Canadians are buying ebooks in steady numbers according to a new BookNet Canada study, which offers a deeper dive into the buying and borrowing habits of Canadian ebook readers.

By Andrew Richard Albanese, Editor-in-Chief

Canadians are reading ebooks—nearly 14% of all books purchased by Canadians in 2025 were ebooks and 71% of Canadians reported reading an ebook in 2025, according to data recently compiled by BookNet Canada. Now, a new BookNet Canada study is offering a deeper dive into the buying and borrowing habits of Canadian ebook readers. Among the findings in BookNet Canada’s Scrolling stories: Ebook Use in Canada 2025, released this month:

• 34% of all Canadian book buyers bought ebooks and 29% of all Canadian book borrowers borrowed ebooks last year.
• Canadian ebook buyers spent an average of $11.85 per ebook in 2025.
• 41% of Canadian ebook buyers were motivated by “a good price, offer, or promo” compared with only 29% of Canadian book buyers.
• 55% of Canadian ebook borrowers said saving money was the reason they borrowed ebooks.
• Over half of all Canadian ebook readers (59%) in 2025 read between 1-5 ebooks last year.
• The largest share of ebook readers (36%) used their phones to read their books.
• Most ebooks purchased by Canadian ebook buyers in 2025 (83%) were adult books, followed by YA books (15%) with Children’s books representing just 2% of ebook purchases.
• Year over year, ebook purchases have “remained steady,” representing less than a third of all book purchases: “28% in 2023; up to 29 in 2024, and 30% in 2025.”

In terms of borrowers, “29% of all Canadian book borrowers borrowed ebooks” in 2025, with “half of all books borrowed from the library” by “ebook borrowers” in 2025 being ebooks (50%), followed by print (32%) and audio (18%). Overall, 17% of books borrowed by Canadians book borrowers were ebooks, compared to print (74%) and audio (9%).

The study also found that fiction dominated among Canadian ebook readers: 71% of purchases were fiction, and 29% nonfiction.

Within those purchases, romance led the way among fiction purchases for ebook readers, accounting for 19% of ebook purchases vs. 10% of all book purchases; followed by thrillers, (16% of ebook purchases vs. 16% of all book purchases); fantasy (13% of ebook purchases vs. 17% of all purchases); and mysteries (13% of ebook purchases, also level with other format purchases).

The most popular nonfiction subjects were self-help (21% of ebook purchases vs. 19% of all purchases); history (16% of ebook purchases vs. 13% of all purchases) and biography and memoir (15% of ebook purchases vs. 20% of all purchases).

The study is based on “published and unreleased data” collected for two BookNet Canada publications: the annual Canadian Leisure & Reading Study 2025 (which queries Canadians about how they spent their leisure time in 2025, with a focus on reading) and which identified 718 participants as “ebook readers” out of 1,278 total respondents; and the Canadian Book Consumer Study 2025, which was fielded twice in 2025 (in July and December) and identified 327 “ebook buyers” and 135 Canadian “ebook borrowers.”

The full report is free and available here.