Market Data

When the Loonie Moves: How CAD/USD Swings Reprice Every Order You Place in Canada

A one-cent shift in the Canadian dollar can quietly add thousands to a six-figure purchase order. Here's how to translate exchange-rate moves into landed cost before you sign.

At 1.4132 Canadian dollars per U.S. dollar as of Jul 10, 2026, a U.S. manufacturer pays about $0.708 for each Canadian dollar invoiced, so a CA$100,000 order costs roughly $70,761, according to the Federal Reserve's H.10 exchange-rate release. If the loonie strengthened to 1.35, that same order would jump to about $74,074, a 4.7% cost increase with no change in the underlying price. That single division is the entire discipline of buying from Canada, and it is skipped on a remarkable share of purchase orders.

How to read the quote

The H.10 convention quotes the pair as Canadian dollars per one U.S. dollar. A higher number means a weaker loonie and cheaper Canadian invoices for a dollar buyer; a lower number means the opposite. To convert a Canadian-dollar invoice into U.S. dollars, divide by the rate, do not multiply. At today's 1.4132, dividing CA$100,000 by the rate gives about $70,761. The most common spreadsheet error in cross-border procurement is multiplying instead, which at this level misstates the cost by roughly a factor of two and usually surfaces only when accounts payable settles the wire. The second most common error is pulling the rate once a year: the pair has moved between 1.3927 and 1.4237 just across the archived daily readings, and multi-year swings are far wider.

CAD per USD, Jul 10, 2026 (Federal Reserve H.10): 1.4132. Traded between 1.3927 (Jun 10, 2026) and 1.4237 (Jun 24, 2026) across the archived daily readings.

Where the exposure actually sits

Whether the rate matters to you depends on which currency the contract names. If your Canadian supplier invoices in U.S. dollars, the supplier carries the currency risk, but you pay for it, because the quoted price embeds a buffer against loonie strength. If the invoice is in Canadian dollars, the risk is yours between purchase order and payment, and standard net-60 terms leave a two-month window in which the rate can move against you. USMCA keeps most qualifying goods tariff-free across this border, which makes currency the largest variable line in Canadian landed cost for many buyers, bigger than freight on dense goods like metals, and unlike freight it can move in your favor. Controllers should also note the accounting wrinkle: a CAD-denominated payable is remeasured at settlement, so the gap between the booking rate and the payment rate lands in the P&L as an FX gain or loss whether or not anyone planned for it.

Divide, don't multiply, and check which currency the contract names before assuming the risk is someone else's.

What a one-cent move costs

Work the sensitivity before signing. On a CA$100,000 order at today's 1.4132, the dollar cost is about $70,761. If the loonie firms by just one cent, the rate slipping to 1.40, the same order costs about $504 more. A rebound to 1.35 adds roughly $3,313. Scale those figures to your annual Canadian spend and you have the size of the exposure worth managing: on CA$2 million a year, the one-cent move is about $10,086. The decision rule that falls out is simple, quantify the swing per cent of exchange-rate movement, then decide whether to hedge it, price it into quotes, or knowingly carry it. What fails is carrying it unknowingly.

Put the converted invoice, freight, and duty into the landed cost calculator to see what a Canadian order really costs delivered. Price the full landed cost

Published 2026-07-13.