You live in Canada, so your bank accounts are in Canadian dollars. If you have to buy something with the currency of another country, like the US, you’ll be exchanging your Canadian dollars into US dollars, regardless which payment method you choose (debit card, credit card, prepaid card, or cash).

https://www.scotiabank.com/ca/en/personal/rates-prices/foreign-exchange-rates.html

choose your provider

Check the rate at which you’ll transact with a couple of providers. Rates will differ among providers so make sure to do your research.

In general,

The rates you’ll see online at Canadian banks can be 3-4% less advantageous to you than at a currency exchange bureau.
When abroad, if you use your debit card to withdraw money in local currency at a local bank's ATM, there will likely be additional ATM charges and the exchange rate may also be less advantageous than at a currency bureau.
Avoid exchange bureaus at airports, train stations, and near tourist attractions – they will offer a less advantageous exchange rate and the risk of falling victim to pickpockets may be higher.
If you pay with a credit card, the rate applied to transactions will be even less advantageous, and you won't know what is actually is until the transaction is completed and posted to your credit card account. Credit cards charge additional foreign exchange transaction fees (2.5%-3.5%).

A display board at a currency bureau in Canada, say downtown in a cities or at an airport, may look like this:

before you exchange anything, ask your provider about the details

Is there a commission / transaction fee?

There usually is, something like $3.50 per transaction – regardless whether you exchange $100 or $5,000.
Several small transactions therefore end up being more expensive than one large transaction.

Is the commission / fee included in the exchange rate?

If it's not, you'll have to pay it separately - in cash.

What transaction size does the posted rate apply to?

Sometimes the posted rate only applies to a larger transaction size. If your transaction size is small, a less advantageous rate may apply.

How long does it take?

When you are preparing for a trip and plan to buy foreign currency in Canada, give yourself ample time. Not every Canadian bank or exchange bureau has every foreign currency available at all times. US dollars are almost always available, often in ATMs (if you're using your bank's ATM, you most likely won't have additional fees, but it's worth asking the question). For rarer currencies, you may need to pre-order a few days in advance. Call your bank / bureau to check how long it may take.

Does the provider offer any additional services of interest to you?

Some change bureaus offer a useful currency exchange service, if you exchange a larger amount – like above one thousand dollars.
If you don’t use up all the currency you exchanged, within 30 days of the original transaction you can bring back a portion, usually up to half of the original amount, and exchange it back to Canadian dollars at the same rate as the original transaction.

It is possible that you'll end up choosing a provider that does not offer the most faovurable exchange rate because:

They do not charge / charge a lower transaction fee.
They offer an additional service that is particularly useful or convenient for you.

the basics

When you exchange currencies, you hand in an amount of money in one currency (you're selling this currency) and receive a different amount in another currency (you're buying this one).

You can exchange currencies at a bank or at a currency bureau - in Canada, before you travel, or abroad.

Different ways of getting / paying in foreign currencies.

At a bank in Canada, you may see currency quotes presented like this online:

Back to Chequing Accounts

Back to Credit Cards

paying in foreign currency

before you shop or travel, do your research

Currencies are traded by professional traders all the time, 24/7. Exchange rates change all the time.

If don't exchange currencies frequently, it's a good idea to

do do some research before making a transaction.

Currency quotes can be confusing. So let's get it right the first time.

Let's say you are buying pens and paying with Canadian dollars. If you buy 1 pen for 1.34 Canadian dollars, you can ‘quote’ the price of pens as follows: pen/CAD 1.34.
Currencies are bought in the same way as pens. You could buy US dollars and pay for them with Canadian dollars. If you buy 1 US dollar for 1.34 Canadian dollars, the quote is USD/CAD 1.34. You could also buy 1 Canadian dollar and pay for it with US dollars. The quote would be CAD/USD 0.7463.
Currency exchange rates are ratios.When you divide 1 by 1.34, the result is 0.7463 (rounded to 4 digits). Likewise, when you divide 1 by 0.7463, you get approximately 1.34.
Just so you know, internationally the standard way to quote is USD/CAD, but in Canadian media you'll often see CAD/USD instead.

Currency rule of thumb #2 is: You are buying the first currency in a quote, and paying for it with the second.

Some people like to remember it in this way: the first currency in the quote is a unit of 1 (as in 1 dollar).

Before you transact, google the indicative exchange rate so that you know what number to expect.

You will not transact at this rate. It's for information only - it's an 'indicative' rate.

Where do you find indicative exchange rates? You can find them in many places, for example on Yahoo Finance.

https://finance.yahoo.com/currency-converter
You'll find there currency quotes for almost every country and currency combination imaginable.
Three-letter codes are used for different currencies: CAD for Canadian dollar, USD for the US dollar, etc.

Current exchange rate doesn't always tell the whole story. Download a historical chart of the exchange rate to get a better picture.Yahoo Finance's historical chart for CAD/USD, over the past year, looked like this:

This bureau is based in Canada so the board 'says' that all currencies are exchanged for the Canadian dollar.
Find the row of the currency you’re interested in – in our case the US dollar.
This bureau will sell you 1 Canadian dollar for 77.23 US cents. Because you've done your research, you know roughly what number you should expect.

If you wanted to sell Canadian dollars (and buy US dollars), the rate would be different. You’d have to ask what that rate would be because it's not displayed.

A particular exchange bureau/ bank will likely not quote all currencies in the world.
It's also possible that a bureau may give you one quote, say 'we buy', but will not be prepared to sell you the same currency (for example, because the currency is not common and they don't have it available).

If you're abroad, like in the US, a display board at a currency exchange bureau may look like this (the rates refer to that country's currency, in this case the US dollar):

This chart was downloaded from Yahoo Finance on July 30, 2020 at 3:07 PM. At the time, CAD/USD was about 0.75. As the chart shows, it was as little as 0.68 in March and nearly 0.78 in January.

In January you would have gotten almost 78 US cents for one Canadian dollar. In March, the Canadian dollar was weaker (which means the US dollar was stronger) and you would have only gotten 68 cents.

Currency rule of thumb #1: You always have to buy the currency quoted at a higher price than you'd sell it at.

If you bought US dollars with Canadian dollars and immediately sold them back for Canadian dollars, you would not end up with the same amount. You'd have fewer Canadian dollars after the transactions.

The difference between the two quotes is called the ‘spread’. It's the bank's (or another provider's) profit from the transaction.

When you're ready to exchange currencies, choose a provider who offers the most favourable exchange rate.

In this example, you’d look for the row that represents the Canadian dollar. Use currency rules of thumb #1 and #2 (above) to help you figure out that:

If you wanted to sell 1 Canadian dollar, the display shows that the bureau would buy 1 Canadian dollar from you for 73 US cents.
If you wanted to buy 1 Canadian dollar, the display shows that the bureau would sell you 1 Canadian dollar for 77 US cents.