The Cash ISA limit if you're 65 or over
If you are 65 or over at the end of a tax year, whether you started it at 64 or turned 65 partway through, you keep the full £20,000 Cash ISA limit for the entire year. The £12,000 cap only applies to people who are 64 or under on 5 April.
The short answer
- The test is your age at the end of the tax year (5 April), not the start of it, and not your exact birthday date.
- Turn 65 on any day of a tax year, including 5 April itself, and you get the full £20,000 Cash ISA limit for the whole of that year, backdated to 6 April.
- Being 65 or over also lifts the block on transferring money from a Stocks and Shares ISA into a Cash ISA.
- The 22% charge on cash held inside a Stocks and Shares or Innovative Finance ISA still applies at 65 and over. Only the £12,000 cap and the transfer block change with age.
What is the rule for people 65 and over?
From 6 April 2027, the standard Cash ISA limit for under-65s is £12,000 a year. If you are 65 or over at the end of the relevant tax year, that lower limit does not apply to you. You keep the full £20,000 Cash ISA limit, the same figure everyone gets today, for the whole of that tax year.
The over-65 rule, at a glance
- Cash ISA limit at 65 or over
- £20,000
- For the whole tax year
- Age test
- End of the tax year
- 5 April, not your birthday date
- Transfer block (Stocks and Shares to cash)
- Lifted at 65
- Applies under 65 only
- 22% charge on cash in a non-cash ISA
- Still applies
- At every age, including 65+
How exactly is your age tested?
This is the detail people get wrong: the test is not your age on 6 April, the first day of the tax year. It is your age on 5 April, the last day of it. HMRC’s draft regulation puts the £12,000 cap on anyone who is “64 or under at the end of that year.” Newsletter 22 describes the flip side: the £20,000 entitlement “will apply from the start of the tax year in which an individual turns 65.”
Put together, those two statements mean the same thing. Work out which tax year contains your 65th birthday. For that entire tax year, from 6 April to the following 5 April, you are entitled to the full £20,000 Cash ISA limit, even for the months before your actual birthday.
What if your birthday falls right at the end of the tax year?
Say your 65th birthday is on 5 April 2028, the very last day of the 2027/28 tax year. On the published wording, you are 65 “at the end of that year,” so the full £20,000 limit should apply to you for the whole of 2027/28, not the £12,000 cap.
This is a genuinely narrow edge case, and it has not been checked against the final, made version of the regulations, only against HMRC’s draft text and Newsletter 22. Treat it as the best current reading rather than a certainty, and check back nearer the date if your birthday falls close to a tax year boundary.
Does turning 65 partway through the year help from day one?
Yes, and this is the part that surprises people. You do not need to already be 65 when the tax year starts on 6 April. If your 65th birthday lands in November, for example, you are still entitled to the full £20,000 limit for the entire tax year, backdated to 6 April, several months before you actually turned 65. You are not restricted to £12,000 for part of the year and £20,000 for the rest.
Two examples show how wide that window is. David turns 65 on 10 April 2027, just four days into the 2027/28 tax year. He gets the full £20,000 Cash ISA limit for the whole of 2027/28. Aisha turns 65 on 4 April 2028, the second-to-last day of the same tax year. She also gets the full £20,000 for the whole of 2027/28, even though she spent almost the entire year at 64. Both of them are treated identically, because both had their 65th birthday somewhere inside that one tax year.
Couples and different ages
The ISA allowance belongs to the individual, not the household. If one of you is 67 and the other is 59, the 67 year old gets the full £20,000 Cash ISA limit and the 59 year old gets £12,000. There is no way to combine the two or use one person’s higher limit for the other’s savings. Each of you also has your own separate Personal Savings Allowance and your own £20,000 overall ISA allowance to work with.
The transfer block lifts too
Being 65 or over at the end of the tax year does more than raise your cash limit. It also lifts the block on transferring money from a Stocks and Shares ISA or an Innovative Finance ISA into a Cash ISA, a transfer that is not permitted for under-65s from 6 April 2027. If you are 65 or over, you can move money between cash and non-cash ISAs in either direction, broadly as you could before the 2027 changes. See ISA transfers after April 2027 for the full detail.
What does not change at 65
Not every part of the 2027 reform is age-related. The 22% charge on interest earned from cash held inside a Stocks and Shares or Innovative Finance ISA applies at every age, including 65 and over. So does the rule that only money market funds count as a cash-like holding inside a non-cash ISA, and only as a partial allocation. Being 65 raises your Cash ISA limit and restores your transfer options; it does not exempt you from the charge on cash sitting inside an investment wrapper. See cash inside a Stocks and Shares ISA for what that means in practice.
Questions people ask
I turn 65 in February 2028. Which limit applies to me in 2027/28?
The full £20,000. Because your birthday falls within the 2027/28 tax year, 6 April 2027 to 5 April 2028, you are treated as entitled to the higher limit for the whole of that year, not just from February onward.
What if my birthday is on 5 April itself, the last day of the tax year?
Based on HMRC's published wording, turning 65 on 5 April still counts as being 65 at the end of that tax year, so the full £20,000 limit should apply. This exact edge case has not yet been confirmed against the final legislation, so it is worth checking again closer to the date.
My spouse is 68 and I am 61. Do we get different limits?
Yes. The ISA allowance is personal, not shared between a couple. Your spouse gets the full £20,000 Cash ISA limit because they are over 65. You are capped at £12,000 in cash because you are under 65, regardless of your spouse's age.
Can I transfer my Stocks and Shares ISA into cash once I turn 65?
Yes. The block on transferring from a Stocks and Shares or Innovative Finance ISA into a Cash ISA does not apply once you are 65 or over at the end of the tax year.
Do I still pay the 22% charge on cash inside my Stocks and Shares ISA at 65?
Yes. The 22% charge on interest from cash held inside a non-cash ISA applies at every age. Only the £12,000 Cash ISA cap and the transfer block are lifted for people 65 and over.
Does this age rule matter before 6 April 2027?
No. Until 5 April 2027, everyone can put the full £20,000 into a Cash ISA regardless of age. The age-65 rule only starts to matter once the £12,000 cap begins on 6 April 2027.