Transferring Help to Buy ISA to LISA 29 November 2020 at 10:46PM in ISAs & Tax-free Savings 2 replies 118 views

AndreasAnsell

A couple months ago I transferred my Nationwide Help to Buy ISA to my Moneybox LISA (around £3000). The balance transferred were savings made into the Help to Buy ISA in the tax year 19/20. I have just tried to transfer some money into my LISA for it to fail and state that I will go over the £4000 savings limit. I thought that any savings made in the previous tax year doesn’t count towards the current tax year’s limit? Please help! Thanks

eskbanker

In general you can transfer money between ISAs without it counting towards the £20K annual ISA contribution limit, but the LISA-specific limit is different and you can only put in up to £4K in any tax year regardless of whether this is new money or transfers from other ISAs.

masonic

As eskbanker says, transfers from other types of ISA to a LISA count towards the LISA £4k limit, so after the £3k transfer you have £1k remaining for this tax year. After that, you still potentially have £19k of your annual allowance available to contribute to other types of ISA.