Cash ISA limits are set to be slashed under new rules, but not until April 2027. For April 2026, next month, the limits will remain the same as before, at £20,000 per financial year.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves changed Cash ISA rules so that from next year, savers won’t be able to deposit more than £12,000 of tax-free cash. The £20,000 overall limit will still be in place, but savers will be forced to keep at least £8,000 of the money in a Stocks and Shares ISA instead, in a bid to boost investing. For older investers aged over 60, an exemption is in place so that pensioners don’t need to put money away in shares.
But with the limit for cash remaining at £20,000 for one more tax year, those with cash to hand have been given the green light to save up to another £40,000 between now and next April.
Money expert Martin Lewis last year explained how you could add £40,000 to a Cash ISA between this time and next April, and then more money on top next April even if Cash ISA limits are changed later this year.
Now, before April 6 2026: Add up to £20,000 to Cash ISA.
Between April 6 2026 and April 6 2027: Add another £20,000 to Cash ISA
After April 6 2027: Add £12,000 to Cash ISA under the new limits.
It means that savers are free to stash up to £20,000 into their tax-free Cash ISA by April 5, as long as they haven’t already maxed out their allowance in existing ISAs so far this tax year.
They will then also have another £20,000 allowance open to them from April 6, 2025 until April 5, 2026, as any changes that do come in future, if they come, will not be implemented before the following tax year, 2026-27.
Households held £207 billion in cash Isas at the end of September, marking a 14% increase on a year earlier, as people continued to build up “precautionary buffers against an uncertain economic backdrop”, according to a banking and finance industry trade association.
Some £295 billion was also held in savings accounts for which notice has to be given, which was a 10% annual rise, UK Finance said.
The figures were released as part of UK Finance’s household finance review for the third quarter of 2025.
UK Finance said that households were saving as a precaution, even as savings rates drifted lower.
