How many ISAs can I have?

You can pay into four different types of ISAs every tax year

Each tax year you get a £20,000 ISA allowance. If you want to, you can split your ISA allowance across the four different types of ISAs in any tax year.

The four different types of ISAs available to adults are:

• Cash ISA

• Stocks & Shares ISA

• Lifetime ISA (Only available to open between the ages of 18 and 40)

• Innovative Finance ISA (these are higher risk)

There are Junior ISAs for children as well but these have different rules.

You can distribute your ISA allowance across the different types of ISAs in any way you want as long as you stay within the rules (it is only possible to pay £4,000 per tax year into a Lifetime ISA whereas you can pay up to £20,000 into the other types of ISAs. From 6 April 2027, it will only be possible to pay £4,000 per tax year into a Lifetime ISA, and up to £8,000 into a cash ISA if you’re under 65).

As an example, Ms A uses her entire £20,000 ISA allowance. She chooses to pay the maximum £4,000 into a Lifetime ISA, £6,000 into a Cash ISA and the remaining £10,000 into a Stocks & Shares ISA. She doesn’t consider an Innovative Finance ISA.

Remember, it’s not all or nothing when it comes to ISA allowances. You can use as much or as little of your £20,000 ISA allowance as you want.

You can now pay into more than one of each type of ISA each year

From 6 April 2024, you can now invest in an ISA of the same type with more than one provider in the same tax year. For example, you can add money to a Stocks & Shares ISA with two different investment platforms.

Just remember that you can’t pay in more than £20,000 across all your different ISAs in any one tax year.

You can accumulate lots of different ISAs over a number of years

If you’ve already got an ISA account from a previous tax year, you don’t need to pay into the same one this tax year. You can open a new ISA account with a different provider without having to close your old one. Because of this, people often end up with many ISAs.

You can transfer from one ISA to another 

People often find it more manageable to have a smaller number of ISAs so it’s common to transfer from one ISA account to another or consolidate a number of ISAs in one account. Moving funds from one ISA to another doesn’t use up any of your annual ISA allowance but, when transferring ISAs, it’s very important that you don’t close the account and withdraw the money to pay into your new account. If you do this you will lose the tax benefits of your ISA. Instead, you need to transfer from one ISA to another without withdrawing your money.