Newcomers to Canada
You have income, savings and a rental history — just not a Canadian credit file yet. A Passport turns what you actually have into something a landlord can trust.
Ontario rental verification · Pilot now enrolling
Your rental history shouldn’t start at zero just because your credit file does.
Safekey gives tenants a free Verified Rental Passport, and gives landlords proof that was checked by licensed verification providers — not a photo of a pay stub. The first month’s rent is held in escrow until keys change hands.
Available across Ontario
No fee until rent moves
Built for newcomers & credit-thin renters
How it works
Two sides. One verified handshake.
Tenants build the Passport once and share it with any landlord. Landlords read it in under a minute. Everyone meets at the same protected first payment.
Tenants
Newcomers, students, self-employed, or anyone whose Canadian credit file is still thin.
- Verify your identity
A government ID and a selfie, checked by a licensed identity provider. Takes about three minutes.
- Connect your bank
Read-only access confirms income and deposit patterns. Safekey never sees your login and never moves money from this connection.
- Receive your Passport
A shareable, time-limited record. Your full bank statements are never shown to a landlord — only the attested facts.
- Pay first month’s rent into Shield
Funds are held in escrow and released only once both of you confirm move-in.
Landlords
Independent and small-portfolio landlords anywhere in Ontario.
- Request a Passport
Send one link. No forms to build, no documents to chase.
- Read verified facts, not PDFs
Identity, income and rent-to-income come attested by the provider that checked them. Nothing is hand-reviewed or guessed.
- Choose your tenant
Compare applicants on the same verified basis, with a trust band instead of a bare credit score.
- Collect rent through Shield
Pre-authorized debit from the tenant’s bank, released to you on move-in. Ongoing rent can keep flowing on the same rail.
Both lanes meet here: one escrowed first payment, released when both sides say so.
First-Month Shield
The first payment is where trust breaks. So we hold it.
The tenant pays first month’s rent into escrow before move-in. The landlord sees it’s funded. Neither side can pull it back alone.
- Two-sided release. Both tenant and landlord confirm move-in before funds release.
- Automatic release window. If nobody objects within 5–7 days of the move-in date, funds release on their own.
- Held up to 21 days. Long enough to cover a lease start, short enough that nobody’s money sits idle.
- Pre-authorized debit, not a credit card. Rent-sized payments shouldn’t carry card fees. Shield uses bank-to-bank PAD.
Escrow timeline
Day 0Day 7Day 14Day 21
Funds held in escrow — visible as “funded” to the landlord, untouchable by either side
Auto-release window: 5–7 days after move-in, then released to the landlord (day 21 is the hard ceiling)
Ontario tenancy rules apply throughout — Shield never replaces your lease
Pricing
Verification is free. Safekey earns only when rent moves.
No subscriptions, no per-applicant fees, no paying to see your own score.
$0to verify
- Identity check
- Bank-verified income
- Verified Rental Passport, shareable for 90 days
- Landlord access to every Passport sent to them
- Re-verify any time a landlord asks
When first month’s rent goes into Shield
3%
Tenant
of the first escrowed payment
2%
Landlord
of the first escrowed payment
Charged once, at the moment the tenant authorizes the first pre-authorized debit. On a $2,000 first month that’s $60 for the tenant and $40 for the landlord — disclosed on screen before anyone commits.
Who it’s for
Built for the applications that get ignored.
Credit-thin renters
Students, gig workers, recent graduates and anyone whose credit score says “not enough data.” Bank-verified cash flow tells a fuller story than a number.
Ontario landlords
You’re not a fraud analyst. Stop squinting at screenshots. Get identity and income attested by the provider that checked it, and a first payment you can see is funded.
Trust & privacy
What we do — and what we deliberately don’t.
Facts are attested by the provider that checked them
Every line on a Passport comes from a licensed identity or open-banking provider. Safekey staff never hand-review or adjudicate documents.
Landlords see facts, not statements
Bank statements, account numbers and transaction history never leave the verification layer. Landlords see only the attested results.
The trust band is computed, reviewed, and never sold
It’s built only from cash-flow factors, kept server-side, versioned, and reviewed against Ontario Human Rights Code protected grounds. It is never shared with data brokers.
Read-only bank access, revocable any time
Connecting your bank lets Safekey read, not move. Escrow payments use a separate pre-authorized debit you approve explicitly.
Insurance and deposit products come from licensed partners
Where a tenant wants insurance or a deposit alternative, Safekey refers to licensed providers. Premiums never pass through Safekey.
Every action is logged and retained
Verification, sharing, funding and release events are written to an audit trail kept for 24 months, so any dispute has a record.
Ontario pilot
Join the pilot.
We’re onboarding tenants and landlords across Ontario in small cohorts. Tell us which side you’re on and we’ll reach out when your cohort opens.