Is Coinstar No Longer In Canada?

Long story short: I have about CAD$500 in loose change - I darn well hope there are still some Coinstar machines left up there. I plan on dumping the change on my next trip up north. Google says there are a few Coinstar machines left in Montreal. Can anyone confirm?

According to the Coinstar website there are a handful of them scattered around Montreal.

Thanks for all the tips.

I'd be surprised if Canadian Coinstar won't take the cents - I thought that was the first phase in collecting and smelting all the coins for their Alloy Recovery Program. Or maybe I'm just behind the curve as always.

Anyway, I think I'll sort the cents and roll the coppers. Another member suggested selling rolls of them (copper cents, not members) on ebay (just like we do with wheats in the US). I can do the same with the nickels - I have hundreds of those - so I bet I have enough older nickels for a roll or two. We usually only get 2x face on common wheats so I know I won't make a fortune - but at least these beautiful coins won't go to the furnace.

And I can spend the newer cents here in the US. That's how I got them in the first place - just years of digging through my pocket change! You should see my pile of one-cent coins from Barbados, Malaysia, Trinidad and Tobago, etc. All close enough to resemble the US cent.

Long overdue update, but for anyone who might come across this subject here goes:

I posted back in 2018 that I had about C$500 in loose change to cash in. Well, took awhile but I did it! Because of the pandemic I didn't travel to Canada for a few years, but back in 2023 I drove up to Montreal, found a Coinstar at a major grocery store and dumped all my pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Maybe C$200 worth. They charge 12.9% commission which sounds awful, but what else was I gonna do with all that coinage? Can't use it in the US and too hard to spend on a weekend trip to Montreal.

Anyway, I had sorted and counted all the coins by denomination. Started with the pennies, maybe a thousand or so in the bag, I forget. But the machine took all of them and was spot on with the tally. No complaints. Then the nickels, dimes, and quarters. Took awhile but all was rosy.

Got a paper slip with the total, took it to a cashier, got cash in hand no problem at all. Worst part was being there on a Satty morning so had to wait in line a bit. Oh well.

PS: I did not cash in my loonies or toonies! Those are easy to spend. Used them to buy meals at a couple restaurants. Waitstaff was glad to take them. Said change can be hard to come by some days.

Fast forward to today, end of 2025 and now I have another C$400 to cash in! Will drive back to Montreal in a few weeks, go to the same store, cash in all my coins again! Everything except for my loonies and toonies. Those I'll spend at the Christmas market, or on bagels, or on poutine, who knows?

PPS: I have C$92 just in quarters! In the old days people wanted those for laundry or feeding the meter etc, but I guess inflation ate away the value and most everything moved to cards or whatever. Oh well, the quarters too will go in the Coinstar.

The only problem with banks or credit unions is that at most
of them you have to have an account to make exchanges.

Does Coinstar in Canada have a gift card option? Here in the USA I can get Amazon or Apple gift cards with no fee, penny for penny. I traded in a few hundred dollars and got it on an Amazon card, which we used fairly quickly, saving the 9.9% fee here.

I miss walking by the machine and checking the return tray for foreign coins and or silver coins.
Quite often I would find a few in the tray.

Thank you for sharing!