ISA allowance 2025/26

What is an ISA allowance?

The ISA allowance is the maximum you can put into your individual saving accounts (ISAs) per tax year. For the 2025/26 tax year, this allowance is £20,000. This is a government-set limit that applies across all your ISAs combined, meaning your total contributions cannot exceed this amount while keeping your money tax-free.

At the end of the tax year, your ISA provider reports to HMRC the payments you’ve made. In Stocks and shares ISAs, including our Lifetime ISA, any income or gains you’ve made on your investments will be free of tax.

At AJ Bell, we offer a Stocks and shares ISA and Lifetime ISA (LISA), but not a cash ISA or innovative finance ISA. Read on to learn how the ISA subscription limit works, what happens if you exceed it, and discover some tips on making the most of your annual ISA allowance. 

Expert tip from Laura Suter:

"AJ Bell research found that if the Cash ISA allowance was cut to £12,000, most savers said they would put the £8,000 above this limit into a taxable cash savings account. By our sums, if that cash earned 4% interest a year (and assuming the Personal Savings Allowance has already been used), over 10 years an additional-rate taxpayers would face a tax bill of £9,349 on that extra cash sitting outside an ISA."  

You can divide your allowance how you wish and even pay into more than one Cash ISA, Stocks and shares ISA or Innovative Finance ISA at the same time. Just keep in mind that you can only pay for one Lifetime ISA in each tax year. There’s no ISA minimum amount you need to pay in each tax year, and many providers will accept regular payments as well as lump sums. 

What is the maximum ISA allowance?

In the 2025/26 tax year, the maximum ISA allowance for adults is £20,000, of which £4,000 can be paid into a Lifetime ISA. Junior ISAs have their own annual allowance, which is currently £9,000.

What is the ISA deadline for 2026?

For 2026, the deadline is 5 April 2026.

ISA allowance according to account types

AJ Bell’s expert tips on using your ISA allowance

1. Use as much of your allowance as you can each tax year, as it doesn't roll over
2. Secure your allowance by funding your ISA – investing the money can wait until later, when you're ready
3. Invest early in each tax year for the biggest benefit
4. Don’t forget Junior ISAs – a tax-efficient, long-term way to save for your child’s future
5. Open a Lifetime ISA if you’re aged 18–39 and you can enjoy a government-boosted way of saving for your first home or later life
6. Remember that both married partners get their own ISA allowance

More about ISA allowance and rules for 2026

When does ISA allowance reset?

On 6 April, your ISA limit is reset to £20,000. You don’t have to use the full £20,000 each year. Any remaining annual ISA allowance you have left over on 5 April will not roll over into the new tax year. Your ISA allowance is personal to you. So, if you’re married or in a civil partnership, you’ll each have your own allowance per tax year.

How many ISAs can you have?

You can pay into more than one individual savings account in a tax year, including accounts of the same type, as long as you don’t exceed your £20,000 ISA allowance. This applies to Cash ISAs, Stocks and shares ISAs and Innovative Finance ISAs.

If you’re thinking of paying into a Lifetime ISA, or a Junior ISA on behalf of a child, you can only pay into one account of each type each tax year – bear in mind the allowances those accounts have.

Learn about opening multiple ISA accounts

Expert tip from Charlene Young

“As you can now pay into multiple ISAs of the same type, it’s important that you keep a record of all of your payments. The ISA manager will only know how much you have paid to them. If you miscalculate how much you’ve paid into all of your ISAs during the tax year, you may end up paying in more than the allowance of £20,000.”

What happens if you go over your ISA allowance?

Even if you have accidentally exceeded your ISA allowance, you shouldn’t attempt to fix it by withdrawing money from one account. Instead, contact your ISA provider to explain the situation. They'll work with you to find the best way to fix it - though there may be a charge for any tax due.

If you don’t notice the mistake, HMRC will pick it up at tax year end when your providers send them details of the money they’ve received from you.

Inherited ISA allowance

If your spouse or civil partner dies, you can inherit the value of their ISA(s) on top of your usual £20,000 allowance. This is officially known as an additional permitted subscription (APS).

The amount of ISA allowance you inherit will be the value of your spouse or civil partner’s account at the date of death. Or if it’s higher, it will be the value of their account at the date it stops being a ‘continuing ISA’.

An ISA stops being a continuing ISA at the earliest of these three events:

• The completion of the administration of the estate
• The third anniversary of their date of death
• The closure of the ISA because all the funds have been withdrawn

To inherit someone’s ISA allowance, you must have been married and living with them at the date of their death. The inherited allowance isn’t available to children or other family members.

Time limits also apply. If you want to subscribe using investments you’ve inherited from your spouse’s Stocks and shares ISA, you need to do this within 180 days of the investments passing to you. You can also use the inherited ISA allowance by paying in extra cash to your ISA – which you’ll usually need to do within three years of the date of death.