How Canadian small businesses actually invoice and get paid — aggregated from more than 1,500 real invoices issued by 250+ businesses, August 2025 to August 2026.
Aggregated & anonymized · Updated August 2026 · Free to cite with attribution
Most writing about small-business payments leans on U.S. data, where credit cards dominate. Canada looks nothing like that. These figures come from real, anonymized invoicing activity on iBill.ca — a free Canadian invoicing and accounting platform — and describe how Canadian small businesses billed and got paid over the twelve months ending August 2026.
e-Transfer is the default payment rail for Canadian small businesses. Credit cards? Just 2%.
Half of paid invoices are settled within 4 days of being issued. The slow tail drags the average to 14.
The typical Canadian small-business invoice is about $300. The average — $2,300 — is pulled up by a few large ones.
One in four invoices is paid the same day it's issued — or earlier.
Share of issued invoices past their due date at the time of measurement (August 2026).
Invoices issued by Quebec businesses took a median of 18 days to be paid — versus 3 days in Ontario and BC.
Payment method share, among payments recorded August 2025 – August 2026.
| Payment method | Share of payments |
|---|---|
| Interac e-Transfer | 62% |
| Cash | 19% |
| Other / unspecified | 10% |
| Bank transfer | 4% |
| Cheque | 3% |
| Credit card | 2% |
This is the clearest way Canada differs from the United States: the payment conversation in U.S. small-business commentary is a card conversation, but for Canadian sole proprietors, contractors, and micro-businesses, e-Transfer is the rail that matters. Cheques — still a fixture of U.S. B2B payments — are down to 3% here.
Measured from the invoice's issue date to the recorded payment date, among invoices that were paid.
| Milestone | Share of paid invoices |
|---|---|
| Paid on or before the issue date | 26% |
| Paid within 7 days | 62% |
| Paid within 14 days | 72% |
| Paid within 30 days | 83% |
The median-versus-average gap is the story: most clients pay quickly, and a minority pay very late. Any figure quoting only an "average days to payment" hides the fact that the typical experience is measured in days, not weeks.
Survivorship note: these timings describe invoices that received a payment. Invoices that were never paid are not in this denominator.
Across more than 1,500 invoices totalling roughly $3.5 million CAD, the median invoice value was $300, while the mean was about $2,300. Both numbers are true; they describe different things. The median describes the typical invoice — a service call, a session, a small job. The mean is dominated by the occasional five-figure project invoice.
Roughly one in six outstanding invoices was overdue as of early August 2026. This is a point-in-time snapshot rather than a lifetime rate — invoices move in and out of overdue status as they age and get paid.
Provinces shown are those with enough businesses and payments to report without identifying anyone (at least 10 businesses and 100 payments per cell). Smaller provinces are excluded, not zero.
| Province | Median days to payment | Paid by e-Transfer |
|---|---|---|
| Ontario | 3 | 71% |
| British Columbia | 3 | 68% |
| Alberta | 5 | 68% |
| Quebec | 18 | 25% |
Quebec stands apart on both measures: payments arrive far more slowly, and e-Transfer — dominant everywhere else — accounts for only a quarter of payments. The two are likely related: slower payment rails and different banking habits travel together.
Quebec note: iBill closed new Quebec registrations in May 2026, so Quebec figures largely reflect activity through mid-2026.
Figures are computed from anonymized, aggregated invoicing activity on iBill.ca for the twelve months ending August 2026: more than 1,500 issued invoices and roughly 1,000 recorded payments from more than 250 Canadian small businesses. Internal test data and demonstration records are excluded. Draft and deleted invoices are excluded. Multi-currency invoices are counted at their Canadian-dollar equivalent.
No figure on this page is traceable to any individual business. Regional statistics are published only for provinces with at least 10 businesses and 100 payments in the period; smaller cells are withheld entirely.
Payment timing statistics describe invoices that received a payment (see the survivorship note above). The overdue rate is a snapshot as of August 5, 2026. Where a distribution is skewed we publish both the median and the mean, and lead with the median.
Interac e-Transfer is the dominant payment method: 62% of payments recorded by Canadian small businesses on iBill are e-Transfers, followed by cash (19%), bank transfer (4%), and cheque (3%). Credit cards account for just 2% of payments.
Among invoices that were paid, the median time from issuing an invoice to receiving payment is 4 days. 62% are paid within a week and 83% within 30 days. A slow tail of late payments pulls the average up to 14 days.
The median invoice issued on iBill is about $300 CAD. The average is much higher — about $2,300 — because a small number of large invoices pull the mean up.
15.7% of issued invoices were past their due date at the time of measurement (August 2026).
You're welcome to cite any figure on this page — in articles, research, presentations, or tools — with a link back to this page as the source. Suggested attribution:
Source: iBill.ca, Canadian Small Business Invoicing Statistics 2026 — https://ibill.ca/canadian-invoicing-statistics
Questions about the data, or need a cut we haven't published? Email support@ibill.ca.
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