How do the 2024 ISA changes affect me?

In April 2024, the government made changes to how ISAs work. 
You can read the full report on the Tax-Free savings newsletter. We’ve covered four of the main changes below and how they affect your Shawbrook ISA.

The changes were introduced to provide more flexibility and choice for customers, but you should be aware that not all ISA providers will be participating in all of the changes and you should read the key product information relating to the account together with the terms and conditions.  

Until April 2024, you could make deposits into just one cash ISA at a time.

If you were moving a cash ISA to Shawbrook that you’d contributed to in the current tax year, you would have to close your old cash ISA and transfer the funds to your new cash ISA. 
The 2024 changes mean that you can save into as many cash ISAs as you like at one time.

This could be useful if you want to keep some of your savings in a fixed rate ISA, but also want to keep some savings a little easier to access in an easy access ISA (both the easy access and fixed rate ISAs are cash ISAs).

Remember that the ISA limit is still £20,000, spread over all your ISA accounts. Having more than one ISA could give you more flexibility, but it could also lead to you saving more than £20,000 across your ISA accounts and not realising. This might mean you have to declare your savings in a tax return, even though they’re in an ISA.

Although the regulations now allow you to contribute to more than one cash ISA at a time, ISA providers do not have to allow you to operate more than one account with them at one time.

At Shawbrook, we’ve chosen to allow you to operate one ISA at a time. If you try to deposit more than £20,000 into your account in a tax year, we won’t accept the deposit. So if you tried to deposit £2,000 into a Shawbrook ISA account that you’ve already contributed £19,000  to in the same tax year, we would reject the whole £2,000 payment.

If you decide to save into other ISAs as well as your Shawbrook ISA, it’s your responsibility to keep track of how much you’ve saved with other providers, as we’ll only know how much you’ve saved in your Shawbrook account.

So, if you tried to deposit £2,000 into your Shawbrook cash ISA, but you’ve already deposited £19,000 into an ISA with another provider, we would accept the payment because we don’t know about the other ISA. 

Until April 2024, if you were transferring ISA contributions you’d made in the current tax year to a new cash ISA, you would have needed to transfer the entire amount. This was because you could only operate one cash ISA at a time. The 2024 rules allow you to contribute to more than one cash ISA in the same tax year, so if your ISA provider allows, you could transfer a part of your ISA allowance to another cash ISA, instead of the whole amount, keeping both cash ISAs open. This is called a partial transfer.

ISA providers don’t have to let you make partial transfers from an ISA. And you’ll still be bound by any fixed term rates or notice periods. 
ISA providers also don’t have to accept partial transfers in from other providers.

The conditions for making transfers from your account or accepting transfers into your account will be clearly set out in your terms and conditions. 

At Shawbrook, we’ve chosen to keep things simple. If you’d like to transfer your ISA subscription for the current year from your Shawbrook ISA to another provider, you’ll need to transfer the whole amount and close your Shawbrook ISA account. 

If your ISA provider allows you to make partial transfers, you can make a partial transfer to your Shawbrook ISA when you open your account with us. However, you won’t be able to make partial transfers to a Shawbrook ISA that’s already active. 

Until April 2024, you had to make a new ISA declaration if you had not contributed to your ISA in the previous year, or if you became a non-UK resident and then wanted to resume residency in the UK at a later date.

From April 2024, the law doesn’t require you to make a make a new ISA declaration if you miss a year or if you stopped your subscription while living outside of the UK. 
The ISA provider may still ask you to make a new ISA declaration, however.

Nothing is changing with your Shawbrook ISA. If you have not paid into your Shawbrook ISA account in a single tax year, we’ll ask you to make a new ISA declaration before you make any further deposits. 
If you became a non-UK resident, you will still need to apply for a new cash ISA account before we take any further deposits. 

Until April 2024, some companies allowed you to take out a cash ISA if you were 16 or 17.

From April 2024, cash ISAs are only available if you are over 18. 

At Shawbrook, you needed to be 18 to take out a cash ISA already, so this doesn’t change Shawbrook eligibility criteria.