This study represents the first attempt to examine the spatial and seasonal variations of the surface water budget by using state-of-the-art datasets for sixteen large Canadian drainage basins with a total area of 3.2 million km2. The datasets used include two precipitation grids produced using measurements and reanalysis models, land surface evapotranspiration and water surface evaporation estimated using the EALCO model, streamflow measured at hydrometric stations, and total water storage change derived from GRACE satellite observations. The monthly water imbalance resulted from these datasets varied from 7.0 mm month−1 to 21 mm month−1 among the studied basins, which was 30% on average of the corresponding monthly precipitation. The accumulated water budget imbalance over the 7 years of 2002–2008 varied from close to zero to ±10 mm month−1. The positive and negative imbalances among the sixteen basins were largely offset and the all-basin imbalance was very close to 0. The uncertainties in precipitation, streamflow, evapotranspiration and total water storage change all contributed to the water budget imbalance and their relative magnitudes were found to vary with basin and season. In most cases, precipitation showed the largest uncertainties, which had similar magnitudes to the water budget imbalances. While improvements are noted in comparison with previous water budget studies over the regions, the water imbalance obtained for some basins is quite large, suggesting that considerable improvements in both the observation networks and models are necessary before the water budget closure can be substantially improved over this region.