What is an ISA? | ISAs explained (2024)

ISA stands for Individual Savings Account.

The main difference between an ISA and any other savings account is that it offers tax-free interest payments. So you could get more for your money.

There are 4 types of ISA:

• cash ISAs
• stocks and shares ISAs
• innovative finance ISAs, and
• lifetime ISAs.

At Nationwide we only offer cash ISAs.

Cash ISAs are tax-free savings accounts. You pay no tax on the interest you earn. You can open some ISAs with as little as £1. Cash ISAs can also make use of ISA flexibility.

Different types of cash ISAs offer different ways to access your money. These can include:

You can open multiple cash ISAs each year. However, the total amount of money you deposit across all of your ISAs can't be more than your ISA allowance.

When you open a cash ISA with us, it’ll form part of a portfolio cash ISA. This means you can split your cash ISA across multiple products. You can open more than one cash ISA product with us in a tax year.

See our cash ISAs

The amount you can put in your ISA is set by your ISA allowance.

Your ISA allowance is the most you can save in an ISA in each tax year. For 2024/25, the allowance is £20,000. Some non-ISA savings accounts let you save up to £5 million in total.

You can split your allowance across your ISAs. For example, you could save some in a cash ISA and invest some in a stocks and shares ISA.

You can open multiple cash ISAs and Stocks and Shares ISAs within a tax year. For example you could hold multiple cash ISAs with different providers and multiple stocks and shares ISAs with different providers. When you open a cash ISA product with us, it'll form part of a portfolio cash ISA. This means you can split a cash ISA across multiple Nationwide products.

For example, you could start the tax year by opening a fixed rate ISA with us. Then, choose at the end of the year to open a limited access cash ISA with us. Both accounts become part of one single Nationwide portfolio cash ISA.

Although you can pay money into your individual Nationwide ISA products, you'll only be paying into one portfolio cash ISA.

Our portfolio cash ISA also has ISA flexibility.

You usually need to be 18 to open a new cash ISA. However, if you were 16 or 17 on 5 April 2024 and do not have a cash ISA, some ISA managers will allow you to open a single cash ISA. When you are 18, you will be able to open multiple cash ISAs.

If you are 16 or 17 and already have a cash ISA, you can still pay money into it, as long as you don’t exceed your annual ISA allowance. You can also transfer your cash ISA or reinvest it into a new cash ISA when it matures. Different ISA managers will have different rules about how you transfer your cash ISA.

More about ISA flexibility

Your Personal Savings Allowance (PSA) is set by the Government. It means that, depending on the income tax rate you pay, you could earn up to £1,000 in interest in a non-ISA savings account during a single tax year, without having to pay tax on your interest.

Interest you earn on any ISA you hold doesn't count towards your PSA, because it's already tax-free.

More about Personal Savings Allowance