ISA rules
ISA allowance: the £20,000 a year and how it can be shared out
Enter what you have already paid into each kind of ISA this tax year and your age on the coming 5 April. The tool shows what is left of the £20,000 and how much of it may still go into cash.
What is left of your ISA allowance
Allowance left
£7,000
| Used so far | £13,000 |
| Of which you can still put in cash | £7,000 |
| Cash limit for you this year | £20,000 |
| Lifetime ISA room | £4,000 |
Every adult who is resident in the UK can pay up to £20,000 into ISAs in the 2026/27 tax year, which runs from 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027. The same £20,000 applies in 2027/28, and the Budget of 26 November 2025 froze the figure until April 2031. The allowance is one pot shared by every adult ISA you pay into: cash, stocks and shares, innovative finance and Lifetime ISA, the last limited to £4,000 a year within the total. Since April 2024 you can pay into several ISAs of the same type in one year. From 6 April 2027 a new sub-limit applies inside the £20,000: no more than £12,000 of it may go into cash ISAs if you are 64 or under on 5 April 2028, while savers aged 65 or more keep £20,000 for cash. Money paid in during earlier years, and transfers of it, never count against the current allowance. Junior ISAs have their own separate £9,000.
Sums checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How the sums are done
One allowance, four kinds of account
The yearly limit is not a separate amount per account. It is a single ceiling on the money you subscribe across all adult ISAs, and GOV.UK describes it as something you can use in one account or spread over several. The four kinds are cash ISAs, stocks and shares ISAs, innovative finance ISAs and Lifetime ISAs. You can only pay into one Lifetime ISA in a year, and it takes at most £4,000 of the total. Everything else can be divided in any proportion you like in 2026/27.
The figure will not move for a while: the HMRC tax-free savings newsletter that followed the November 2025 Budget confirms £20,000 for adults, £4,000 for the Lifetime ISA and £9,000 for Junior ISAs until April 2031.
The cash sub-limit from April 2027
What changes on 6 April 2027 is the share that may go into cash. SI 2026/1018 caps cash ISA subscriptions at £12,000 for anyone who is 64 or under at the end of the tax year. The other £8,000 remains available, but only for stocks and shares, innovative finance or Lifetime ISAs. From the year in which you reach 65 the cash ceiling goes back to £20,000. The cash ISA limit page works out the year that applies to your date of birth.
| Case | Year | Cash | Stocks and shares | Lifetime ISA | Age on 5 April | Allowance left | Cash still allowed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All in cash | 2026/27 | £20,000 | £0 | £0 | 40 | £0 | £0 |
| Cash and investments | 2027/28 | £12,000 | £8,000 | £0 | 40 | £0 | £0 |
| Cash plus a Lifetime ISA | 2027/28 | £12,000 | £0 | £4,000 | 30 | £4,000 | £0 |
| Three types, room left | 2027/28 | £6,000 | £6,000 | £4,000 | 30 | £4,000 | £4,000 |
| Saver aged 66 | 2027/28 | £20,000 | £0 | £0 | 66 | £0 | £0 |
| Too much cash at 45 | 2027/28 | £15,000 | £0 | £0 | 45 | £5,000 | £3,000 over |
Two lines deserve a closer look. The saver who puts £12,000 in cash and £4,000 in a Lifetime ISA in 2027/28 still has £4,000 of allowance, yet none of it can go into cash. And the 45-year-old who pays £15,000 into cash ISAs is £3,000 over the new ceiling: the amended rules give providers a separate repair process for cash paid in above the cash limit, so the excess will not stay in the account as a valid subscription.
What does not use the allowance
Several movements of money leave the £20,000 untouched. Moving an existing ISA to another provider through the transfer process keeps the money's original year. Interest, dividends and growth credited inside the account are not subscriptions. The Lifetime ISA bonus is paid by the government. And money taken out of a flexible ISA can be put back in the same tax year without counting twice. By contrast, withdrawing from an ordinary ISA and paying the same sum in again later is a new subscription.
How many people use it
According to the annual savings statistics published in September 2026, 16,800,000 adult ISAs were subscribed to in 2024/25, with £135.7 billion paid in, and 64 % of those accounts were cash ISAs. The market value of all adult ISAs stood at about £952 billion. The cash ceiling of £12,000 only bites for a saver under 65 who would otherwise pay more than that into cash in one year; below it, nothing changes in practice.
For the tax an ISA saves on a given balance, compare both kinds of account in the main ISA calculator.