since inception has been 14.30%.
You buy one fund. It rebalances itself. You add to it monthly. THAT's the strategy. 😄
If you want a small bond allocation for smoother performance, VGRO (80% equity) or XGRO are the equivalent with a fixed income component — but for early career physicians with long time horizons and stable income, 100% equity is a defensible position, for me at least.
Getting set up: Wealthsimple makes this simple
The platform most Canadian DIY investors use for exactly this kind of investing is Wealthsimple*. Their self-directed investing account lets you buy VEQT or XEQT commission-free, set up recurring purchases, and essentially automate the entire process.
For physicians with a professional corporation, Wealthsimple also offers corporate accounts — meaning you can hold these same ETFs inside your corp, which is where the real tax efficiency lives if you're incorporated. I use Wealthsimple for my own investing — if you decide to open an account, using my referral link costs you nothing and helps keep this site going.
The barrier to getting started is lower than most physicians expect. You don't need a financial advisor to hold two ETFs and contribute monthly.
TFSA and RRSP: don't overthink the order for now
The most common question is where to invest first — TFSA or RRSP?
At a basic level: a TFSA lets your investments grow and be withdrawn tax-free. An RRSP gives you a tax deduction today but withdrawals are taxed later.
For most physicians:
- Early career / lower income years → prioritise TFSA first
- Higher income years → RRSP becomes more valuable for the immediate deduction
- Incorporated physicians → the professional corporation adds a third vehicle that often takes priority once you're generating retained earnings
A simple approach that works: fill whichever account you have room in, invest in VEQT or XEQT inside it, and automate contributions. You can optimise the order later. What you cannot recover is time out of the market.
Wealthsimple lets you hold both account types on the same platform, which simplifies tracking considerably. I personally started with TFSA, then my corporation savings account. It's easy to visualise across my TFSA, RRSP and Corp savings account.
The mistake that costs the MOST
It's not picking the wrong fund. It's not the TFSA-versus-RRSP decision. The single most expensive investing mistake physicians make is waiting.
-Waiting ...until debt is gone.
-Waiting ...until income stabilises.
-Waiting ...for a better plan to emerge.
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Each year of delay reduces the compounding window significantly — and that's a mathematical problem, not a philosophical one.
A physician who invests $3,000/month from age 32, earning 7% annually, will have approximately $1.8M by age 52. One who waits until 37 to start the same plan reaches roughly $1.2M at the same age. Five years of delay, $600,000 of difference.
The second most expensive mistake is over-managing. Passive funds in Canada have grown their market share from 10% in 2015 to 20% in 2024 — driven by a decade of evidence that consistent passive investing outperforms active fund selection across almost every time horizon. The professional investors are losing to index funds. You don't need to beat them. You just need to not get in your own way.
When to think about more advanced strategies
Once you have a solid investing habit, stable contributions, and consistent income, it makes sense to explore more advanced approaches — particularly around your professional corporation.
Corporate investing has meaningful tax advantages for incorporated physicians, but it only matters once the basics are in place. Trying to optimise the corporate structure before you've established an investing habit is the wrong order of operations. I am as above, already using a corp account, but this is a conversation for a future blog post.
Frequently asked questions
Should physicians use a financial advisor in Canada? It depends on complexity. A simple VEQT or XEQT portfolio via Wealthsimple is genuinely manageable without one. Where advisors add value is in tax planning, corporate structure, and behavioural coaching during volatile markets — not in fund selection.
How much should physicians invest? A common starting target is 20% of gross income once finances are stable. For incorporated physicians, retained earnings inside the corporation often represent the largest investable pool.
Are ETFs really enough? Yes. The data from SPIVA shows that over a 10-year period, 98.3% of actively managed Canadian equity funds underperformed a simple benchmark. A low-cost, globally diversified ETF isn't a compromise — it's the evidence-based choice.
What ETFs do Canadian physicians use? VEQT and XEQT are some of the commonly referenced among Canadian DIY investor physicians. Both are available on Wealthsimple and can be held in TFSAs, RRSPs, and professional corporations.
- This is an Affiliate link. I genuinely use and prefer Wealthsimple to other platforms and recommend this. Other platforms function well; my preference is based on my own user experience.
- Disclaimer: Nothing on this site is financial advice. I'm a doctor who got serious about investing and writes about what I've personally learned — for educational purposes only. Do your own research, know your own situation, and if in doubt, speak to a qualified advisor.
