ISA guides tagged “ISA allowance”

The usual ISA pitfalls are withdrawing instead of transferring, paying in over the allowance, Lifetime ISA age limits, and assuming protection that does not exist. Here is what the rules say about each.

A flexible ISA is one whose terms let you take cash out and put it back in the same tax year without using up more of that year's allowance. Whether an ISA is flexible is set by the provider's terms, so it is worth asking.

gov.uk says you cannot hold an ISA with someone else. Reading the limit as applying to each adult, giving a couple two between them, is this site's own interpretation. Here is how that works, with a worked example.

The ISA tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April, and the £20,000 allowance is set for each tax year. gov.uk describes no carry forward of an unused amount.

At 16 a child can take over as the registered contact of a Junior ISA, but gov.uk says money cannot be taken out until 18, apart from the terminal illness and death cases. At 18 the account turns into an adult ISA automatically.

HMRC's newsletter says the annual limits stay put until April 2031. A lower cash ISA limit from April 2027 is made in law but not yet in force, and a First Time Buyer ISA is only a proposal.

A parent or guardian with parental responsibility can open a Junior ISA for a UK-resident child under 16, a child aged 16 or over can open their own, and anyone can pay in up to the yearly limit. The money belongs to the child. This guide sets out who can do what.

How the annual ISA allowance works: what it covers, how it can be split across ISA types, and what gov.uk says about unused allowance.