Is Proton Mail Canadian?
No. Proton’s about page says the controlling shareholder is the non-profit Proton Foundation in Geneva. Proton Mail is not described as storing mail in Canada.
Canadian email providers
Last verified:
Short answer
Canadian companies sell personal and business mailboxes that say the mail stays in Canada. NorthMail is the only one here with a free ad-supported tier at 1 GB. The rest are paid hosts. Proton Mail is often compared for privacy and is Swiss, not Canadian. For a Gmail replacement angle, see our alternatives page.
How this page differs from our Gmail alternatives list
This page is organized by Canadian provider and sorted free before paid mailboxes. It is for people searching for a Canadian email host, not only for leaving Gmail.
The alternatives page keeps the “replace Gmail” framing and lists the same hosts without this free-versus-paid sort.
Comparison
Verdicts use the digital services rubric, not the grocery score. A Canada region on a foreign cloud is not a Canadian operator. Notes about PIPEDA or the US CLOUD Act are not legal advice.
| Name | Ownership / parent | HQ | Data residency | Infrastructure | Free or paid | Pricing | Best for | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NorthMail | Homepage says it is 100% Canadian-owned. | Quebec City, according to the homepage. | Homepage says Canadian-hosted servers. The privacy policy does not name a city. | Unverified. The site does not say whether the servers are its own data centre or space it rents. Webmail uses Nextcloud. The privacy policy names Twilio for login codes, and Cohere only if you turn on the Castor assistant. | Free (1 GB, ads) or paid | Free ad-supported mailbox with 1 GB, or CA$0.99 a month for the ad-free plan with 100 GB, on the homepage. Pricing checked 2026-11-02. | A low-priced personal mailbox, including a free tier that shows ads. | Canadian-owned, hosted in CanadaConfidence: Medium |
| Proton Mail | Proton’s about page says the controlling shareholder is the non-profit Proton Foundation in Geneva. Not a Canadian company. | Proton AG, Route de la Galaise 32, 1228 Plan-les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland. | Proton describes itself as based in Switzerland. Mail is not described as stored in Canada. | Proton’s own service in Switzerland. Not a Canadian data centre. | Free tier exists; paid plans on Proton’s site | Free tier and paid mail plans on Proton’s site. Pricing checked 2026-11-02. | A private inbox when you have decided a Swiss company is acceptable. | Not a Canadian optionConfidence: High |
| Typewire | Says it is Canadian-owned and operated, and not funded by venture capital. | Vancouver, British Columbia. The site lists 1500 West Georgia Street, Suite 1300. | Says email stays in Canada, on servers in Vancouver. | The company says it owns and operates its own infrastructure, and that it does not rent Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure. That infrastructure claim is the company’s statement and is not independently audited. | Paid | Paid. Starter from CA$1.00 a month on the pricing page before prepay discounts; Basic from CA$6.39 a month before discounts. Seven-day trial. Pricing checked 2026-11-02. | A paid private inbox from a company that says it runs its own Canadian servers. | Canadian-operated, data in CanadaConfidence: Medium |
| OSMail | Says it is Canadian-owned and operated since 2011, and that OSMail is a product of easier.digital. | 42 Powers Court, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, on the site footer. | Says data is stored entirely in Canada. | The company says it is not built on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud, and that it runs its own infrastructure. The stack it names is open source: Postfix, Dovecot, Nextcloud, and Collabora. That infrastructure claim is the company’s statement and is not independently audited. | Paid | Quoted per team. Homepage lists a one-time email deliverability audit at 300 CAD. Pricing checked 2026-11-02. | A business that wants email plus files on a stack the host says it runs in Canada. | Canadian-operated, data in CanadaConfidence: Medium |
| Thexyz | About page says an independent, employee-owned Canadian company, founded in Toronto in 2007. | Toronto, Ontario. | Email hosting page says hosted in Canada. | Unverified. The pages we opened say hosted in Canada and do not say whether Thexyz owns the data centre. | Paid | Paid. 10 GB at $2.95 a month, 25 GB at $4.95, 50 GB at $6.95 on the hosting page. USD and CAD toggle at checkout. Pricing checked 2026-11-02. | Custom-domain email from a Toronto company that has published mailbox prices. | Canadian-owned, hosted in CanadaConfidence: Medium |
| PolarisMail | Says it is Canadian-owned and operated, in business since 2008. | Montreal. The about page says it is based in Montreal. | Says mailboxes are stored on servers in Canada. | Says it has Canadian data centres. The page does not say it owns the buildings. It argues that a US company with a Canadian data centre is a different case. That legal contrast is their wording, not advice from us. | Paid | Paid. Basic at $1.49 a month for 25 GB and Enhanced at $2.49 a month; Canadian hosting page says prices are in CAD. Pricing checked 2026-11-02. | Business email with published CAD prices from a Montreal company. | Canadian-owned, hosted in CanadaConfidence: Medium |
| Hushmail | Privacy policy: Hush Communications Canada Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hush Communications Corporation, a private Delaware company. This is a US parent. | Office listed in Vancouver, British Columbia. | Privacy policy says user data is stored on servers in Vancouver and Calgary, operated by the Canadian subsidiary. | Servers in Vancouver and Calgary, operated by the Canadian subsidiary. The policy does not say the parent owns the buildings. | Paid | Pricing varies by plan on Hushmail’s site. Pricing checked 2026-11-02. | Encrypted email with data in Canada, if you have read the US-parent fact first. | Foreign parent, data in CanadaConfidence: High |
Where there is no true Canadian option
There is no Canadian equivalent of a free Gmail account tied to Google Drive, Docs, and Android at Google’s scale. NorthMail’s free tier is ad-supported and much smaller.
Hushmail stores mail in Canada and says its parent is a Delaware company. Proton Mail is based in Geneva. Both are useful comparisons. Neither is a Canadian-owned operator.
Questions
Is there a free Canadian email provider?
NorthMail lists a free ad-supported 1 GB mailbox on its homepage. Typewire, OSMail, Thexyz, PolarisMail, and Hushmail are paid services on the pages we checked.
Which email providers store mail in Canada?
Typewire, OSMail, NorthMail, Thexyz, and PolarisMail each say email is hosted or stored in Canada. Hushmail’s privacy policy says user data is on servers in Vancouver and Calgary, operated by its Canadian subsidiary, and that the parent is a US company.
Does a .ca address mean my email is stored in Canada?
No. The domain ending is not the server location. Read the host’s own page for where the mailbox sits.
What is the most secure Canadian email?
Hushmail offers encryption with servers in Vancouver and Calgary but has a Delaware parent company on its privacy policy. We do not rank security on this site.
Sources
Primary pages opened for this check. Company marketing claims are cited as the company’s own words.