£85000

vanillaspice

I’ve been reading the ISA and tax free threads but am still a bit confused as to the best thing to do with my cash ISA. It is a bit short of £85000 so I don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket.  You can only pay into one cash ISA per tax year but they all seem to say minimum opening amount such as £500 or £1000.  So this would be new money regardless of the transfer in. So I won’t be able to open two cash ISAs and only pay into one.  I’m not sure how to go about this.  TIA

eskbanker

Transfers in will generally be accepted as satisfying the minimum opening contribution, rather than having to pay new money in, but why would you need to pay new money into any more than one cash ISA anyway, if your concern relates to exceeding £85K in your existing one?

xylophone

You have an existing cash ISA with provider X holding close on £85,000?

You have not contributed to an ISA in this tax year?

You want to transfer  certain sums out of the existing ISA with X  into an ISA with providers J and K?

You should check with these new providers that they accept transfers in and the minimum amounts required. 

Then you can go ahead.

If you wish to make subscriptions in  the current tax year, then you would need to use only one of X or J or K OR a new ISA with provider  B.

Beddie

No need to over-complicate things. Just chuck it in one ISA and be done.  Next tax year you can open another one and add/move money there.

Albermarle

but they all seem to say minimum opening amount such as £500 or £1000. 
This can be a bit misleading, as most do not insist on this if you are transferring in from another ISA. I think though there are a few who do actually insist on you depositing a minimum amount of new money.

vanillaspice

I don’t want to pay new money in to more than one cash ISA but don’t want to exceed the protection limit which I will do if I leave my current one as is.  I can have more than one cash ISA but can only pay new money into one. But I’ll have to split it as it will go over the limit with higher savings rates.  The ISA’s I’ve seen all need a minimum opening amount regardless.  So I still am unsure how to do this as I don’t want to waste my isa allowance so still want to pay into one bit only one.

isasmurf

The minimum opening amount means by pay in or ISA transfer. I am not aware of any cash ISA that accepts transfers in that requires the minimum opening amount to be from your annual allowance.

You can pay into your current ISA and transfer some previous year money to a new ISA. If the new ISA requires a minimum opening amount of, say, £1,000 then you request a transfer from your current ISA of at least £1,000 to meet that condition. You don't need to put any money into the new ISA yourself to meet the opening amount condition.