Like other ISA products, there is a limit to how much money you can put into a junior ISA (JISA) each tax year.
Find out what the current junior ISA annual allowance is, how it works and how it affects how much you can save.
What is the junior ISA allowance?
JISAs have a limit on how much money you can put in each tax year. This is called your JISA allowance and it’s a fixed amount set by the government that doesn’t vary between providers. JISA allowances reset every tax year end, just like for other ISAs.
Current junior ISA annual allowance
The maximum amount you can put into a JISA in the 2024/2025 tax year is £9,000. It has stayed the same since the 2020/2021 tax year.
The tax year is the 12-month period that the government uses to calculate taxes and organise finances and accounts. In the UK, the tax year ends on 5 April, with the new tax year starting the day after.
Previous junior ISA annual allowances
The last time the JISA annual allowance changed was in April 2020, when it went from £4,368 in the 2019/2020 tax year to the £9,000 that’s still active today.
Previously, the allowance had been increasing steadily each year from £3,600 in 2011, when JISAs were introduced.
Managing the junior ISA allowance
It is important to be aware of the JISA annual allowance as you could be fined by HMRC if you go over it. Therefore, you need to keep an eye on who is paying money in.
Although you have to have parental responsibility to open a JISA for a child, anyone can pay into it. This is especially relevant around birthdays, Christmas and graduations.
If you’re wanting to pay into a JISA for someone else’s child, make sure you check with their parent or guardian first so you don’t accidentally max-out their allowance.
You can pay into a JISA as often and as much as you want, but you must stay within the yearly £9,000 allowance. Regular payments, like a monthly direct debit, can be useful to help you build your child’s savings through consistency, though one-off payments can be just as effective and a great gift idea. The minimum amount you can pay into a JISA at a time is £10.
If your child has both a stocks and shares junior ISA and a cash junior ISA, the £9,000 annual allowance is shared between both accounts.
Stocks and shares JISAs have good long-term growth potential, but the value of your investments can go up or down and you child could get back less money than you’ve put in.
