Is there a penalty to withdraw from my Wealthsimple accounts?

At Wealthsimple, we don't believe in withdrawal fees. However, there may be certain tax implications you should keep in mind if you are withdrawing from either a qualified retirement account (e.g., Traditional IRA, Roth IRA) or a non-retirement account (e.g., personal, joint).

For retirement accounts, if you withdraw from your Traditional IRA before 59 1/2, you'll incur a 10% early withdrawal penalty, unless you qualify for an exception (which includes education costs, medical expenses, 72(t) distributions or for a first-time home purchase). Alternatively, you can actually withdraw from your Roth IRA at any time without incurring the 10% early distribution penalty. That said, if you withdraw from your Roth before 59 1/2, you may face a penalty; however, because Roth distributions are considered to come first from initial contributions and then from earnings, you can usually avoid the penalty.

For non-retirement accounts, withdrawing funds may trigger capital gains or losses, depending on if your assets were sold for more or less than the purchase price. Capital gains from the sale will trigger taxes, while capital losses can be claimed to reduce your tax liability. The tax you pay on capital gains is determined by the period of time you owned the assets (i.e., ETFs, stocks, mutual funds, etc.) within your account and are classified as long-term or short-term. For further details, refer here.