Can I have 2 ISAs if one has never been used?

ikr2

Two years ago I opened an online cash ISA. I never had the funds to make use of it, never activated the online or phone banking elements of it and no longer have the paperwork. It has a zero balance and has never been used.

Can I open an ISA elsewhere now? I will only be using the new ISA, not the old one. I need to dig out the paper work to formally close the old one but would like to get the easy bit (opening a new ISA and putting money in it) out of the way first.

CLAPTON

you can open a new ISA each tax year
so after ten years you can have 10 ISAs.. all with money in and all earning interest
however you can only have one active ISA that you contribute to

so you don't need to formally close your unused ISA but you can if you wish

and assuming you haven't put any money into an ISA since 6th april then you can open a new one anytime.

Baldur

ikr2 wrote: »

Two years ago I opened an online cash ISA. I never had the funds to make use of it, never activated the online or phone banking elements of it and no longer have the paperwork. It has a zero balance and has never been used.

You can forget it, indeed you'd have to complete a reactivation form in order to make any subscriptions to it in any case, as no subscriptions have been made for a full tax year.

Can I open an ISA elsewhere now? I will only be using the new ISA, not the old one.

Yes.

I need to dig out the paper work to formally close the old one but would like to get the easy bit (opening a new ISA and putting money in it) out of the way first.

There's no need to formally close the old account, as per my comments above. If it has never had any subscriptions made, it's simply an account with the acronym 'ISA' in its title, not a Cash ISA.

jimjames

You can only put money into a cash ISA in the tax year that it was opened for. Once that tax year passes that years ISA allowance you haven't used is lost.

ikr2

Thanks for all the replies.