ISA transfers after April 2027: what's allowed

What changes for ISA transfers from 6 April 2027?

One new restriction takes effect from 6 April 2027: you cannot transfer money from a Stocks and Shares ISA or an Innovative Finance ISA into a Cash ISA, if you are 64 or under at the end of the tax year. Every other kind of ISA transfer, moving money the other way, or moving money between two ISAs of the same type, works as it does today.

What’s still allowed

• Transferring a Cash ISA to a different Cash ISA provider, whether the money was subscribed this year or in an earlier one.
• Transferring a Stocks and Shares or Innovative Finance ISA to a different provider of the same type.
• Transferring a Cash ISA into a Stocks and Shares ISA, an Innovative Finance ISA, or a Lifetime ISA.
• Any of the above, in either direction, if you are 65 or over at the end of the tax year.

What’s blocked

• Transferring a Stocks and Shares ISA into a Cash ISA, if you are under 65.
• Transferring an Innovative Finance ISA into a Cash ISA, if you are under 65.

That is the entire restriction. It is one-directional and it only touches transfers into cash from a non-cash ISA.

Why is this restriction here?

It closes a gap in the £12,000 Cash ISA cap. Without it, an under-65 saver could subscribe up to £20,000 to a Stocks and Shares ISA, then transfer the whole balance into a Cash ISA afterwards, ending up with far more than £12,000 in cash despite the new limit. Blocking that specific transfer direction, while leaving cash-to-investment transfers and ordinary cash-to-cash transfers alone, targets the workaround without disturbing how ISA transfers normally work.

Ravi is 38 and holds £18,000 in a Stocks and Shares ISA. Before 6 April 2027, he could transfer the whole balance into a Cash ISA in one go, no matter how large it was. From 6 April 2027, he cannot: that transfer direction is blocked for him because he is under 65. He can still transfer that £18,000 to a different Stocks and Shares ISA provider, or transfer Cash ISA money he holds elsewhere into it, just not move the £18,000 itself from Stocks and Shares into cash.

Does this apply if you’re 65 or over?

No. The same age test used for the £12,000 cap applies here: if you are 65 or over at the end of the relevant tax year, meaning your 65th birthday falls anywhere within it, the transfer block does not apply to you. You can move money from a Stocks and Shares or Innovative Finance ISA into a Cash ISA in the same way you always could. See the Cash ISA limit for over 65s for the exact age test.

How an ISA transfer actually works

An ISA transfer is a specific process, not simply moving money yourself. You contact the provider you want to transfer to, fill in their ISA transfer form, and they arrange to collect the money directly from your existing provider. Done this way, the transfer does not count as a new subscription, and the money keeps the tax-free history it built up in previous years.

Withdrawing the cash from your existing ISA and paying it into the new one as an ordinary deposit is a different thing entirely. That counts as a brand new subscription in the tax year you redeposit it, uses up your allowance for that year, and, if you have already used your allowance elsewhere, may mean some of the money cannot go back into an ISA at all that year.

Transferring only part of this year’s money

This is not new for 2027, but it trips people up when they are also thinking about the Cash ISA cap. Since 6 April 2024, you have been able to transfer only part of the money you have subscribed in the current tax year, rather than being forced to move the whole amount. Before that, a transfer of current-year money had to be all or nothing. This matters if you are trying to keep some current-year subscriptions in one ISA while moving the rest elsewhere, including as you work out how to split saving between cash and non-cash ISAs under the new £12,000 limit.

What about money already transferred in previous years?

Both of the main published sources, the anti-circumvention factsheet and Newsletter 22, describe the new block in terms of the transfer direction, from non-cash into cash, rather than which tax year the money was originally subscribed in. Neither one carves out an exception, or adds a restriction, for Cash ISA to Cash ISA transfers of money saved in earlier years. Based on that wording, ordinary Cash ISA transfers of old money look unaffected. The final regulations had not been laid before Parliament as of this check, so this is the current reading of what has been published, not a guarantee.