I am confused

todayisagreatday

I feel like an idiot for asking this...

I opened my first ISA earlier this year and just paid in enough that I am at my £20k allowance and Trading 212 shows up that I have £20,230 including the interest.

My question is if I transfer the £20k in 212 to another ISA after 6 April to get a better rate does this mean it is classed as a new ISA for the tax year so basically by transferring it I then have opened a new ISA for 2026/2027?

I know on April 6 I can open a new ISA and had planned to put £12k tax free into that which I will have by April 26 but if I transfer the money in the 212 to another ISA does that then prevent me from opening and depositing money in a new ISA.

Is transferring ISA to ISA different than opening a complete new one at eaxh tax year? I am so confused... 

jak22

You can open as many ISAs as you like, as long as you only add "subscribe" up to 20K new money in total each tax year. Transfers of previous years and interest dont count.

The basic principles are quite simple, confusion is maybe because there isnt an official list of FAQs to answer every possible question, and each bank has their own T&Cs which might limit transfers in or how many accounts can be opened for example.

jimjames

Lots of related questions!

Transfers don't count as new money and you can transfer without affecting any new allowance. You don't need to wait until April to transfer, you can do that at any time. You also don't need to restrict yourself to only transferring the original £20k, you can also transfer interest so you don't lose the tax free benefit of that money inside an ISA. At the moment the limit for 2026/27 is £20k so if you have the full amount you can add that rather than being limited to £12k so you would have overall £40230 inside the ISA wrapper after 6th April 2026.

There's loads of useful ISA Q&A on this forum so have a read through and it might answer other questions you've not yet thought of!

todayisagreatday

Thank you so much. That is really helpful info re the transfer, so now I understand transfer is seperate to opening a new ISA but obviously I need to read rules on transfer etc.

I also didnt realise that it was still 20k for 2026/2027 which is great too. I think I will wait til April to transfer the 212 as I think the rate is still good.

We are likely to only need any ISAs til Jan 2028 as that is when our fixed rate is up on the mortage and we are hoping to pay it off. We have 40k in our ISAs so just another £85k to save 😭

p00hsticks

A couple of important points to bear in mind ..

1. Not all ISAs will accept transfers in, so check if they will before opening. 
2. When transferring an ISA, let the financial institution you are transferring to handle the transfer. (If you withdraw the money from the old one yourself it loses it's ISA status and you will only be able to pay it into a new ISA by using your current years ISA allowance. 

Albermarle

todayisagreatday said:

Thank you so much. That is really helpful info re the transfer, so now I understand transfer is seperate to opening a new ISA but obviously I need to read rules on transfer etc.

I also didnt realise that it was still 20k for 2026/2027 which is great too. I think I will wait til April to transfer the 212 as I think the rate is still good.

We are likely to only need any ISAs til Jan 2028 as that is when our fixed rate is up on the mortage and we are hoping to pay it off. We have 40k in our ISAs so just another £85k to save 😭

If you have some time over the Xmas holidays, a good read through this forum would be informative for you on all kinds of ISA questions.